Gov. DeSantis, here’s how you fix your Florida parks problem

“Protect Florida State Parks” protest opposes Ron DeSantis' plans at Jonathan Dickinson State Park, via the Protect Honeymoon Island State Park Facebook page

Dear Gov. DeSantis,

Welcome back from Ireland ! You missed a lot here last week. While you were overseas watching Florida State being beaten by Georgia Tech , you were getting a vicious political beatdown here.

Put it this way: You’ve returned from Ireland to the land of ire.

Your super-sneaky plan to build a trio of golf courses, two 350-room hotels, and several sport facilities in nine state parks turned out about as well as your school board endorsements . It would have blown up in your face if your face hadn’t been overseas.

Word spread before your plan could take effect and suddenly people from both parties started screaming for your head. There were even hundreds of sign-waving protesters showing up regularly at Jonathan Dickinson State Park , Honeymoon Island State Park , and Anastasia State Park .

Your Department of Environmental Chicanery — er, excuse me, “Protection” — was forced to postpone its legally required public meetings while it searches for larger venues to contain the angry crowds. Meanwhile, the two little-known nonprofits behind the golf course debacle have withdrawn their proposal.

“We did not understand the local community landscape and appreciate the clarity. We will not pursue building in the beloved Jonathan Dickinson State Park,” the Tuskegee Dunes Foundation posted on its just-created website.

This is, of course, a big load of what wildlife biologists refer to as “scat.” Tuskegee Dunes’ partner, Folds of Honor, pitched this idiotic idea to state Sen. Gayle Harrell in 2023 and she told them then what was wrong with it.

“They did a video presentation of what they had done in Michigan. And they wanted to bring that model to Florida,” Harrell told WPTV-TV . “It’s a very nice, appropriate way to honor veterans, just not in our state parks. And I told them that right up front.”

Because you failed to exhibit similar smarts when the CEO met with you, this has become the worst crisis of your second term. If the furor continues, your white-booted likeness will become the first cackling animatronic figure to greet visitors to Disney World’s new land of villains . They’ll dub you “Governor D-Minus.”

That would put a serious crimp in your future political plans, wouldn’t it?

But fear not, sir! I have the perfect solution. Just follow these simple steps and you’ll not only defuse the crisis, you’ll come out of it more popular than ever.

I should warn you, though. Step one will be the hardest.

Under the bus

I’m sure your first temptation was to say, “Oh, the two nonprofits who convinced me to OK this dopey plan have withdrawn their request to build three golf courses in Jonathan Dickinson State Park, so the crisis is over.”

Don’t make that mistake. People are already asking how these obscure hustlers talked you into their off-the-wall scheme when you met with the Folds of Honor CEO in April, according to the Tampa Bay Times .

Unless you explain what happened, everyone will think you just sat there grinning like a schmuck, then turned to an aide and uttered a tenor version of Jean-Luc Picard’s “Make it so.”

The alleged purpose of their park desecration is to tell the “inspirational story of the Tuskegee Airmen , a group of African-American military pilots and airmen who fought in World War II,” Folds of Honor said in a news release.

Honoring the Tuskegee Airmen (albeit while making money from tons of souvenirs ) would be nice, especially since the most prominent one, Daniel “Chappie” James, hailed from Pensacola . But Tuskegee Dunes said it would donate its profits from the Dickinson golf courses to Folds of Honor for scholarships, not to the families of those heroic Black pilots. That seems wrong.

I called the organization that WAS set up to honor them, Tuskegee Airmen Inc. in Alabama. The folks there told me they’d never heard of Tuskegee Dunes before I called, much less worked with the organization.

Do you see why these two groups seem so shady?

Some folks are concerned that this was just a Trojan horse. The DEP could quietly set up the nonprofits with the right to build the golf courses. Then, a couple of years down the road, the nonprofits would sell the property to some well-connected developer. That scenario has happened in New York, New Jersey, Colorado, and California, according to Nadine Smith of Equality Florida .

“This scam allows developers to use nonprofits to bypass public critique, zoning changes, and access waivers that they could never secure on their own,” she told me. “Once the land is in their hands, the nonprofit conveniently declares insolvency, selling the land to the developers who then cash in.”

Your next inclination was to throw your DEP under the bus: On Wednesday, you tried this approach, claiming, “It was not approved by me, I never saw that,” and complaining that the plans were leaked “to a very left-wing group” while they were still “half-baked.” You tried to pretend your meeting with the Folds of Honor CEO never happened, or that we never heard  your press secretary, Jeremy Redfern, brag that this destructive deal was going “to enhance Florida’s parks to make them more visitor-friendly.”

This was a mistake. Your poor attempt to shift responsibility makes you look like even more of a weasel than you did before.

I know taking the blame runs counter to your entire political career. I mean, you even named one of your PACs “Never Back Down.” Nevertheless, backing down is what real leaders do in a situation like this.

Here’s my plan:

STEP ONE: Throw YOURSELF under the bus. Instead of blaming some underling, take responsibility for this screw-up.

But what’s important is HOW you ’fess up.

Don’t send one of your awkward apologists, like Redfern or Bryan Griffin, out to make a statement while you hide like Major Major in “Catch-22. ”

Instead, I recommend you travel to the scene of the (almost) crime: Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Hobe Sound.

The park where it happened

While there are nine parks in the crosshairs here, Jonathan Dickinson is the focus of much of the anger. This is why my advice for you is to hold a press conference there. Invite lots of reporters. Tell ’em it will be a major (but not Major Major) announcement.

