Normally a pejorative, this one's a hero. If it's behind a paywall, this is the guy who disclosed Governor DeSantis's plan to reward developers and concessionaires with a huge windfall by defiling Florida's state parks.

“This was going to be a complete bulldozing of all of that habitat,” Gaddis said. He recalls his hand, hovering over a computer mouse, shaking with anger and frustration as he was told to rush his maps from senior leadership. “The secrecy was totally confusing and very frustrating. No state agency should be behaving like this.”

They were trying to jam this thing through in about six weeks! Beginning on July 29th when he was ordered to develop the maps to the 12th of September, when the whole thing would have been rubber-stamped by a committee of political appointees:

In his leaked memo, Gaddis said his office was to have all documents submitted to a group of appointees who vote on land changes, the Acquisition and Restoration Council, in time for its presumed approval in September. The agenda for the group’s Sept. 12 meeting doesn’t show any state parks issues will be discussed. The agenda also doesn’t mention anything about a secretive land swap, first reported by the Times, that would trade more than 300 acres of state forest land to a Hernando County golf course company. The deal still needs council approval.

The land swap deal is a separate controversy, but related in terms of its bullshit process.

The guy's a single dad to an 11-year-old daughter. He's looking to hire a lawyer to see if his termination is lawful. In the mean time, he'll need some help. His salary was only $49K/yr! He's got a GoFundMe.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 09:55 Tuesday, 3 September 2024