A flock of cranes whoop loudly at Fort Cooper in Citrus County. It’s the kind of up-close wildlife encounter you might expect at one of Florida’s 175 state parks.
But you may have seen some other headlines about state parks lately.
Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection is proposing major developments — lodges, pickleball courts and golf courses — at nine state parks.
Eric Draper spoke to WLRN in Miami. He led the state parks from 2017 to 2021.
“You don't want to do that on a piece of land that was protected just for the benefit of the fact that it's a rare and a special place,” he said.
And he’s not the only one raising the alarm. Julie Wraithmell, executive director of Audubon of Florida, spoke with WUSF about the sanctity of state parks.
“You can't climb to the top of the dune tower at Jonathan Dickinson State Park anywhere. You can't watch migratory songbirds flying in off the Gulf after their nonstop 20-hour flight from the Yucatan in the spring like you can at Honeymoon,” she said. “These are special places that are increasingly rare in Florida, and they're not improved by a golf course or by a continental breakfast or by a pickleball court.”
The proposals about these changes at state parks are just that for now. WUSF will be keeping an eye on this issue.
In this episode of Florida Matters, you’ll hear what makes these wild places so special, and why people want to protect them.
Wilma Norton and Pete Couture, of St. Petersburg, are on a mission to visit all of Florida’s state parks. They began in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to get out of the house.
“It took the world locking down for Florida to open up for us,” they wrote in a Bay Magazine article published in June. Now they’ve ticked off 107 of Florida’s 175 state parks, with plans to visit at least 12 within the next month.
Some of their favorites are Henderson Beach State Park, Washington Oaks Gardens State Park and Myakka River State Park.
“I think living in the city, you don't realize how much of Florida is still vast and undeveloped, and how beautiful it is in so many different ways, depending on what part of the state you're in,” Norton said.
To her, that’s the beauty of the state: while you’re in for a treat when you visit state parks, you also never quite know what you might get when you get there.
First, a conversation highlighting the primary election: what it means for your ballot in November, school board politics and more
WUSF’s Steve Newborn and Kerry Sheridan spoke to host Matthew Peddie about what happened during this year’s primary.
“Voter turnout was pretty average for a primary,” Newborn said. “Statewide, fewer than 1 in 4 registered voters turned out, about 22%. It's the lowest it's been in 10 years.”
Newborn says that means statewide, less than 1 million people voted.
“You know, when you think about that, 1 million out of the 22 million people or so who live here, are choosing who is going to represent you. So maybe that's a little food for thought for more people to go out and vote in November.”
The Senate race was as expected with Rick Scott, who's been in office in one form or another for least a dozen years now, winning 80% of the Republican vote.
On the Democratic side, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former congresswoman from South Florida, easily won the Democratic primary.
Sheridan has been reporting on school races in Sarasota, where Liz Barker won in District 2 and Tom Edwards won in District 3.
“Liz Barker is a real newcomer to the scene in Sarasota. She is a mom of four children, all in public schools. She's the PTO president of one of her children's schools, and so she's very involved in that way,” Sheridan said.
“She's a former school psychologist, and she's been vocal at school board meetings really over the past year, speaking up on issues. She decided to run to kind of, I believe her campaign slogan was something about competence over chaos, and she didn't really press the political angle of it.”
Sheridan said Barker ran a real grassroots campaign, with most of her contributions coming from lots of smaller donations of anywhere from $15 to $100.
“It was a lot of community support that seems to have propelled her into office against an incumbent who was Karen Rose, who by all appearances, would have been a perfect person to reelect,” Sheridan said.
“She's a former principal, former teacher, has been on the school board for quite a long time. But she has grown increasingly political in recent years. And she was part of the conservative majority on the Sarasota school board that made some decisions that really cost the district quite a lot of money.”
Sheridan said she thinks this race shows that there was a large Democratic turnout, compared to prior years.
“People seem to want to have some normalcy back into their school boards; make them boring again, maybe.”
Finally, Kerry says it’ll be interesting to see how a school board with less experience plays out.
“I think it’s important to point out that there is still a 3-2 conservative majority on the Sarasota school board. But without Karen Rose there as a key ally to Bridget Ziegler, it does shift the balance of experience.”
Here the entire conversation using the media player above.