Stand up behind the lectern and say: “I messed up. I want to apologize to the entire state for how I misjudged this situation. I was thinking of the veterans who’d benefit and I didn’t consider the tremendous love that we all have for our award-winning state park system . I should not have suggested that anyone else was responsible for this. It was me.”

Point out how important these parks are to our economy. Last year Florida state parks and trails attracted more than 28 million visitors , with an estimated economic impact of more than $3.9 billion. Mention that you don’t want to trash an important economic powerhouse like that.

Explain how we wound up here. Point out that the Folds of Honor folks seemed OK to you (maybe because they were recommended by perpetual conspiracy promoter Dan Bongino ). That’s why you didn’t stop to think about the impact on the state parks, but now you are.

Then it’s time for STEP TWO.

You announce you’re pulling the plug on all the other development plans too. You made a start on this Wednesday when you said the DEP would be “going back to the drawing board” on the proposals.

I would recommend you go even further. Say there will NEVER be 350-room hotels at Topsail Hill State Park in the Panhandle or Anastasia State Park in St. Augustine. No sports facilities at Honeymoon or the other five parks.

You should say : “These proposals are unnecessarily destructive and divisive. I should be especially sensitive toward Honeymoon Island, the most popular park in the state and one that’s next door to my hometown.”

Next comes the most important step of all, STEP THREE.

You tell those reporters, “I’m here to announce that improving our state parks is now my top priority.”

Then you start telling everyone how you’re going to fix the state park system for real.

What’s really needed

For this next part, I consulted quite a few people who know what our parks need. Not one mentioned golf courses or hotels.

One of them was Clay Henderson, whose book “Forces of Nature,” recounts the history of environmental preservation in Florida (you should read it — you might learn something).

Ten years ago, he pointed out, the voters overwhelmingly passed Amendment 1 , which calls for spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year on environmental preservation.

“State park visitation has increased by 3 million since then,” Henderson told me. “The number of employees in the state park system has only grown by 2%. … Florida has only added ONE new state park since Amendment 1.”

By contrast, he said, the state added about 20 new parks during the prior decade.

“Clearly, our state parks are in high demand from both the resident and traveling public but don’t have the resources to meet the increased demand,” he told me.

I asked some of my sources within the DEP and they said that a list of what the parks need would include road repaving, new restrooms, and campground improvements. There are personnel needs, too.

“They borrow personnel from one park or office to try to cover another park, or one small group has to manage several parks,” one told me. “Things end up being neglected that way. Without dedicated volunteers, some parks would have trouble functioning.”

“Maintenance and repair are a struggle, and more and more necessary work is given to volunteers and concessionaires,” another DEP source told me. “Concessionaires now provide core functions in many state parks, which used to be considered a very bad idea.”

I also solicited ideas from Jim Howe of the Friends of Jonathan Dickinson State Park , one of the many citizen support groups for our state parks. What he told me surprised me. The park needs money to fix Hobe Mountain Tower .

The tower, which sits on top of an ancient sand dune, provides a breathtaking view of the entire park. The golf course folks wanted to replace it with a clubhouse. Thank heaven that won’t happen.

But the tower needs saving from the elements.

“I could see the structure degrading,” said Howe, a retired engineer, “and I worked for a few years to get action, but we were unable to get any money except to get the structure inspected. That inspection shocked us, and the tower was immediately closed.”

The Friends website says fixing this tower won’t be cheap.

“Initial estimates suggest that simply repairing or rebuilding the tower as it stands would cost between $150,000 and $200,000,” it says. “However, to truly elevate the experience and ensure accessibility for all visitors, including features like an accessibility ramp, the costs could rise significantly.”

Do you see what you need to do, governor?

Optional Step Four

For Step Three, I think you should announce that you’re going to fully fund the rebuilding of the Hobe Mountain Tower. You should promise to hire new park staffers to serve the people using the parks and repair the parts of the system that need it.

We get so many visitors to our underfunded parks now, imagine how many MORE there would be if people could see they’re safer and more attractive. Do Disney and Universal let their facilities fall into disrepair the way we’ve allowed our parks to do? They do not.

You should pledge to dispatch the DEP to look for new park property the state can acquire. In fact, you should invite all 22 million of us Floridians to help you locate property in need of protection as a new state park. Set up a hotline for people to call — even if they belong to some “left-wing organization.”

The obvious question you’re likely to ask now is: Where do we find the money for this?

I think taking care of our parks would be a far better use of the taxpayers’ money than silly political stunts like flying migrants from Texas to Massachusetts ($12 million ). It’s a better investment than letting the UF president hire his cronies from Nebraska ($17.3 million ). It would be far more popular than continuing to spend untold millions deploying Florida Highway Patrol troopers on the Mexican border, which is nowhere near Florida.

There’s one more optional step I’d recommend to you. STEP FOUR is pretty radical, but I think it will prove immensely popular.

The price of admission to the parks is very low — cheaper than admission to a movie or sporting event. When I went to the Devil’s Millhopper Geological State Park in Gainesville earlier this year, the park charged just $4 per vehicle for up to eight visitors, or $2 for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Why not drop the fee entirely for Florida residents? As Woody Guthrie put it so well, this land is OUR land. Why do we have to pay to visit it? Let the tourists bear the full cost of running the place.

Now it’s up to you, Guv. Will you let the crisis continue to snowball? Or seize the opportunity to do something worthwhile? Hold the press conference and make the announcements I’m recommending, then you can turn to your DEP secretary, lower your voice an octave and growl, “Make it so.”

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST