The rights of a business or citizen when they own property: The Property Owner Bill of Rights in the Constitution identifies certain existing rights afforded to property owners although it is not a comprehensive guide. According to Florida Statutes it does afford property owners the following:

• The right to acquire, possess, and protect your property.
• The right to use and enjoy your property.
• The right to exclude others from your property.
• The right to dispose of your property.
• The right to due process.
• The right to just compensation for property taken for a public purpose.

nThe right to relief, or payment of compensation, when a new law, rule, regulation, or ordinance of the state or a political entity unfairly affect your property.

Every county has a comprehensive plan, or a blueprint, that provides guidance for the future growth of a community.  Within the comprehensive plan are zoning regulations to uphold the overall plan for the county. Every piece of property that is included in the land development code is zoned for specific purposes – residential with levels of density and commercial development with categories.

When someone buys a piece of property or acres of property, they can develop that property in any way they want as long as it complies with the zoning of the property, and the county ordinances, and passes the permitting process. This is a fundamental right of property owners. Imagine if you bought land for a development, home, restaurant, or small business and the property was properly zoned for such, and your neighbors or the government said, “You can’t build that here because we don’t want it.” That is unlawful.

The situation changes when a developer is asking for a change in the zoning. Then, and only then, can you preclude someone from building it. Requests must be made to the Board of Adjustments which makes decisions on whether or not to grant variances or special exceptions to the current zoning of a property. Their recommendations go to the Board of County Commissioners for the final vote on a zoning change to a property.

This particular step of the process is where your voice can be heard. The board meets on the second Wednesday of each month. The members of the board are appointed by the county commissioners. They serve for three years.

Counties encourage citizens to be part of the changes in comprehensive plans, but most people don’t want to be involved or think they don’t understand it enough to be involved. Think again. Every single person who has stood up and spoken out against growth should have been at the table when the county was reviewing or making changes to the comprehensive plan and the land development code.

Speaking about no future growth is showing you are misinformed and do not respect the basic property rights of others. Speaking about smart growth, showing up to the board of adjustments meetings, and speaking out against zoning changes is being a smart and involved citizen who is protecting a way of life.

Be involved. Volunteer to serve on a board. Research and inform yourself about the things you want to stand for.

Twice the residents have turned out by the hundreds to attend public meetings to voice their concerns about rampant and irresponsible growth.

We applaud the county for spending the money to study how to best grow the north end of the county. We want other counties to take note – this is worth the money. When you have no boundaries or consistency in decisions made pertaining to growth and you forget about what makes north Okaloosa County special, the result will be out-of-control growth with poor infrastructure. And all of that leads to flooding, crowding, and a loss of land and greenspace.

What is special about north Okaloosa? In the rural areas, it is the only space and place where time has seemingly stood still. Life is still simple, and real estate lots are large. There is acreage passed on through generations. There is farmland, timber farms, horses, cattle – even family compounds, so to speak. You may have generations living on the same acreage. You can find hidden gems of rivers and creeks. In rural areas, most of the roads are still dirt and the ones that are paved have lived past their life or have just recently been paved because someone discovered it was there. It is a very special way of life. Even though these residents have modern resources, they depend on the land.

It is also important to note that the residents are not calling for NO growth, they really just want smart growth. They want the horse in front of the proverbial cart, like it should be.

We attended a similar meeting in 2022 that was held in Baker hosted by county commissioner Nathan Boyles. At that time, there were five developments permitted for Baker. When residents voiced their concerns, Boyles said, “Guess what? Communities are changing and that is just part of life.” Boyles basically admitted that roads could not be improved until the subdivisions were in place and contributing to the traffic woes. There were certain traffic criteria that had to be met first.

We know change is coming. But change doesn’t have to overrun the rural lifestyle that is currently in place. The residents know it, too. There has to be a compromise and we truly hope this study will shed light on where compromises can safely be made. We hope that meetings like this are not token public meetings, but a real effort to hear our residents and listen to them (two different things). We want to know the voices are being heard and not placated to. We want these meetings to matter, not be a “feel good” effort made by the county.

We want measured, meaningful, smart growth. We need to preserve the way of life for rural areas without blocking another’s desire to experience it. We want Inspire to figure out how to do that instead of opening the home building floodgate. We are watching carefully.

Joe Biden butchered another press “chat” to respond to the DOJ deciding not to prosecute him — not because he didn’t “willfully” keep secret documents and relay info to his ghost writer, but because Biden is old and cannot remember simple things. High praise indeed for the man with our nuclear codes.

In an unprecedented move, Biden demurred on a chance to talk to 100 million Americans in the traditional Presidential soft-ball CBS interview before the Super Bowl. But he said he’d be happy to throw out the first pitch.

He had just found out he was not going to be prosecuted for all the crimes that he committed more of than Trump. Biden knew all along that he wouldn’t be prosecuted by the FBI, because he had just spoken to J. Edgar Hoover.

We know James Carville et al. called the shots for Bill Clinton, and Karl Rove and Dick Cheney for George Bush the Invader. Barack Obama had Eric Holder (his DOJ “Wing Man”), Susan Rice and Valerie Jarrett running his show. Trump had Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon. We all knew them. But nowadays no one can tell who is dressing up and loading the teleprompter for our Weekend at Bernie’s POTUS.

So, who is writing this ridiculous “Border Bill?” The bill is so filled with kickbacks for Ukraine (which owns the Biden family) and so little for border security that even the Democrats are ashamed — and it is hard to make them ashamed. The White House will probably bury another $25 billion somewhere in the bill to continue funding its ongoing war against Texas.

