Confusing Ballot Amendments - CONA Sarasota, Monday June 11

   - monthly meeting -

         

      Monday 7 p.m.   June 11, 2018

     

understand the confusing
proposed ballot amendments

and updates on Arbor Lake Preserve, Bath and Racquet Club, Siesta, Promenade, Celery Fields 

  

   On June 11, 2018 please join CONA to hear Barbara Ford-Coates, Dennis Maley, and Lourdes Ramirez discuss the proposed state constitutional review committee (CRC) ballot amendments that voters will need to understand in order to determine which ones they will approve. Sixty percent approval is required for each to pass.        

   This year, decisions about the many changes proposed for the state constitution have been complicated further by the CRC grouping their proposed changes rather than using the traditional single-issue amendments that are more familiar to voters. 

   Every twenty years, a committee is appointed to review the state constitution and to draft changes they alone recommend. Contrary to the typical procedures for state constitutional amendments, these are not citizen-initiated through a process that requires the consent of a significant percentage of the voters just to get proposed amendments onto the ballot and, grouping has been used to obscure the large number of the 2018 committee's proposed changes. 

   The grouping device seems designed to require voters to adopt unpopular changes in order to approve popular changes. Careful scrutiny and understanding will be needed this year in order to avoid approval of changes to the state constitution that are not desired--just because they are tied to a change that voters do desire.

   Historical and contemporary perspectives of the amendments proposed by this constitutional review committee will be presented to assist voters in making their decisions. Q & A will follow.

   Following a traditional half-hour social beforehand, the meeting will open with neighborhood updates about their current issues from Chris Bales on Arbor Lake Preserve, Ben Cannon on Bath and Racquet Club, Sura Kochman on Siesta Promenade, and Tom Matrullo on the Celery Fields.

                                 

  See www.conasarasota.org/meetings.html for more information.

           

social 6:30 p.m. -  meeting 7:00 p.m.

at the Sarasota Garden Club

       

neighbors helping neighborhoods since 1961

                      

save the date  -  our anniversary party  -  November 5, 2018

CONA Potluck and Maley on Constitutional Revision

CONA Sarasota offered two broadcasts this week. One has to do with its annual potluck supper on Monday, Dec. 11 at the Garden Club:

The Sarasota County Council of Neighborhood Associations is throwing its annual holiday potluck party at 7 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 11, at the Sarasota Garden Club, 1131 Boulevard of the Arts, Sarasota. Attendees are encouraged to bring a favorite dish to share with others. The council represents more than 70 neighborhood, condo, resident and homeowner organizations whose members include more than 35,000 Sarasota citizens. Its mission is to provide practical information to member associations on community concerns and issues and to urge local and state governments to encourage sensible growth.

The second points us to Dennis Maley in the Bradenton Times on what we know so far about the work of the Constitution Revision Commission headed by Developer Carlos Beruff.

A few tidbits from Maley's substantial article:

Charter Schools:  

Proposal 71 would amend the constitution to allow such a body to oversee the charters, making it possible to streamline the petition process, ushering in a wave of new charter schools. Such an amendment, if passed, would have profound implications in the battle between public schools and charters, giving the latter an enormous boost, as the state has typically been far more pro-charter than most school boards.

Church and State:

Proposal 4 would "remove the prohibition against using public revenues in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or any sectarian institution,"

Judges and Politics:

Proposal 58 would have county and circuit judges appointed with nominations coming from the governor's judicial nominating commissions. This would only further politicize the process, allowing a party that is in power to stack the benches at all levels with unqualified partisans who could legislate from the bench.

Right to Privacy:

The award for the most obviously-dangerous idea goes to Proposal 22, which attacks Floridians' constitutional right to privacy. The proposal . . . would limit that right specifically to the release of our personal information.. . . If Proposal 22 is adopted, the legislature's powers would be broadly expanded in this realm. It could, for example, "provide by law" that certain "private" information is no longer public record. The First Amendment Foundation has expressed alarm in that it would seemingly "give the legislature the power to selectively pull existing public records from the public domain."

Don't forget the potluck