Lakepointe and the Pacific Legal Foundation.
When it looks like a duck, and walks like duck, quacks like a duck it’s a duck.
Or in this case a big polluting rubber ducky.
I’ve written about the Pacific Legal Foundation and explained who they are. When I first moved here I read about Lakepointe and even wrote to some friends about them. Something was not kosher there. Something was rotten in Denmark. Unfortunately, at the time I didn’t have the knowledge to really understand.
Well wow. Now things are falling into place.
Here we found out how the Pacific Legal Foundation is messing with our Panthers
https://cyndi-lenz.com/2015/07/09/panthers-manatees-and-bears-oh-my/
Then we asked why are they even involved in all this.
They are a Koch Brothers, Scaife Foundation lackeys hiding out in bosom of an unending cash cow and really sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong but where their masters want them to go.
and they want to go to Martin County. They want to destroy us.
Then I wrote about their relationship to Martin County and our Economic Foundation
https://cyndi-lenz.com/2015/07/11/bring-it-on-home-the-pacific-legal-foundation-and-martin-county/
Don’t believe me. Believe this:
http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2009/08/wade-hopping-follows-jim-king-by.html
“Hopping was also chairman of the Pacific Legal Foundation. The PLF “was established in 1973-74 by a group of attorneys from California’s Justice Department to counter reform of the welfare system and the liberal public interest legal groups that were pressing for better environmental and health regulations. Especially targeted were the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund. Governor Ronald Reagan of California appears to have provided the required financial links to Pittsburg billionairre Richard Mellon Scaife who funded the initial office in Sacramento.” The PLF’s interest in Florida coincided with the acceleration of government initiatives to protect the the Florida Keys and East Everglades in the early 1990’s.
The PLF obituary notes, “(Hopping’s) notable achievements included coordinating the Florida business community’s efforts to enact laws relating to manatee protection, an expedited environmental permitting process, and the Bert J. Harris Jr. Property Rights Protection Act.” The Bert Harris Act is the best example how the unintelligent design of laws provides energy to a precept of radical conservatism: that self-interest of corporations can protect the public interest better than rules and regulations.”
We have a comp plan in Martin County. Developers don’t like it. They don’t like some of our commissioners. They certainly don’t like that we pay attention and we don’t want to be an extension of the cement jungle of South Florida. and they don’t like Maggy Hurchella who is one of our greatest gifts. Maggy fights for us day and night and all she got for her efforts was a silly SLAPP suit which is costing her thousands of dollars.
http://opinionzone.blog.palmbeachpost.com/tag/maggy-hurchalla/
“Lawsuits meant to silence questions about development in Martin don’t pass smell test”
This is how you destroy American. Quietly through money supplied by the Koch Brothers.
This is from last year from the Hobe Sounds Currents. (The pro Lakepoint pro development paper)
http://hobesoundcurrents.com/hard-to-keep-up-with-comp-plan-lake-point-lawsuits/
“The evidence from Heard’s hearing, according to court records, is important to Lake Point’s case against former County Commissioner Maggy Hurchalla for allegedly making false statements to county commissioners with the intention of interfering with Lake Point’s ability to conduct business. Lake Point filed suit at the same time against Martin County and the South Florida Water Management District for breach of contract.
Lake Point filed a motion in January seeking permission from the court to amend its lawsuit to charge Martin County with tortuous interference. A public records request filed by Lake Point with County Attorney Michael Durham asked for copies of all correspondence, public and private, between three county commissioners and Hurchalla regarding Lake Point. Apparently the request was ignored for a year.”
http://hobesoundcurrents.com/blog/page/4/
“The Pacific Legal Foundation—a 40-year-old public interest firm known for winning its cases to protect US landowners against excessive government regulation and the loss of private property rights—questioned this week not only the county commission’s closed-door sessions, but also the apparent disregard of Florida’s Public Records Laws by two commissioners, Ed Fielding and Sarah Heard, for failing to report and protect their private electronic communications used to conduct public business.
If the allegations by Lake Point Water Restoration Project attorneys prove accurate regarding the “manipulation” or deliberate destruction of Fielding’s and Heard’s secret emails with environmentalist Maggy Hurchalla, both commissioners also are likely to face criminal charges, as well as ethics violations.”
