To the News-Press: Pine Island is the next victim of US Sugar/King Ranch corruption US Sugar and King Ranch have paid tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to Governor Scott and other state and Southwest Florida officials, and in return have been rewarded with legislation that saves the companies millions of dollars in Everglades pollution cleanup costs (which has to be made up by taxpayers), as well as other big favors. They claim it’s all legal because the money was routed through the Republican Party instead of going directly to the officials (like that actually makes a difference!). The News-Press said this “looks fishy.” Gee, you think! Bribery is bribery (legal or not!), and it has a long history in Florida state and local politics. Don’t sugarcoat it—just tell it like it is. Victims of this corruption are the taxpayers, Lee County Commissioner Ray Judah (who was driven from office by a million dollar negative television blitz led by US Sugar), as well as the Everglades, the quality of our water, and now Pine Island. King Ranch, one of the largest landowners in the United States, has a long and nasty history of taking over entire communities by buying up the available land and using their enormous power and influence (including legalized bribery) to do away with local zoning and other land use controls. Pine Island is only the latest victim. King Ranch has within the past two years purchased some 18 properties on Pine Island, a total of about 340 acres of palm farms for some $4 million, plus at least one mangrove area (probably for wetland development mitigation). They have overnight become the second largest commercial enterprise on Pine Island (second only to PalmCo). They also, true to form, immediately hired a local “developer-oriented “ attorney to get rid of the Pine Island Land Use Plan. Their all-out effort last year to do just that failed, but no one thinks they have given up. The public interest and especially Pine Island cry out for some serious investigative journalism as well as law enforcement (we can do the former locally, but the latter will have to come from the federal government). The News-Press has done some great investigative journalism in the past—are any of those reporters still around? How much money has US Sugar/King Ranch funneled to Southwest Florida officials; how many of them have been on the famous luxury hunting trips to Texas; and what role is US Sugar/King Ranch playing in local political campaign management? Come on, let’s clean our own house before the feds have to once again and do it for us.i
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 18:47:53 +0000