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WHO WE ARE
ECARD
is a group of diverse citizens of the town of Edgewater, Florida that
have
taken notice that the Edgewater we know (and love) is disappearing
right
before our very eyes. We are not a bunch of crazed
tree
huggers,
or wildlife
fanatics,
(OK,OK, so I hug as tree now and then...SO WHAT!?) although we certainly
do appreciate Florida
wildlife.
We are plain old everyday, ordinary Edgewater Citizens. Some of
us are retired,
some
of us work and live here, and some of us are business owners. We are of
all political persuasions. We are a little bit of
everything. One day we noticed that the small, quiet, water's edge
community we knew and loved had suddenly become a
VERY popular
growth
and development area. Many of us
remember when Edgewater had two
traffic lights, and
one of them flashed yellow during the evening hours! Some of us even
remember riding horses from Old Mission Road down Park Avenue across US
Highway 1 to the
water's edge and it was not that long ago (early 70s
through the early 80s!). We also used
to swim in the river over by City Hall which is NOT recommended
anymore due to posted warnings of skin rashes and other
irritations... kind of sad, don't you think?
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Our mission statement from the Articles of
Incorporation are as follows:
MISSION STATEMENT
The
purposes for which the corporation is created and maintained shall be
for the protection of the current character and quality of life, social
and general welfare and common good of the residents of the City of
Edgewater, Florida. The activities of the
corporation shall include but not be limited to, advancing civil
betterment, social improvement and humane activities by encouraging
public participation in the local governing process, according to
general law.
The
corporation shall collect, analyze and disseminate data and information
related to, and encourage public participation in, local land use
planning decisions, assessing and insuring their compliance with the
County’s Minimum Environmental Standards provision, including the use
of citizen initiatives or referenda in the process, in the interests of
stopping sprawl, maintaining low density zoning and other land use
designations, and protecting wildlife habitat and water resources,
including the Indian River.
The
corporation shall exercise all rights & powers granted to not-for-
profit corporations under Florida laws, & to conduct all
activities, & exercise all powers that are otherwise consistent
with the corporation’s purposes.
In
furtherance
of its purposes, the corporation may purchase, acquire,
receive, hold, own, lease, mortgage, sell or convey any and all
property, real or personal, in its own name, and can engage in fund
raising to support its activities.
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What the heck is Farmton, anyway?
Farmton is the name of a very large tract of land that borders on the Southwest tip of Edgewater...
People who
don't know where the water comes from in the St. Johns River would not
have a problem with building into and over the wetland areas that clean
and
feed a portion of the river. But as we have learned over the
years, once you destroy these areas, getting them back is next
to impossible. A prime example of this type of problem (albeit a much
larger one) is when they handed
the northern sections of the Everglades to large farming concerns, and
the eastern
sections to developers (with very few limits on either of them for quite
some time). Now,
they (the politicians) are "looking" for more than $2 Billion to "start" the Restoration of
the Everglades since the native flora, fauna and wildlife is
dying off
at an alarming rate. What we'll have left is a big, nasty, dead swamp
breeding
things that are not near as nice as what the Glades used to produce when
I was Boy Scout back in the 60s and did some serious "exploring" in the
wild (supervised, of course - and does anyone know good soup recipe for Anaconda, Boa Constrictor or Asian Iguana?).
When will we learn, if ever? And where is ANYONE going to get $2 billion for
anything with the federal budget so badly bloated? The answer is, we more than likely won't.
And if we screw up the St. Johns, we won't go back and fix it, either.
This means that we have to do the correct thing the first time around -
or get someone else to.
Below is a link to a
large PDF file (~23 MB) which is the
Farmton
Wetlands Mitigation Bank Permit:
Yes, it's large and
will take a bit of time to download, but it is well worth the time and your reading pleasure!
Here is another article worth reading: http://www.beacononlinenews.com/news/daily/2338
I noted that some of the
people that commented on the article said they drove down Maytown Road
and it was logging trucks and kids speeding at 100mph.
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Edgewater Citizen’s Alliance for Responsible Development, Inc. (ECARD)
704 W. Park
Ave., Suite C,
Edgewater, FL 32132
EdgewaterCitizensAlliance@Yahoo.com
Here
is what we are trying to save:
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