As y ou already know, the Florida legislature thumbed their noses at the 75% of the voters who passed Amendment 1 to Florida's Constitution by misallocating monies that should have been used to purchase and protect conservation lands. Instead, the Legislature chose to use the Land Acquisition Trust Fund monies for improper purposes, such as purchasing risk management insurance to protect against civil rights lawsuits and to pay Department of Agriculture and DEP salaries. For more info on this, see here .

 

Sierra has joined with Riverkeeper and Florida Wildlife Federation in a legal challenge regarding this mis-use of public funds. This litigation will take some time to resolve, and will cost Sierra significant legal expenses. Our local Excom member and Riverkeeper member, Ken Wright, is preparing some of the legal research and documentation.

 

Meanwhile, if you would like to donate to defray legal fees, please make out your tax-deductible check to "The Sierra Club Foundation" and mail to Tom Larson, Treasurer, 887 Marshside Court, Jacksonville Beach, Florida  32250-2696.  Note on your check that the donation is "for Florida Chapter."

There is no question that our environmental quality of life is currently in serious decline. Our coasts in Florida have been opened up to seismic testing and we are exposed to oil spills from drilling off the coasts of adjacent states. Our Gulf Coast still suffers from the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Our precious springs are in decline and our drinking water is threatened by fracking. Our legislators ignored the will of the voters when we voted 75% to pass Amendment 1 to buy endangered lands and protect our waters. We have sea level rise as a reality in Florida and the quality of our St. Johns River is deteriorating with threats from dredging and water withdrawal by Central Florida. Additionally, the Florida Black Bear will now be hunted.

 

While we have lost and continue to lose these battles, it is tempting to feel that our environmental causes are hopeless and beyond remediation. However, the losses are not irreversible if we can substantially increase our collective environmental activism in the very near future. We can become more active in the Sierra Club and /or other environmental groups and we can volunteer to work on the causes that are priorities for the Club. We can also work on the screening and election or re-election of political candidates who view the protection of our environment as vital to our health and quality of life. We can also increase our communications and meetings with our legislators to let them know that there is an important constituency in the State that demands a reversal of our environmental decline. If we don't step up to the environmental plate soon, the degradations may not be reversible and we can lose the war as well the battles.

For further information on what you can do please e-mail Janet Stanko at janestan@bellsouth.net , Tom Larson at TCLarson168@msn.com or Brian Paradise at bgparadise@comcast.net .  Any help that you can provide will be much appreciated  by our current citizenry and future generations.

By: Janet Stanko 

Did you know that there are city ordinances that control the size and placement of commercial signs along the roadways and landscaping requirements? Why should you care? The visual aspects of our communities in Jacksonville affect our quality of life as more visually pleasant commercial areas make us feel better about where we live and attracts new residents to our community.

Look at it from the view of a prospective new resident driving south on San Jose Boulevard in Mandarin and crossing the Julington Creek bridge as they look for a new place to live.  Which area has more eye-appeal? We lose many prospective and existing residents to St. Johns County, in part due to the less cluttered aesthetic of the Julington Creek area and other areas in Jacksonville.

We all point to Blanding Boulevard as an example of how we don't want our community to look with a hodge podge of signage, each competing for the drivers' eyes with larger and more garish signs. 

Sign and landscaping ordinances provide consistent standards to ensure the visual attractiveness of a commercial area. Just as an appealing tree canopy in residential neighborhoods enhances the eye appeal and property values, appealing landscaping and appropriate signage makes our commercial areas more attractive to shoppers. Although sometimes, over time, landscaping may die and not be replaced. 

Mandarin is fortunate enough to have preserved some of the oak tree canopy from years past. We need to ensure that areas where trees have been removed is enhanced to preserve the character and "sense of place" that characterizes our area. 

City code enforcement is tasked with enforcing these ordinances, but they don't have the resources to proactively issue violations, preferring to followup on citizen complaints, and they depend on citizen input. A recent innovation is the "MyJaxApp" which enables citizens to use their smart phones to document and submit violations.

Along these lines, Sierra Club and City Beautiful Jacksonville is planning to do a citizen survey of sign and landscaping compliance with the ordinances.  We will work along San Jose Boulevard between Julington Creek and I-295 to identify violations and submit them to the City Code enforcement. This is intended as a demonstration project where we invite folks who want to help in this one-day effort on 11/21 between  10-2:30pm. Later, we will focus on another area of town. We will meet at the South Mandarin library provide the training, and break into 2-3 person teams to find and document the violations via photographs and in writing. 

Want to help? Contact Tracy Arpen ( tarpen@aol.com) with City Beautiful Jacksonville or Janet Stanko ( janestan@bellsouth.net) Sierra Club to volunteer for this one day project.