Hey Florida people...

[pooja]

If you are like me, you are a transplant. You have moved into a community promising sunshine and happy days, but become completely disgusted by the corruption and the waste and the idiocy...shoot K.O. had a special tribute to us on Odd Ball.

What is missing is community unity. Everyone is in the rat race looking over their shoulder. There is no strong bond to anyone or anything. A neighborhood is bought up and a few months later you are shopping at a box store, or watching high rise condos with million dollar price tags begin looming over you.

Between some of the great people I am currently involved with and a few happenstances in my own life, I am ready to make a change in our state. That is community building. Creating Community Centers that allow for meeting spaces and a central place to know your neighbors. Its a lot harder to beat a man down when you know them. Its time to unite our communities with politicians, police, teachers, and everyone that contributes to the community.

This is the idea. Spread the seed. Watch it grow. This is bigger than me. I have now made it my mission to complete this in my area. I believe it is going to take a while for money and building the center that is in my head that would be large enough to facilitate my area. I have every belief that it will happen. Any inputs, let me know....

[JCMach1]

1. Good luck to you... the state I grew up in no longer exists

JEBBIELAND is a vile place...

[DemBones DemBones]

11. To be fair, Florida was in trouble long before Jebbie.

Overpopulation and overdevelopment were problems by the Sixties.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

2. I live in the Keys and am involved with the local dem party.

We are a small community and people get pretty involved and do come out to vote at all the elections, but just don't want to get politically active. We get people to work the polls and hold the signs and work the phones, especially during presidental elections, but during the in-between years, very few want to come to the meetings. It's always the same old faces, and mmost of them are pretty elderly. I'm sixty and they call me the kid!

I think a community center is a great idea, but down here the land is scarce and seems to be reserved for millionaires who want to fill it with private homes and condominiums. Good luck to you! :)

[rzemanfl]

3. I agree with a lot of what you say. Where are you located? I am

in Pinellas.

[pooja]

6. Yes, I am too... And it needs it badly with 3 major cities and 2 counties

sitting in such a small area.

[RagingInMiami]

4. "community centers"?

Define that. It sounds like something in a retirement community. As a Florida native, I agree with your assessment, but I'm curious as to how you plan on getting the people to hang out in the community center once they are built.

As it is right now in South Florida, people are working their asses off just to keep their houses from going in foreclosure because property taxes have quadrupled here during the last few years.

What we really need is a good old tax revolt. No taxation without representation. After all, we are on the bottom of the barrel in education, healthcare and wages.

[pooja]

7. If there is a place for people to come together, their are more

voices all carrying the same baggage. Complaining isn't getting it done. Doing will.

[KaryninMiami]

5. Ok- I'm game (and I live in Florida).

Tell me more about what you have in mind (feel free to p.m. me).

[trumad]

8. Good luck...LOL

48 percent of Palm Beachers voted for Mark Foley in the last election and the Sarasotians put K. Harris in Congress in 2004.

I'm an original Cracker from Florida and what you'll find is a State that is half whacked and half OK.

[pooja]

9. Once a strong community base is established, isn't it harder

for the whacko-s to stay. You know with ole' Jebby at the helm, they have been practicing on us. The left behind kids, the stupid insurance and property hikes, emminant domain practices, stolen election via computer. Communities are bi-partisan. You can't change that. And I wouldn't want to. Sometimes the other side has a valid point... Since GOP became GOD talking points are so dismissive (just watched V... same religion to exploit the power).

[DemBones DemBones]

10. The Florida we grew up in is long, long gone.

It's like John D. McDonald wrote, everyone who moves to Florida thinks it's great, can't understand why old-timers are complaining about the changes. After two years, they're complaining along with the old-timers, but there are more newcomers who think it's great and can't understand why the old-timers are complaining.

[zanne]

12. I'm not a Floridian.

But I can't help but think of a line from an Eagle's song; "If you call someplace paradise, kiss it goodbye".

[pooja]

13. florida is far from Paradise. Some may think it sounds exotic..

But one visit and you know its not.