Bill the Governor

County commissioners should take one step with that $1.55 million they intend to pay for the Lombardi property to create a working waterfront park - send the bill to the governor.

After all, he is the one who set the ball in motion that has led more than a decade later to the county getting into the land business.

Actually, here is a local bill for Rep. Will Kendrick.

Rep. Kendrick decided to move over to the Republican side of the aisle a year or so ago in order to be better positioned to take care of his district, he said at the time.

As he heads toward his final legislative session, Kendrick should take the initiative to put this purchase through the appropriate committees, get it to the floor of the Florida House of Representatives, the Senate and onto the governor.

And Gov. Charlie Crist should avoid his veto pen in rooting out budget turkeys on this one because he, as much as any person in the state, can claim responsibility for what is really driving this purchase.

Injected here is the opinion that government should not be in the business of land purchasing, no matter how good the intentions.

That the county also went above its own appraisal to buy the property is dismaying.

However, if there was a juncture for exceptions to rules, and a time to note and point out the state's role in this decision, this is it.

As was noted when the county agreed to buy the property, preserving valuable and vanishing working waterfront, it was called a small step, but a positive one.

And it is largely a band-aid over a gaping wound that is the result of the politically-correct titled "Marine Limitation Amendment" to the Florida Constitution of some 14 years ago.

That the current governor championed that measure, pushing it through the Florida Legislature where he served before a bit of job-hopping, makes the purchase all the more heartbreaking.

Because beginning with that "net ban" and continuing through the ongoing wars over what did or did not constitute a legal form of fishing, Crist has remained, as evidenced in his run to the governorship, unapologetic about the crippling effect that amendment has had on this county.

The loss of livelihoods, of families, of a way of life, has seemed at times to be hardly on his radar, an annoying gnat during periods when there were bigger fish to fry, pardon the pun.

And any discussion about the "net ban" and its impacts start, infamously for many, proudly for Crist and his powerful allies at the time, with the governor.

So if the county is in need of preserving a small slice of working waterfront, making any attempt to hold on to a way of life that literally serves the country, the governor should step to the plate, or rather put his veto pen in pocket.

The state budget is larded with enough fat that $1.55 million for this effort is not too much to ask, not of this governor.

Gov. Crist should look at it this way - it is only a small down-payment on the IOU that will one day come due for the havoc wreaked on this county by his actions on the "net ban."