Sun Sentinel
The group trying to prevent private development on the Ocean Strand property with a ballot initiative is taking their fight to a judge. The group, Keep Your Boca Beaches Public, has been collecting signatures to get an initiative on the ballot for the March municipal election that would prevent private development of city or Beach and Parks District property between the Intracoastal and the Atlantic Ocean.
Members of Keep Your Boca Beaches Public, the group seeking to bar private development at Ocean Strand have hit a snag with their proposed ballot initiatives. The measures are intended to bar private development on city and greater Boca Raton Parks District land between the Intracoastal and the beach, but Boca Raton’s city attorney says the question is unconstitutional because the language would ask the city to regulate the parks district.
The way officials throughout Florida, often at developers’ behest, trample local growth plans is maddening. So, it’s no wonder Hometown Democracy, a grass-roots movement, got enough public support for a 2010 ballot to alter that landscape. It would require public votes on any changes to local growth plans. Something’s needed to get officials to honor growth-management plans. And Hometown Democracy appears an earnest, provocative and intriguing way of making them do so.