Our first visit back after Covid and we are happy to see the event Rethink Florida’s Future, also known as Lobby Day, sponsored by ReThink Energy, still vital and strong, with many new faces. And they are very young faces, or are we just getting really, really old? Included with that, in the intervening years since we were there they have increased considerably the already vast distances between the House and the Senate buildings.
And that is good because with youth we have energy (pun intended) and they will soon gain experience. Many are already quite accomplished and informed on sustainability. No callow youth here, and more-than-adequate adversaries for legislator’s sometimes feeble attempts at defending their opposition to environmentally sound bills.
Sorry to say we were the only representative from Our Santa Fe River, but a valid excuse is that most of our volunteers are frantically preparing for RiverFest, our annual fundraiser, so vitally important to us so we can continue to do our work for the river.
Among the several changes evident in the manner of executing our task of influencing our lawmakers, the groups now address a maximum of three bills in detail rather than quickly running down a list of all on the table.
As luck would have it the three assigned to us did not include water or phosphate issues, our favorite and most impassioned topics.
Thanks go to our legislators and their staffs for their patience and courtesy in what must have been a trying day for them.
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