Maggy is a citizen. She is not an elected official. This is just a circus pointed to our commissioners to destroy Martin County.
http://www.tcpalm.com/business/key-player-in-lake-point-restoration-project-to
“George Lindemann Jr., a key partner in the Lake Point Restoration project, and companies associated with him have been very generous to Martin County commissioners and commission candidates who support business causes.
Lindemann Jr. and the companies based at 4500 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, Suite 105, contributed a total of $32,000 in the past five years to the political campaigns of three county commissioners and two commission candidates, campaign finance records show.
He is the son of George Lindemann Sr., an investor whose family is reported by Fortune magazine to have a net worth of $2.2 billion.
Lindemann Jr. gained national prominence in the early 1990s as an equestrian with Olympic aspirations. He made headlines when he received a 33-month prison sentence in January 1996 after his conviction in federal court in Chicago for fraudulent insurance claims on a show horse he ordered killed, according to published media reports.
In Martin County, Lindemann Jr. is known for the controversial Lake Point project in southwestern Martin County and his campaign contributions to five pro-business candidates for countywide office since 2008.
Commissioner Doug Smith and former Commissioner Ed Ciampi received a total of $9,000 each from Lindemann and his companies in the past five years, records show. Former Commissioner Patrick Hayes received a total of $7,000.
They said they believe the Lake Point stormwater facility is good for the environment and Martin County because it reduces the amount of polluted water going into the St. Lucie Estuary.
The rock mine also provides building materials and jobs that are helping Martin County’s economy, Smith said.
“It is to clean up the nutrients out of the water,” Smith said. “Every project that we add into the mix that diverts dirty water … is a good thing.”
How’s that going Doug?
“But new Commission Chairwoman Sarah Heard and some of her political allies questioned Lindemann’s campaign contributions to their political adversaries and the Lake Point rock mining agreement that calls for the donation of about 1,800 acres to the South Florida Water Management District in 20 years..
“I don’t think it’s a good deal for Martin County taxpayers,” Heard said about the “It looks to me like all they’re doing is digging holes and selling off the rock or sand, whatever they’re mining out there. How is that a benefit for Martin County?”
Critics of the Lake Point project like Maggy Hurchalla, an environmentalist and former county commissioner, say a proposal to siphon water from the St. Lucie Canal into the Lake Point property and send it south to utilities in Palm Beach County could harm the St. Lucie Estuary instead of helping it.
The St. Lucie Canal receives water from Lake Okeechobee, Hurchalla said. So increasing the number of customers relying on the lake for water could lead to more water storage, higher lake levels, larger discharges of polluted water into the St. Lucie Estuary, and less water for the Everglades.”
How’s that working for our Estuary? Maggy ,as usual, was right. Who’s threatening her? Let me repeat.
This is who she is fighting against.
“Lindemann Jr. gained national prominence in the early 1990s as an equestrian with Olympic aspirations. He made headlines when he received a 33-month prison sentence in January 1996 after his conviction in federal court in Chicago for fraudulent insurance claims on a show horse he ordered killed, according to published media reports.”
Who approved this in the first place? Who does that ? Who allows a horse killing felon to operate in our county?
Translated he was convicted of killing a horse to collect the insurance money. Because why? He didn’t have enough money?
Now Sarah Heard and Ed Fielding who have supported the river and supported the comp plan of Martin County are being attacked by Lakepointe
In the same lawsuit, Lakepointe claims the commissioners smashed their own computers and hid their emails in a secret plot against the rockpit company.”
A secret plot? Funny. It’s always a secret plot.
There will be a hearing on those charges before Judge McManus at 9:30am Thursday Aug 27 at the Martin County Courthouse. Ed and Sarah will be testifying.
Please understand that this is beyound issue even between a local business and our commissioners. We have been targeted here in Martin County by the Pacific Legal Foundation and unless we do something about this it will never end.
We will loose everything. Our environment. Our wetlands. I may as well have stayed Palm Beach County because we’re gonna look just like them. A cement jungle ruled by a bunch of big businesses.
cyndi lenz 