Environmental groups petitioned a Leon County circuit judge on Wednesday to reconsider his ruling siding with state lawmakers who say they appropriately allocated billions of dollars for the acquisition and management of parkland or recreational lands.
Judge Layne Smith granted the motion by Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson and other defendants for summary judgment in the case, which involves whether funds earmarked through a 2014 statewide initiative were properly spent. Smith found that the concerns brought up by groups such as Sierra Club Florida and the Florida Wildlife Federation were essentially moot, even though the initiative’s provisions apply to a 20-year period.
Nearly three-quarters of voters in 2014 supported Amendment 1, which earmarked a third of net revenue from the state’s existing excise tax on documents to go toward the acquisition and restoration of recreational lands, such as wildlife sanctuaries. Environmentalists, however, have alleged that these funds have been misappropriated.
The funds have gone for such purposes as providing camouflage baseball hats for farmers, satellite television service, computer monitors for state Department of Environmental Protection offices and salaries for workers not involved with land acquisition, according to environmentalists.
“This new order delivers the message that the will of the voters is meaningless,” Cris Costello, conservation senior organizing manager for Sierra Club Florida, told the Florida Record. “The court’s decision avoids ruling on the legislature’s argument that there should be no significant confines on its spending to ensure that the money voters set aside for conservation is not used as a general slush fund.”
Environmental groups remain confounded by Smith’s decision, Costello said, and they see land acquisition as key to stabilizing the state’s environmental problems.
“Florida is in a serious, serious environmental decline with water, air and climate impacts,” she said.
The groups’ motion for reconsideration notes that a predecessor judge had issued an order rejecting the idea that the plaintiffs’ arguments are moot. In addition, an appeals court had remanded the plaintiffs’ case for a decision on its merits, and decisions on how the funds are spent annually will continue for another 13 years, environmental groups argue.