Meeting about proposed golf courses at state park canceled, may move to week in September

Posted by Admin August 23, 2024 Golf

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STUART — Safety concerns forced relocation of a public meeting Tuesday about plans for golf courses and hotels at Jonathan Dickinson State Park and now state officials have canceled the meeting. A large attendance had been expected.

Stuart Main Street, which operates The Flagler of Stuart, where the 3 p.m. meeting was to be held, informed TCPalm late Friday that the meeting will be elsewhere. Now officials with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection have canceled the Stuart meeting and others around the state until September.

“DEP is looking for new venues to accommodate the public,” agency officials said in a post on X late Friday. “New meeting dates will be announced soon, with meetings expected the week of Sept. 2, 2024.”

Safety issues

“A significant amount of safety concerns related to the event’s capacity were identified,” said Candace Callahan, executive director of Stuart Main Street by email.

State officials have been notified, she said, and “they are working on an alternative plan.”

Opposition mounts

Enormous public opposition has been mounting that includes public officials at the state, local and federal levels.

“Over my dead body will there be a golf course at Jonathan Dickinson State Park!” U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fort Pierce, posted on Facebook on Thursday.

Residents and public officials want to halt the plan that calls for hotels, three golf courses as well as the removal of the Hobe Mountain observation tower, which has been deemed unsafe.

Public furious

Tens of thousands of people through three different channels have expressed their opposition. A Facebook Group called Protect Jonathan Dickinson State Park had over 36,000 members four days after Jessica Namath, a former Tequesta Environmental Advisory Committee member, created it.

“It’s infuriatingly egregious of them to think that we would be OK with this,” Namath told TCPalm Thursday. “We have enough golf courses already polluting our water with waste, and this would just be one more in a critical habitat.”

Thousands of petition signatures have been gathered by Audubon of Martin County and the Florida Wildlife Federation. The groups planned to pack the meeting Tuesday.

A Change.org petition to oppose the golf courses had over 79,000 signatures Friday afternoon.

Public officials oppose rush

Also, Friday, Mast said he and U.S. Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio and other state and local officials sent a letter to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, objecting to the rush to develop the park.

“The communities around Jonathan Dickinson State Park are owed a public comment meeting in good faith with members of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Acquisition and Restoration Council (ARC),” the officials said in a news release.

“It is the ARC that will actually vote on whether golf courses and hotels will be built in our park and the public deserves the ability to make their voice heard,” they wrote.

Scott was the originator of a similar idea he tried to get passed in 2011.

Outrage over limited meeting time

Mast and the others also said they were outraged over the limited time for the proposed meeting.

More: Residents fight golf courses in Jonathan Dickinson State Park

More: Proposed plan to put golf courses at Jonathan Dickinson State Park isn’t the first time

“Currently, FDEP is proposing to hold an hour-long public comment period between 3 pm and 4 pm on Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024,” they said in the news release. “This is absolutely ridiculous, especially as not one of the seven voting ARC members will be in attendance to engage with the public.”

Mast and the others also suggested the Florida Department of Environmental Protection hold the meeting at a venue that can accommodate more people. And the officials suggested having one meeting in Stuart and one in Jupiter.

Keith Burbank is TCPalm’s watchdog reporter covering Martin County. He can be reached at keith.burbank@tcpalm.com and at 720-288-6882. TCPalm enterprise reporter Jack Lemnus contributed to this story.