Cabinet Says No To Marina
October 16th, 2007 by Mike VasilindaThe Governor and Cabinet said no today to a proposed 49 slip marina in collier County. Dunes marina was proposed by Vanderbilt Partners two. Opposition included all but Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson. Afterwards, one of the supporters who would only tell us his name was “Frank” blamed the defeat on manatees. “The problem here is that people are trying to protect the manatees and they are not even residents of Florida. And I don’t think they should be protected. Not that they shouldn’t be protected, but we shouldn’t worry about them until we worry about the quality of life for people.”
CFO Alex Sink complemented the developer, saying she thought the project was well designed. She objected to how little the developer was going to be paying the state for the lease of the submerged land. “My big issue is the money. We Floridians are not getting our money’s worth and we’re in tight budget times. Why are we giving away millions and millions of dollars in profit to private developers to sell docks when we ought to have our fair share of that and we could take that money to buy more environmental lands, we could do more environmental protection. It’s just a bad economic deal for Floridians. So I have been very consistent in voting against all of these until we get a new rule done or until these developers come to the table and offer us more dough.” says Sink. there is no word on whether the developer will bring the project back.
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