(Note: This is temporary good news, but bears continued watching. It's not over, and the bad guys are not going away -- the 'we'll just keep offering them more money' broken record keeps playing.)

March 14, 2003

By Michael Peltier

mpeltier1234@comcast.net

The Naples Daily News

http://www.naplesnews.com

To submit a Letter to the Editor: letters@naplesnews.com

Tallahassee, Florida - For now, Jesse Hardy can keep his land.

Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Cabinet on Thursday gave Hardy and fellow Southern Golden Gate Estates resident George Miller more time to negotiate with state officials, who want to acquire their lands. Hardy and Miller have refused to give up their homes to make way for an environmental restoration project that has both state and federal blessing.

Instead of forcing the pair off their land through legal action, Cabinet members told Department of Environmental Protection Secretary David Struhs to go back to the homeowners with a better offer.

Such a deal could include buying the property, paying all moving and legal fees and allowing them to stay until it's time to flood the region, which wouldn't take place until at least 2006 but may likely be later.

"When it's somebody's property sitting out there and we need to put a road through it, I have no problem with that," state financial officer Tom Gallagher said. "Somebody's homestead is a different deal."

The Cabinet made the decision after Bush blasted Collier County officials for driving up the cost of state land-buying because of local zoning rules that appear to fly in the face of long-standing state and federal efforts to purchase land for Everglades restoration.

"We need to start second-guessing Collier County," Bush said.

Hardy, a 67-year-old disabled veteran, lives on 160 acres with his adopted 7-year-old son, Tommy. His parcel is part of the less than 4,000 acres yet to be purchased within the 55,000-acre buyout in rural Collier County, south of Interstate 75. State and federal officials have already spent $92 million on property in the region.

Despite being under target for purchases for a year, Hardy in 2001 obtained permits from Collier County to begin an earth-mining business. He also wants to start a catfish farming operation.

The Cabinet has long said it wouldn't force landowners to sell their property. Most property owners have agreed to sell. Of the 19,000 parcels originally under private ownership, fewer than 350 parcels remain at issue.

Thursday, Struhs said the two purchases would mark the first time state environmental officials have used eminent domain on homesteaded property in Florida's environmental land-buying efforts, though some property owners beg to differ.

"What we now face are two homesteaded parcels remaining," Struhs said. "It's not like the Department of Transportation where we do two (condemnations) a day. We're doing two in four years."

Bush and fellow Cabinet members weren't swayed. Given the fact that more than 90 percent of the targeted land has been purchased and actual construction is years away, Cabinet members said they would be willing to work with Hardy and Miller to sweeten the deals.

"These people moved there for a reason to start with and that was to get out of town, out in the woods and it's a little tough on them," state Agriculture Secretary Charlie Bronson said. "I know we're going to have to do this to move this project, and I believe that can be accomplished. It may cost us a little more."

While taking pity on Hardy and Miller, Cabinet members had less sympathy for county officials, who they say are contributing to higher land costs in the region.

Florida environmental officials are trying to wrap up the last purchases in Southern Golden Gate Estates. Thursday, DEP officials requested the authority to make offers on some of the remaining parcels.

Bush and other members chose not to adopt the proposal after learning state officials are facing increasing competition from private bidders in Collier County.

Under the program, state land buyers are restricted in how much they can pay. On smaller purchases, for example, they can only pay $5,000 or up to 125 percent of the appraised value.

On at least one recent purchase attempt, private buyers outbid state officials, scooped up the property and immediately subdivided it with Collier County government's blessing -- meaning the property then was worth more and it would cost the state more to buy it.

Now, what once was a single 5-acre parcel contains four parcels, the value of which has risen. Instead of paying the property owner for the loss of one house, state officials must pay for four such losses, even though the entire region has been slated to be flooded for at least the past two years.

"This is incredible," Bush said. "We're taking action to purchase land under a power that makes me queasy -- when the local government wants people to build homes."