Letters to the editor

SB 1078 not as innocent as it sounds

You have to give credit to Sen. Travis Hutson. He is not shy about using his position to benefit his family-owned development company. And if he doesn’t agree with the decision of voters to elect a public official, his answer is to craft a law that would throw that elected official out of office.

Hutson has sponsored two bills, SB 620 an SB 1078, both of which have passed and await signature by Gov. DeSantis. The first would allow businesses to recover damages from county or municipal governments if business profits are affected by local ordinances. Imagine the litigation costs to local governments if this were to be signed into law. This is great if you want higher taxes.

Even worse is SB 1078, which would require anybody elected to Soil and Water Conservation Districts to be an agricultural worker. This may sound innocent, but it isn’t. Nicole Crosby came to Hutson’s attention by successfully leading an effort to stop development at the pristine conservation area known as the Outpost. She ran in 2020 for a position on the SWCD against a candidate bankrolled by Hutson and other developers and she won, receiving almost 74,000 votes.

So Hutson decided that anybody elected to any of the state’s SWC Districts had to work in farming or ranching, even though the statute creating those districts includes no such restriction and makes clear that its primary mission is to protect water quality, wildlife and public lands. Yet under Hutson’s proposed law, not even a soil and water scientist would qualify to serve on the SWCD.

So Crosby would be deemed unqualified and ousted from office in November. That’s what will happen unless DeSantis vetoes the bill.

The question for Senator Hutson is: How do you justify disenfranchising the thousands who voted Crosby into office?

Bruce P. Kading, St. Augustine

Florida is in trouble

Same, same. The world is in trouble, and so is Florida.

The maniacal autocrat, Putin, has now passed a “Don’t Say ‘War’ Law” along with stiff penalties for offenders.

The Florida autocrat, DeSantis, and his cronies in Tallahassee, are passing a “Don’t say Gay” law along with stiff penalties for offenders, mostly for those who are charged with teaching our children.

What?? The similarities of the two laws should not be lost on anyone. They both make it a crime for the free exchange of truthful information and ideas. What an assault on our freedoms and waste of time and money. It’s time for Floridians to stand up for free speech and vote out the homophobes in our state government. To pretend that LGBTQ people do not have equal standing in our society and somehow need to be specifically excluded in our school discourse is un-American.

George Peroutka, St. Augustine

This article originally appeared on St. Augustine Record: St. Augustine Record letters to the editor for Sunday, March 27, 2022