‘Back to the drawing board,’ DeSantis says of state park development

Gov. Ron DeSantis fields a questions from reporters during a news conference in Winter Haven on Aug. 28, 2024. (Screenshot via the governor's X livestream)

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday called a proposal to build pickleball courts, lodges, and golf courses in Florida State Parks released by the Department of Environmental Protection last week “half-baked,” saying, “If we do nothing, that’s fine with me.”

“The Great Outdoors Initiative to Increase Public Access” at Florida state parks includes building 350-room lodges, pickleball courts, and disc-golf courses, but now it is “back to the drawing board,” the governor said after receiving enough pushback that the public hearings for the plans have been postponed.

The plan has drawn outrage and scorn across the political spectrum, most notably from two in the independently elected Florida Cabinet, Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson and Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, both Republicans who help manage state lands along with DeSantis.

The fourth Cabinet member, Attorney General Ashley Moody, doesn’t appear to have commented, although she attended the news conference. We’ve asked her office for comment but haven’t head back yet.

“They’re going back to the drawing board; talk to your local communities,” DeSantis said when asked about the matter during a news conference on crime and drugs in Winter Haven. “Here’s the thing. I’d rather not spend any money on this, right? I mean, if people don’t want improvements, then don’t do it.”

DeSantis said he had not approved the plan, although his Department of Environmental Protection announced it. “I never saw that,” he said.

The governor said the department will go back and listen to Floridians about the parks and that nothing will be done this year.

“A lot of that stuff was just half baked, and it was not ready for prime time.”

The plans were leaked, DeSantis said.

“But this was done intentionally, given to a very left-wing group to try to create a narrative that somehow, you know, the state park is going to become a big parking lot or something like that,” DeSantis said. “That’s obviously a phony narrative. Was never true to begin with.”

‘Always the victim’

Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried posted to X following DeSantis’ comments.

“For once can’t he just say, ‘I am an a–hole and I take full responsibility.’ Nope, not Ron Desantis. Always the victim,” she posted.

Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat representing part of Orange County, said that without the backlash, the governor would not have stopped the plans.

“Advocacy works — and in typical Governor Ron DeSantis fashion, he blames people around him versus taking responsibility for a series of terrible plans that his administration stated were submitted in ‘good faith,’” Eskamani said in a prepared statement following DeSantis’ news conference.

Organizations and individuals have rallied against the plans by coordinating protests at state parks and the Department of Environmental Protection headquarters, including dozens who gathered at Honeymoon Island State Park in Dunedin.

“I am grateful to the grassroots organizations and to everyday people who organized and protested against these terrible proposals,” Eskamani said. “I also demand answers so that we can learn who these obscure groups that submitted these plans are and where their money comes from. These answers are critical to preventing something like this from happening again.”

If the public suggests improvements to public parks, “We’re not going to take away green space,” DeSantis said, adding again, “If we do nothing, then that’s fine with me.”

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Meeting with a charity

Part of the plans included a collaboration between the state of Florida and Folds of Honor, a charity for families of veterans, to build three golf courses at Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Martin County.

The organization interested in building the courses rescinded its initial proposal amid the backlash.

The proposed golf courses at the Hobe Sound park, a former military base, ostensibly were intended to raise money for scholarships for families of military and first responders who have been injured or killed — an idea DeSantis said he admired for its military ties and increased options for affordable golfing in the state.

“And so, it’s not going to work in a state park, and it may not work anywhere in Florida, where you’re getting new land and kind of doing it. But what I think they could potentially do is take some of the existing courses that have been run down or abandoned, raise a bunch of money, make it something nice, and then use that to help military and first responders,” DeSantis said.

In April, the governor met with the founder of the nonprofit. During the meeting, the two discussed “ potentially doing something in the state of Florida,” he said.

“They were going to honor the Tuskegee Airmen with a facility, and they were kind of in the stages of developing some ideas along the lines and then helping the military families and helping the families of first responders,” DeSantis said.

Despite the proposal for the courses, DeSantis said the government is “not getting into the golf course business in the state of Florida.”

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