Normally, when the state finalizes a big environmental-land purchase \u2014 particularly one that would save sensitive land from condo-fication and expand the state\u2019s limited number of coastal parks \u2014 it\u2019s cause for celebration.<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s no doubt: The four acres that Gov. Ron DeSantis and members of the Florida Cabinet approved for purchase last week is a pretty piece of property, situated next to the city of Destin\u2019s Norriego Point Beach park and close to another gem in the state\u2019s parks system, Topsail Hill Preserve State Park.<\/p>\n
So why are so many of the state\u2019s past and current leaders \u2014 Republicans and Democrats alike \u2014 crying \u201cboondoggle?\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, that starts with the price tag: $83 million. The math works out to a per-acre purchase price of more than $20 million. We could not find another land purchase in the state\u2019s history that compares. Nor could Clay Henderson, a New Smyrna Beach conservationist who\u2019s known as the father of Florida\u2019s environmental-land purchasing program.<\/p>\n
Next, the seller: Robert Guidry of Louisiana, through two companies he holds (Pointe Mezzanine LLC and Pointe Resort LLC). He\u2019s a lavish campaign donor who has dumped buckets of money into the war chests of Florida\u00a0 Republicans, including $250,000 to one of Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 political committees. Quite curiously, he also gave so much money to local candidates in Okaloosa County\u00a0 (where Destin is located) that he was the No. 1 political donor in local races according to the Midbay News.<\/p>\n
The sale prompted a long story this weekend in the Tampa Bay Times, which reached out to more than a dozen leading conservation experts in the state, including Gov. Jeb Bush\u2019s head of environmental protection. Each and every one of them was appalled.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the weird path it took to come before the Cabinet. The budget passed last spring by the Legislature included a directive to buy this property specifically, as part of the Florida Wildlife Corridor. This ambitious project should eventually sprawl throughout the state, preserving habitat for animals and birds while saving remaining acres of wild lands for future generations. But it didn\u2019t include the Destin property in its plans.<\/p>\n
When lawmakers passed the budget (in late June) it didn\u2019t include a price tag for this four-acre property \u2014 just a total figure of $163 million for all the corridor land the state plans to buy this year. When the purchase came before the Cabinet, it was again bundled with other properties. When Blaise Ingoglia, appointed by DeSantis to fill the term of chief financial officer after Jimmy Patronis left for Congress, inquired about the Destin land, DeSantis indicated he wasn\u2019t hospitable to a motion to split the properties into separate line items \u2014 to which Ingoglia meekly acquiesced.<\/p>\n
(And yes, this is the same Blaise Ingoglia who took the time to jeer at a $6,000 annual appropriation for Orlando\u2019s poet laureate. Apparently lavish spending isn\u2019t worth objecting to when it\u2019s millions instead of thousands, and the person pushing the purchase is the one who gave Ingoglia his job.)<\/p>\n
Under Florida law, before buying land the state is supposed to acquire multiple appraisals that make sure it\u2019s paying a fair price. Apparently, there was no time for such tomfoolery with this purchase. Instead, they used an appraisal that Guidry provided. Curiously, that appraisal had the land\u2019s valuation leaping from what he paid for it \u2014 less than $8 million in 2016-2017 \u2014to $55 million. That means the state paid a price that\u2019s a third higher than the value Guidry\u2019s assessment claimed.<\/p>\n
But wait. There\u2019s more. Henderson \u2014 who says he\u2019s been studying the purchase compulsively for the past week \u2014 discovered that 1\/10th of this property is land the state already owns. That\u2019s because it\u2019s submerged land. State officials might argue that they included that land in order to secure the system of docks and boat slips Guidry\u2019s companies constructed. If so, that could be the most expensive wood the state has ever purchased: Officially, the $83 million includes $13 million for those structures. Yet there\u2019s no indication in the Cabinet paperwork that the state intends to keep those docks in place. And a busy marina is hardly hospitable to wildlife, further undermining the rationale for buying the land.<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s get this straight, Floridians: This purchase was rammed through under circumstances that, quite frankly, stink. The experts the Tampa Bay Times interviewed pointed out that properties purchased for the wildlife corridor are supposed to go through an extensive environmental evaluation as well as carrying a price tag that makes sense. This property is unlikely to be used as significant habitat for anything but the humans who will park their cars there, and then trudge across the sand to get to the beach.<\/p>\n
And it seems near-certain that the state wildly overpaid \u2014 especially since the property is situated in an area that is highly likely to flood the next time a major hurricane hits that part of the state.<\/p>\n
Think about this the next time Ingoglia, DeSantis or Attorney General James Uthmeier visit Central Florida on another crusade to proclaim how stupid and wasteful our local cities and counties are. Maybe show up to their high produced press conferences and bring them a little present \u2014 a baggie or bottle of beach sand, tied up with a price tag that approximates the per-grain price state leaders just squandered, on a piece of property it never needed.<\/p>\n
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Executive Editor Roger Simmons and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Contact us at insight@orlandosentinel.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Normally, when the state finalizes a big environmental-land purchase \u2014 particularly one that would save sensitive land from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2853,28,30,29,482,109],"class_list":{"0":"post-5199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-editorials","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-headlines","11":"tag-florida-news","12":"tag-opinion","13":"tag-social"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}