Great news from Levy County, whose commissioners officially tell the State of Florida that they do not want the toll roads in their county. The “no build” option has never been presented to the task force by the state as a possible outcome.
Quite the contrary.
Since the inception of the public presentations in Tampa, the state has presented the project as if it were already established and saying no would be unthinkable. The atmosphere was one of “this is so super great we can’t wait to get it done, we’ve got to hurry and ramrod it through.”
Sitting through the public meetings and hearing the propaganda spewed by the state’s speakers reminded one of used car salesmen at their best.
Road builders and developers stand to become rich from this project. The richest man in Florida would become much richer, as he wants to build a city in Taylor County where the road would run. Florida would become much poorer, as concrete and strip malls would cover the land. Traffic and pollution would increase and lower the quality of life as our rural areas disappear.
So thank you Levy County, as you have the wisdom and the courage to say no to Mr. Bill Galvano and his cronies who want to hasten the destruction of Florida. We predict that other counties will also follow suit and tell our greedy leaders to back off.
Galvano is not the first to try this, it has been presented before and defeated because it is a horrible plan, designed to make a few people rich at the expense of many. The people will not be fooled.
Note, at the time of this writing, the Levy County government website had not posted the following article, as implied by the last sentence. Our reposting was from a FaceBook post by toll roads task force member Charles Lee.
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
jim.tatum@oursantaferiver.org
– A river is like a life: once taken,
it cannot be brought back © Jim Tatum
