I believe that Amendment 4, the vote-on-everything amendment that will be on our State Ballot in November, will stop planned redevelopment leading to increased residential taxes. It will burn our tax dollars in terms of extra elections, delay, and court cases; it will result in piecemeal changes to comprehensive plans bringing chaos to planning.
In a larger fundamental sense, it is detrimental to our representative form of democracy.
In my opinion the St Pete Beach experiment has clearly demonstrated the failure of a system that requires a referendum on each and every modification to Comprehensive Plans. Amendment 4 is even worse in that it goes to the level of a single parcel of land (i.e. a micro-park?), a single change to a policy (more turtle protection?), or a change mandated by the State (enhancements to traffic safety planning?).
There is no doubt that Florida has experienced overdevelopment in some places, that we have had terrible elected officials at some times. These problems must be kept under control. Amendment 4 is NOT the correct way to do that.
Amendment 4 approximates stopping a thief with a nuclear weapon; it will destroy the very thing that it intends to protect; our quality of life.