Sun Sentinel
September 20, 2019
The Big Shots own Florida now. If you stand up to them, they will destroy you.
That’s the impact of an appeals court’s wrongheaded ruling on Maggy Hurchalla’s $4.4 million punishment for opposing a billionaire developer’s rock mine in Martin County.
It’s also the intent of a new state law that makes you risk everything if you challenge a development decision. For if you lose, you will be stuck paying the legal fees of the developer and the government.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 7103 into law in May, ignoring the environmental community’s pleas to veto it. “Citizens won’t dare challenge development orders if they risk financial ruin,” warns the environmental champion 1000 Friends of Florida, which has filed suit against the law.
Are Floridians no longer entitled to defend their communities from reckless development? To protect the environment from exploitation? To oppose the high and the mighty on any issue of public policy?