News Release

(GAINESVILLE, Fla.) - Requiring local governments to submit proposed changes to comprehensive land use plans to a popular vote is a bad idea, the president of Florida Farm Bureau Federation, the state's largest agricultural organization, said today.

President Carl B. Loop, Jr., was asked to comment on a fledgling petition drive to put such a requirement into Florida's constitution.

"This seems to me to be a dangerous exercise that would have the effect of gutting the comprehensive planning process," said Loop. "It is another example of Florida's permissive initiative process being turned to mischief."

Under the planning process Florida adopted in 1985, every town, city and county is required to adopt a comprehensive plan and to review it every seven years. The review often results in portions of a plan being updated or rewritten. The Growth Management Act also allows city and county commissions to amend their comp plans two times per year to accommodate change in the local situation. Changes require state review and approval, and due notice is given to the public.

"Local referendums would trump the entire planning process," said Phil Leary, an accredited planner who serves as Florida Farm Bureau's director of local government affairs. "Voters would be subject to intense pressure, and it's likely every planning process would culminate in a political campaign," Leary said. "Special interest groups willing to spend huge sums on orchestrated campaigns would likely move in to swing the vote their way."

Florida Farm Bureau supports a republican form of government. "That means we elect qualified representatives to act on our behalf at the local, state and national level," Loop said. "Proposed changes to the growth management process should be carefully considered and debated by those elected representatives. More and more, Florida's ballot initiative process is being turned into a quasi-legislative process."

Loop said there is a need for some kind of initiative process, but the current method of amendment the state's constitution makes it too easy for special interest groups to place measures on the ballot that should instead be addressed through legislation.

"Our constitution now bans commercial net fishing, mandates reduced classroom sizes, requires bullet trains, and protects pregnant pigs. Each one of those mandates should have been deliberated by the legislature."

The Florida Farm Bureau Federation is the state's largest general-interest agricultural association with more than 150,000 member-families statewide. There are Farm Bureaus in 62 counties in Florida, where agriculture comprises a stable, vital leg of Florida's economy, rivaling the tourism industry in economic importance. Headquartered in Gainesville, the Federation is an independent, non-profit agricultural organization and is not associated with any arm of the government. More information is available on the organization's website, http://FloridaFarmBureau.org.