I recommend that the B.O.C.C. vote tonight to reject this so-called "Settlement Agreement", which obviously subverts the county's already fully accepted Alachua County Comprehensive Plan.

Let the administrative hearing proceed, as the Department of Community Affairs and the State of Florida have provided the people in law as the due process.

Over 218,000 people live in Alachua County. Tonight only one vote by a county commissioner, one way or the other, will speak for all these people. It certainly looks like a 3 to 2 vote to me. I don't call this process a demoncracy, if this swing vote means no administrative hearing. I urge at least three commissioners to come to their senses and remember all the people who have suffered and died to make the United States a democracy, not a country controlled only by people rich in money and land.

The people in the vast majority and the State of Florida through DCA have already spoken on the accepted Alachua County Comprehensive Plan. If this plan goes to administrative hearing, this fact will be verified again by an impartial judge. This is why these monied interests will do everything possible to prevent Lady Justice from prevailing.

The real question tonight is: Does Alachua County belong to the over 200,000 people living here, or to a very few with huge financial resources? I think it is way past time to let the people in the vast majority already living here control their destinies, through what they have told you already over and over, in multiple comprehensive plan workshops and meetings, rather than voting for the few to destroy us all for their personal financial gain.

Issue and Vote

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