RSS Feed of the blog

Contributors:

Reporter William March has covered state and national politics since 1994. Email

Reporter Christian M. Wade has covered the City of Tampa since 2008. Email

Reporter Mike Salinero has covered Hillsborough County government for The Tampa Tribune since 2007. Email

Reporter Lindsay Peterson has been a general assignment reporter at the Tampa Tribune since 2005, focusing on higher education since 2009. Email

Tribune Politics Coverage

Florida Political Blogs:

• State Of Sunshine
• Pushing Rope
• Interstate4Jamming
• News Service of Florida
• FLA Politics
• Sayfie Review/

More Resources:

• TBO.com Home Page
• TBO.com Politics
• TBO.com News Updates
• Live Traffic Updates
• TBO.com Communities

Most Recent Entries

• 1 Killed This Week in Afghanistan
• Nelson: Obama birth control compromise “seems to solve the problem”
• Sharpe suspending campaign
• Sharpe to make announcement, may be out of House race
• Largo Military Museum Gets New Name, Mission
• Planned Parenthood: Polls show Catholics, voters favor contraception coverage
• Weatherford denies any attempt to undermine West
• Michelle Obama to tour Florida for healthy eating
• Pentagon Co-Spokesman Changed Trim After Boss’ Haircuts
• Brig. Gen. Becomes Highest-Ranking Death in Afghanistan
• Special Operations Command To Go Para-Commando Over University of Tampa
• Air Force To Cut Nearly 300 Planes, But None From MacDill
• POTUS Veterans Job Act: Billions To Hire Vets As Law Enforcement, First Reponders, Park Workers
• Will Israel Really Strike Iran? SECDEF Won’t Comment On Ignatius Assertion
• College Scholarship Available To a Lucky Family At MacDIll

More

• Breaking News
• Command Post Tampa
• Fact Finders - Databay Blog
• Guestbook: Remembering The Fallen Soldiers
• Fresh Squeezed Politics
• Political Safari

Monthly Archives

• Breaking News
• Command Post Tampa
• Fact Finders - Databay Blog
• Guestbook: Remembering The Fallen Soldiers
• Fresh Squeezed Politics
• Political Safari

Sen. Bennett chides DCA secretary over new growth management law

Posted Oct 27, 2009 by Catherine Dolinski, Tallahassee bureau

Updated Oct 27, 2009 at 01:30 PM

Mike Bennett, chairman of the Senate Committee on Community Affairs, was by no means pleased this month when state Community Affairs Secretary Tom Pelham told Bennett’s panel that a new growth management law hadn’t freed urban-area developers from transportation concurrency rules as lawmakers had expected.

In Pelham’s professional opinion, the new law—formerly known as SB 360, sponsored by Bennett—exempted developers only from state-imposed mandates. It did not, the DCA secretary said, restrict local governments’ ability to enforce their own growth management rules.

In a recent letter, the outspoken Bennett—a developer who also proposed last session to abolish Pelham’s entire agency—told the secretary that that his interpretation is wrong-headed, and gave him a talking-to about the limits of his role:

“While it is clear that the Department has a limited role in the interpretation of the growth management provisions of Senate Bill 360 through its power of implementation, the Department has no special insight or responsibility for interpretation of the Constitutional provisions governing home rule authority. Similarly, the Department is accorded no special deference on the issue of legislative intent.”

That intent, Bennett concluded, was “clearly” something other than to reinforce the status quo for local governments.