Published: July 02, 2009 02:33 pm      

Our View - 'Business as usual' (July 3)

The controversy over Senate Bill 2080 wasn't just over water. Among other things, the bill, signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Crist, takes control over consumptive use permits out of the hands of water management governing boards and awards it solely to a district's executive director. Only if a director denies a permit (for, say, a bottling plant on the Suwannee) does the issue come before the board.

Talk about a stacked deck.

Environmental concerns aside, we see SB 2080 as an assault on open government. Public deliberation has been replaced by the private thought processes of a single individual. All in the name of "efficiency" in the permitting process, we're told.

However, there's a loophole.

Crist didn't just sign the bill. Emulating George W. Bush, who as President pioneered the practice, he included a signing statement purporting to interpret the statute.

Crist requested that "governing boards and executive directors ... continue to include surface water and consumptive use permits on all board meeting agendas or other public meetings for discussion and transparency purposes."

Crist doesn't say anything about voting on permits. That would be a direct violation of the very law he's signing. And the legal status of signing statements themselves is ambiguous to begin with.

Regardless, Suwannee River Water Management Executive Director David Still has put a positive spin on the situation. Already on record as questioning the wisdom of SB 2080, Still sees the glass as half full. Crist's statement doesn't say governing boards should continue to vote, Still concedes, but, as he told our reporter, "it doesn't say we can't."

Good job, Mr. Still. And good job to other water management directors around the state who, it's rumored, will follow suit. What you're doing, with the complicity of Gov. Crist, may border on civil disobedience in the view of some. But if ever there was a time to stand up for what's right, and for the public's right to know, it's now.