I received a reply to the feedback I offered on the event I attended on Saturday.

In the email I sent, I was very critical of the manner in which some information was presented to those in attendance. Not to be too elliptical, NFLT received some $400M in state revenue to purchase land or conservation easements. That was an astonishing amount of money for an organization that, to my knowledge, normally operated with an annual budget that was less than 5% of that figure.

Ordinarily, this would be good news. It wasn't the news, per se, it was the anecdotal account of the reaction to receiving it.

After describing the degree to which the president is connected in Tallahassee, one of the officials that accompanied him described the gales of laughter in the car on the drive back from Tallahassee, saying that he felt like they had made out "like pirates." After this official inexplicably offered his annual report in the form of a number of very bad haikus, the president corrected him and said that they'd "made out like privateers, and therefore, legal."

I had a visceral reaction to this. The program continued, and I couldn't immediately put my finger on what was so revolting about it.

It was on the ride home when Mitzi and I discussed that part of the program, her reaction was similar, that I was able to put my finger on it.

What was clear to me was that I had witnessed an account of the culture of cronyism in Tallahassee. Paul Renner, Speaker of the Florida House, represents a district in north Florida, not far from here. It was clear to me that this was a means of securing a legislative legacy for himself that is somewhat more redeeming than a record of performative legislation supporting Ron DeSantis' presidential ambitions, promoting division through culture wars, voter suppression and attacking marginalized citizens. All of that might be overlooked one day, given the unprecedented amount of money he was able to deliver to conserve undeveloped land in the region.

This is the same legislature that has steadfastly refused to expand Medicaid for more than a decade, leaving tens of thousands of Floridians without health insurance, and leaving billions of federal dollars on the table, which would go a long way toward alleviating many of the staffing challenges Florida is facing in its healthcare industry. (Florida faces a growing litany of challenges. "Parental rights" and "stop woke" not being among them.)

In any event, by the time I got home, I was angry and almost immediately began to write an email to the organization.

But I decided to sleep on it, and see if I still felt as strongly in the morning. Anger is a feeling, and feelings pass.

As these things go, I woke in the wee hours, still angry, and began composing the email in my head even as I tried to go back to sleep. Unlike the last time this happened, I didn't get up and just go write.

Well, I'm not sure it helped. It was the first thing I wrote that day, and I did go over the draft several times, trying to temper my remarks. Basically it followed the outlines of what I've related above, and that I found it inappropriate to the point of being offensive that they would relate this story to the members in attendance. I could go on at length about what that suggests to me, but I didn't and I won't.

Yesterday evening, about 36 hours later, I received a reply from the president. It was a lengthy, densely written piece that mostly defended his background and character, offered some flattery toward me and an invitation to get together over coffee someday. He did include a scattershot explanation of the nature of the $400M appropriation. (It was so large that before I wrote the email I was doubting that I'd heard the official correctly, and I had to do some online searching to learn that indeed, that was the correct amount.)

I think I expected one of three things in the way of response, ranked in increasing order of probability: A "You're right, we blew it. We'll do better next time. Thanks." Or, silence. Or, something along the lines of what I received, which never addressed the fundamental criticism.

My sister-in-law is still with us for a couple of more weeks. She's a social worker with a lot of experience. She said he was defending himself because he felt attacked.

I guess when you're at the top of an org chart for as long as this guy has been, when you walk the halls of power with a constellation of political luminaries (as dim as those may be), when you're feeling pretty full of yourself for landing a $400M appropriation, you're probably not accustomed to being criticized, and that it likely did feel like an attack.

So last night's insomnia was about my reply.

This is it.

Judy mentioned that I wasn't going to change him, and I know she's right. There's little point in responding to him directly.

The North Florida Land Trust does do important work that I support. The president was, as I understand it, specifically recruited for his connections to replicate the success he had in south Florida. He is a political animal, and this is the nature of the political ecology, and reality, in Florida.

I'm an insignificant donor. If I decide not to give to NFLT this year, the money will go to a similar organization doing related work.

If I remain a member, I don't think that I'll ever attend another annual meeting. What would be the point?

In an ideal world, receiving an appropriation of that magnitude would be a humbling experience. It would suggest a degree of trust and confidence in an organization's ability and integrity that, to me, might cause me to feel some trepidation. Gratitude, certainly, but a lot of humility too. And it would sober me, knowing the scale of the opportunity cost. That there are many deserving and underserved needs in Florida that will go on being underserved because that money was given to one mission.

I think there should be some awareness, some acknowledgement of that. And that any public mention of the appropriation would be made with the degree of sobriety that that awareness should engender.

But I don't live in an ideal world.

I live in Florida.

"We made out like pirates!"

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:12 Wednesday, 6 March 2024