Area legislators, leaders hold ‘idea-raiser’
BY FRANKLIN HAYES Gulf Breeze News franklin@gulfbreezenews.com

Legislators are looking for the next big idea to come from the people. Florida House Representatives Dave Murzin and Anna Holiday “Holly” Benson held a public meeting on Jan. 18 at Pensacola Junior College to discuss the 100 Innovative Ideas for Florida’s Future campaign. The idea-raising event, or ideasraiser, was a public forum where Floridians gathered and openly addressed issues that they felt deserve State legislation.

Citizens of both Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties congregated to express their opinions about the current state of Florida. Ideas and suggestions varied from education funding to laws prohibiting landfills near residential neighborhoods. One resident stressed the need for public private partnerships to assist road construction in the sunshine state. Public private partnerships have been used in central Florida, and the Northwest Florida Transportation Planning Organization recently held a workshop discussing the matter.

Nearly half of the lecture hall at PJC was filled with residents who live in the neighborhood adjacent to the Saufley Field landfill in Escambia County. Some more outspoken residents were upset by the poor air quality of the area and an alleged lack of accountability by the facility.

Other residents expressed a need for more education funding, stating it is often more profitable to work at a fast food place than it is to be an Escambia or Santa Rosa County School District custodian. Another claimed that Florida was “the junkiest state in the union”, and wanted to see a 10cent recycling credit for bottles and cans.

Representatives encouraged citizens to visit www.100ideas.org, where ideas may be submitted and reviewed by the public. The website hosts a forum that includes all previously submitted ideas and allows people to rank their favorite ideas.

“The idea here is that the book should be written by regular citizens and not politicians,” Representative Dave Murzin said, referring to a book his staff handed out that had blank pages.

The state wide effort to gather the ideas of its citizens, sponsored by the Republican Party of Florida, will help state leaders fill the leadership vacuum when Governor Jeb Bush leaves office in 2007. House S p e a k e r D e s i g n a t e Representative Marco Rubio challenged his colleagues to give him 100 ideas from their constituents for his upcoming term as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives.

According to the website, putting a moratorium, or temporarily halting, the death penalty is by far the most popular idea on the list. The moratorium collected 237 votes, compared to the next issue, redistricting the Florida legislature districts, which received 153 votes. The third most popular idea so far is for the State to encourage voter turnout by imposing a non-voter fee of $65.

However, hurricanes, flood insurance, and related issues have received limited attention. Locally, citizen disgust with landfills in their backyards is indirectly related to the monster storm season, and only three ideas referring to hurricanes have made it onto the website so far. One discusses increasing State resources for hurricanes such as gas, food and shelters. A second suggests a special lottery to benefit hurricane victims who still have special housing needs. The final hurricane related idea to make the list suggested putting critical utilities like power and cable underground. This would make posthurricane restoration much easier, but can be a very costly endeavor.