NOTE:
Wally Moran, of Sail Magazine, and the brave man that lead the first ever ICW southbound rally this year, and a friend of mine, is alerting us all this the pending bill that will restrict anchoring in most of our Florida anchorages. The proposed bill will create a 200 foot set back from the shore. This will kill all our places we anchor in Florida. Please follow Wally's directions below and send out emails and letters to the help fight this pending proposal.
copy of Wally's post in our Facebook group
Here comes Wally, banging the drum yet again....everyone, Tuesday is a big day in Tallahassee for Florida anchoring rights. There are two committee meetings, and we are told that there will be an adverse amendment on residential setbacks added to the House bill. That's a VERY bad thing for us. If you live in Florida and can actually GO to this meeting to wave the flag, that would be the best thing. There are people coming from five and six hours away already!
If you can't, then the next best thing you can do is to email the committee members to protest this legislation. Even if you've done this before, I ask you (and we NEED you!) to do this again. So please, take three minutes out of your weekend to copy and paste, and send one of the two following emails, whichever applies to you:
letter #1
Subject line: SB 1548
Dear Senator Dean and Committee Members:
I am a Florida resident, and taxpayer. I do not approve of the residential setback provision in SB 1548, and I request that you remove it.
Your committee has, by its own admission, no idea of the damage this provision will cause to marine businesses and shoreside businesses such as restaurants and others.
These are businesses in which I and my fellow Floridians work, so your legislation directly touches on every one of us, and will cause losses we cannot afford.
As well, and again by your own committee's admission, you have done no studies to determine the impact of this setback provision on how it will affect boaters, or even how many anchorages it will effectively close to anchoring.
This is not responsible law making, so again, I request that you remove the residential setback provision from SB 1548.
Sincerely,
NAME
CONTACT EMAIL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
letter #2
Subject line: SB 1548
Dear Senator Dean and Committee Members:
I am a boater in the state of Florida. I do not approve of the residential setback provision in SB 1548, and I request that you remove it.
I, along with close to 30,000 other transient boaters who come to Florida every winter, spend considerable amounts of money in your state. Our purchases help support not just marine businesses, but grocery and hardware stores, restaurants and other Florida owned small and large businesses.
Your committee has, by its own admission, no idea of the damage this provision will cause to marine businesses and shoreside businesses.
Your committee seems to be unaware that there are no slips or mooring balls available to tip up to in south Florida from mid-December onwards. This season, there were over 30 boats in Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, that had no choice but to anchor. Dinner Key Marina, the largest mooring field in the state, had a waiting list. Fort Lauderdale, the same.
Your proposed residential setbacks would make it illegal for these boats to remain in the state of Florida as they would have no place to anchor and no place to go.
By your own committee's admission, you have done no studies to determine the impact of this setback provision on how it will affect boaters, or even how many anchorages it will effectively close to anchoring. We, the boaters, have done this study, and can advise you that the negative impact on boaters in Florida will be substantial. You can inquire of the facts on this from the Seven Seas Cruising Association.
This is not responsible law making and again, I request that you remove the residential setback provision from SB 1548.
NAME
Contact Email
Email addresses for this:
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected]
Please email a copy of your letter to your local media so that they start to cover this issue. Lastly, be sure to share this post with your fellow boaters.
end Copy from Wally
Thank you Wally, you are fighting a good fight and we all are with you and we are sending letters and emails as well.
Hayden
