By TomL
Sounds great to me. Let’s pay more taxes so the visitors can run across our state faster. Let’s connect the big cities to everything. Let’s run over family farms that don’t want to sell their property. In this case the The Coastal Connecter is building roads from Homosassa and Crystal River to north roadways to 301 north of Ocala to bring more traffic to an area that is bursting with traffic. This will be toll roads!
OK now that I got that out of my system. The state of Florida does not have a good track record when it comes to abusing permanent residents. Let’s list the abuses.
Let’s talk about what percentage of residents across the state it displaced. Let’s talk about the Turnpike because it is the Turnpike Authority enterprise that wants to build the Coastal Connector. This is the first time I have seen the word “enterprise” used. The Turnpike that is being used right now cut off the water flow of the wetlands in Florida from east to west for almost 300 miles. We watched Cypress Head dry up and die. Impact to the environment! The end of the Turnpike truck stop area is a mess. Working girls and homeless all mixed together with businesses, truckers, residents have found a place to survive. I grant you there are some good people there but they have their abundance of the other. The impact to the local residents! Where is the money the turnpike takes in for tolls and we pay for the privilege to drive a road with at least five construction areas between Wildwood and south Florida? There will always be accidents on the Turnpike but they are not cleared fast enough, so the traveling paying customer paid for their right to drive through the obstruction and construction. But they are the first to brag at one of these public meetings, I say shame on you!
Second the Cross Florida Barge Canal. In the Dunnellon area people living on the river had found the place to spend the rest of their life. NOT SO! The State came in and took their land at what they decided was fair Market Price for the purpose of the Cross Florida Barge Canal. When the Barge Canal Project was stalled and then failed, the people that lost their land should have been given their land back especially on the river. They were not! Then the State had all this land they had confiscated from the residents and someone come up with the great idea: let’s make it a State Park! How do you like them now? It seems as we all found out later the new Barges would not even fit in the preposed Barge Canal. It would have to be wider and deeper.
Third: Thirty years ago they wanted to extend the Turnpike and the public fought them and won. Now the engineers are using the same corridor as one of the choices to come through my farm (a maybe corridor). Good job engineers… you have designated a corridor right on top of the Sabal Trail Gas Line which has already gone through our family farm. Tax payers be careful. You will get a lot of trick questions. Let me list the ones we saw the last time they tried to grab more land for the Turnpike Extension:
Before you get an Attorney they will have a number of meetings and listen to the objections and write them down. They will meet privately and figure out how to get around the objection or just stretch the truth or whatever it takes. After a number of meetings they will ask you to join a committee. At this committee meeting they will say, we know you don’t want the corridor, that is noted, but if it were to go through which corridor would have the least impact to you or the environment? On that form which goes to Tallahassee it does not give you a choice “No Road”. When you pick your top four choices you are endorsing one of the corridors. You must write NO ROAD CORRIDOR somewhere on that form as your first number one choice. Ask your attorney what you can do to keep pressure on them to stop this land grab.
Get an attorney. Each of you use your own attorney. The Turnpike Authority Enterprise has to pay your legal fees and the legal fees don’t come out of your money. It is considered separate unless you agree to something else. Once you get an attorney, tell the attorney what you want and don’t talk to the project Turnpike people any more. Refer them to your attorney!
Last but not least, “It is my opinion that there should not be a Turnpike Authority. It turns out it is a huge money and land grabbing machine. It needs projects to grow and this is one of them. DOT is who should be the one and only name we hear. Improve the roads we have and stop taking the tax payers’ private property.
TomL said that!
