Compromise: a political rarity

You just don’t see it much anymore, the willingness to accept half a loaf. Compromise seems all but dead in America and certainly in Florida, where the one-party system is well entrenched.

At the federal level, the take-it-or-leave-it Biden administration has been telling congress for months that $61 billion, not a penny less, must be approved for Ukraine. Otherwise Russia wins the war.

How about a compromise, a middle ground? Unblock the impasse. Approve something. At this writing it seems about to happen. Whether it does or not, you can be sure it won’t be the last uncharted plea for money.

What’s next? Probably rebuilding our military, reducing greenhouse emissions, containing the flood of illegal migration. Will we settle for middle-ground solutions — realistic, measured, affordable? Unlikely. We’ll probably just open the spigot and jack up the national debt.

It’s that spendthrift mentality that makes any compromise a breath of fresh air. So let’s celebrate the compromise on Conservation Collier that the county commissioners and a clutch of environmentalists reached last month. Nobody got everything they wanted, but everybody got something they needed.

TRECKER

The brouhaha started last September when the commissioners, looking for ways to offset budget cuts, snatched $53 million of Conservation Collier funds, which they said were gathering dust with few land acquisitions planned.

As most know by now, the Conservation Collier program — overwhelmingly approved by voters — calls for a 0.25 mill increase in property taxes to be used for purchase of “environmentally sensitive land.” Those purchases are said to slow development, protect wildlife and safeguard sensitive wetlands. Some 4,700 acres of land purchases have been made over the past several decades.

Fast forward to the present. Environmentalists raised hell over the pilfered $53 million and, worse, over a revision of the ordinance that would have allowed the commissioners to make further withdrawals.

The outcry spooked the board. Commissioner Hall, in full retreat, said, “This is a one-time thing we did, never to be done again … It was never our intention to rob Conservation Collier and use it as a slush fund.”

And it turned out that way. Negotiations with tree-huggers led to a true compromise. Ordinance revisions included …

¦ Allowing the commissioners to set the tax rate each year, as well as the percentage going into maintenance and acquisition funds

¦ Allowing diversion of funds only “in the event of an emergency” as defined by the commissioners

¦ Promising the diverted money would be paid back “as soon as practicable”

¦ Allowing existing Conservation Collier land to be sold as long as revenues returned to the program

¦ Detailing criteria for land acquisitions to speed the approval process

¦ Allowing acquisitions through permanent easement, a new option

County officials said those changes should unlock “north of $20 million worth of purchases” in April.

Driving the ordinance revisions, the chief hell-raisers were Collier County Waterkeeper Ray Bearfield, and Brad Cornell of Audubon Western Everglades and Audubon Florida.

Like all good compromises, this one produced no clear winners or losers.

Cornell was quoted as saying the vote would “limit any future borrowing of Conservation Collier trust funds to emergencies only and commit to replace all future borrowed funds.”

The commissioners retained the whip hand for defining the “emergency” that would allow borrowing and the “practicable” timing for repayment.

The most valuable outcome of this may be that everyone is watching now. Come budget time, no sleight of hand will go unnoticed.

What about repaying the $53 million looted last September? Nothing yet. Only silence. But, hey, no compromise is perfect. ¦

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