Margaret Morales the South Florida Organizer of Clean Water Action/Clean Water Fund and Hold the Line member, said it best for all of us, thanking the residents who came out yesterday:
It was amazing to me to see how strong the Hold the Line campaign really is, with so many bright green stickers staring straight back at the Commissioners.
Although the Commissioners did go ahead and approve both Amendments 5 and 6, yesterday really was a big victory for HTL. Of course the developers pulling 4 on Tuesday was a BIG win. But even on 5 and 6, a number of additional measures and restraints were placed on both of these projects that made them items we can continue to monitor and work to reduce their impact, rather than complete losses that we have no ability to mitigate any longer.
Testing the Thin Blue Line
4 years ago
Margaret, your Hold the Line Scavenger Hunt was brilliant! Congrats... It would have been very hard to approve Ferro with all that photographic evidence of empty storefronts!
ReplyDeleteFPL's Magic Roadway doesn't hurt wetlands!
ReplyDeleteIn an exciting new development in environmental mitigation yesterday, FPL land use attorney Jeffrey Bercow invented a proffer that can prevent environmental damage just by saying so.
County staff, the South Florida Water Management District and the citizen groups who came to speak to the Miami-Dade County Commission explained that FPL's proposed new six-lane roadway through a wetland would create a dam, slicing the wetland in two and interrupting the return of sheet flow to the Biscayne Bay Coastal Wetlands. When it seemed that commissioners might be swayed by concerns for the wetland, Mr Bercow responded by passing out his one-page proffer to the commissioners. It said, in short, that the roadway would not be allowed to hurt the wetland. Mr. Bercow's single-ply sheet saved the day for FPL, and the roadway was approved.
Given his magical skills at environmental mitigation, we should immediately hire Mr. Bercow to write a proffer for Tamiami Trail, which is to this day damming the Everglades. Even at his hourly rate, it will be much less costly than building the Everglades Skyway.