You can help set Florida's goals for 2060

Fifty years from now, they could be following your goals.

I heard about this Wednesday at the monthly meeting of the Miami-Dade County Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, of which I'm an appointed member, in a briefing by an official from the Florida Department of Transportation. Before now the FDOT planned out 20 years -- the last plan was considered and issued in 2005 for 2025. Now we're going deeper into the future, and setting goals, objectives and strategies out to 2060.

There's a website, http://www.2060ftp.org/. The FTP stands not for file transfer protocol but for Florida Transportation Plan. You will see that there's a meeting in Fort Lauderdale May 11-12 of the Steering Committee, where your presence is welcome.

Click on the Calendar link, and you'll see that in June there's a meeting in downtown Miami of a Regional Workshop. Again, your presence is welcome. You also can send in your ideas and suggestions. That's at the Miami-Dade College Wolfson Campus, 2:30 p.m. on June 2.

After the presentation I couldn't stop myself from saying, "If I were issuing a plan going out to the year 2060, I would start by saying this will be a 50-year period of tremendous environmental challenge due to climate change. But in all you've said and shown on the screen, the environment and climate change hardly even get mentioned."

In other words, FDOT needs a lot of help in formulating a plan for 2060. Go to it, please. Save the planet.

More on-line news in Florida than ever

Here's a link to a good roundup in the St. Pete Times on the growth of on-line news sources in Florida. Interesting that the new one on the block is secretive about its financial backers but says its news will be "fair and balanced" and people are tired of negative stories. Gosh, wonder what could be happening there. Rupert, are you in this picture?

Thanks to the good guys at Progress Florida for pointing out this story. Progress Florida is mentioned in the article, too. You can sign up to get their daily roundup of what's going on around Florida and be as smart as your blogger.

Redistricting amendments on the ballot: Florida voters earn historic chance to vote to stop politicians from rigging districts

After November passage voters will choose elected officials – not the other way around

Tallahassee, FL – Today, Floridians took a giant step towards ending the incumbent and political party protection plan that masquerades as legislative and Congressional redistricting. The non-partisan group FairDistrictsFlorida.org gathered more than 1,650,000 petitions signed by Florida Republicans, Democrats and Independents from the Panhandle to the Keys. As a result, today the Secretary of State certified Constitutional Amendment 5 for the November 2, 2010 ballot, and is expected to soon certify its partner, Amendment 6. Florida voters now have a powerful opportunity to stop legislators from rigging and manipulating district boundaries in order to stifle competition while perpetuating their own political power.

“These critical reforms will finally end the legalized conflict of interest that allows legislators to design their districts and those of Congress for their own political purposes,” said Bob Milligan, who was elected State Comptroller during the Lawton Chiles and Jeb Bush administrations.

Under our present system, there are no rules that limit legislators from drawing districts to favor themselves or their parties. Districts in Florida are bizarrely shaped, often meandering for hundreds of miles or from coast to coast. Communities are carved up so that voters living in the same neighborhood are often represented by different members of Congress or state representatives.

As a result, incumbent legislators almost never lose their re-election bids. Only three (out of 140 up for election each cycle) were defeated in the last six years. How could this happen? Because legislators draw up their own districts for one purpose: to ensure that they stay in office!

Former Governor and U.S. Senator Bob Graham said, “Florida’s legislators are choosing their voters instead of voters choosing their representatives. There are presently no rules to stop this self protection plan. And when this happens, the voters don’t have a real choice! These amendments will change that.”

With voter approval in November, Amendments 5 and 6 will establish constitutional rules that will:
Prohibit politicians from designing districts to favor themselves or their parties;
Require them to make the districts compact and community based; and
Make it impossible for legislators to draw districts to diminish the ability of minority voters to elect representatives.
“I am so happy that the voters of Florida will finally have the opportunity to vote to put these fairness standards in the Florida constitution. These amendments provide new protections for all voters and especially minorities,” added Representative Perry Thurston of Broward County.

State Representative Darren Soto, Orange County, said, “Today’s certification bodes well for achieving fair districts in the state of Florida. I think that these new protections will be very popular with my constituents as well as all of the voters of our great state.”

For additional information and the exact language of Amendments 5 and 6, please visit www.FairDistrictsFlorida.org.

Test Q: Could Florida go the way of Massachusetts? Discuss

Here's the way it's outlined in today's Miami Herald and St. Petersburg Times. We scroll down to the comments for some good description of how Florida and Massachusetts are NOT alike. And we shouldn't have the same outcome as Tuesday's rout in Massachusetts. But we will have to work hard.

Smart comment to the effect that Floridians, unlike the good people of Massachusetts, know what it's like to be governed by Republicans. And are not likely to make the same mistake.

First requirement is to view this as a multiyear task -- to think about not only the November 2010 election but also beyond to 2012 when redistricting will have taken place. That, in turn, means we have to think back to this year and make sure that the anti-gerrymandering referendum passes. Thank you for getting this up and running, Fair Districts Florida!