Tucker Carlson did a great interview with Vladimir Putin. It was the longest Putin has ever sat through an exchange with an American who was not hog-tied to a chair. It was historic, and it made clear why Putin is in Ukraine. But the bombshell was that Putin is ready and willing to settle the Ukraine war. He has made that known. But he says neither Biden nor any of his team has even reached out. I guess when lobbyist-laden defense contractors like Raytheon, Grumman and Halliburton make their profits for the quarter, they might try to settle.

As for who is running the clown show for Biden, Kamala Harris is clearly not included in much. Even by Biden standards she has proven to be a disaster. Her staff turns over more than a U.S. CEO when Black Lives Matters asks for money. Kamala’s staff defection rate is so high that the Government Printing Office is bleeding more money than the U.S. Postal Service just printing new business cards for her replacement staff.

There is some thought that Obama got his old band together and they are the quiet puppet masters of Biden. Ron Klain, the “Ebola Czar” under Obama (I presume he was against Ebola, but who knows), is Biden’s Chief of Staff. Imagine introducing yourself at a party, sticking your hand out and saying, “I am the Ebola Czar.” At least during COVID when Fauci stuck his hand out, Pfizer greased it.

I met Ron Klain while attending Georgetown University about 1982. He graduated in 1983. I was in a remedial reeducation program for wayward conservative Southerners and unwed mothers. We were never mainstreamed with the masses of leftist ideologues for fear we would ask them questions that would infringe on their leftist indoctrination.

The liberal rag Axios reported on the leftist agenda: “Klain’s private comments are yet another indication the White House has a core set of priorities it plans to fight for.” Which is code for Biden is the left’s empty canvas on which they can paint their agenda.

Klain was also Al Gore’s right-hand man, so he knows how to mine for more votes for president without getting arrested like Trump.

Klain and Adam Schiff, like most Dems now, are hawks. They cannot seem to see a war that we should not be in. Perhaps on the ceiling of the White House West Wing there should be a Michaelangelo painting of “The Creation of Adam,” where he paints Dick Cheney reaching his forefinger down from Heaven and touching Klain and Adam Schiff.

A libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author, Ron does commentary on radio and TV. He can be contacted at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.

Earlier this year this same leader had a conference and the local paper waited to drop a story about a group of people suing him until the start of the conference. Then they geo-fenced the conference so that they would get hundreds of thousands of clicks and boost their impressions. This particular paper is using its platform to serve advertising and puts more effort into their impressions and digital ads than they do their news coverage. So, we understand the contempt he was spewing about newspapers, we just wanted him to qualify his statement to a particular newspaper and not all newspapers.

We had the opportunity to speak with his closest advisors about newspapers and they ended up saying they got “goosebumps” after listening to us and wishing all newspapers were like us. We have the privilege of being a locally owned company without an agenda. It allows us to be what all newspapers should be. We aren’t perfect by any means – we make mistakes, and we correct them. But here is what sets us apart from the rest.

1. We operate on a set of core values that includes truth – straight down the middle truth. Truth stands on its own and doesn’t lean one way or the other. It isn’t your truth, my truth, his truth. It is the truth. To that effort, we interview all sides of a story.
2. We don’t operate on click baiting, salacious headlines, steamy gossip stories, or stories we cannot confirm. Sometimes that means we aren’t “first” to a breaking news story because we would rather be right than first. We are the source you can trust. We have had breaking news where we can only say what is confirmed – and people want all the details. We aren’t going to provide those if we don’t know them to be true. We also consider the public’s right to know and need to know. We don’t print everything we know – because that would be wrong.
3. “Gotcha” journalism is wrong – period. Rarely will a public figure or elected official not know about a story we are going to press with because we will have already reached out to them to let them know we are covering whatever the story is. And we will only cover it if it is indeed a story. They have the opportunity to respond. “Gotcha” journalism may sell papers, but we value our integrity.
4. We are the only profession mentioned in the constitution – the first amendment’s freedom of the press. Our founding fathers expected the press to be an integral part of our democracy by being a watchdog for the people. The press can and should investigate and report on government wrongdoing or overreach. We believe the second amendment is just as important as the first…and all the amendments except for the eighteenth which made it illegal to sell alcohol in the United States. It was later repealed by the twenty-first amendment – about fourteen years later in 1933. If a news organization isn’t a watchdog – it is a lapdog. We have seen reports of newsrooms being raided by the local police and even the FBI. Sadly, it came as a result of an elected official being investigated. It’s a violation of the First Amendment. We are not afraid.
5. We will continue to print our news, in addition to online news. Why is print so important? Because it is permanent. You cannot go back and change it. It protects history, it protects a reporter’s work, it protects what we know to be true. In an all-digital format, history can be changed, deleted, rewritten, reshaped and no one would ever know. Think about that. Today’s news is tomorrow’s history.
6. There are bad reporters and bad newspapers out there that do not operate the way we do. They are hurting the very industry they claim to love. They are closing printing presses leaving others with nowhere to print. Our country needs more good newspapers in print.

We are changing the minds of people like the speaker at our business conference. If someone tells you newspapers are old and no one reads them, show them this editorial. Show them why it is important to read a newspaper and how we inform and lift our community. We do the work, so they don’t have to.

Our company is living proof that people read newspapers here. In addition, 218 million Americans read their local newspapers. And 74% of Americans believe that it is important to have a local newspaper provide community news and information (newspapers.org 2023 Local Newspaper Study).

Our newspapers will continue to grow in circulation and distribution. We defy the odds – because we do it right. One newspaper judge said something like, “If all newspapers did it like this newspaper, there wouldn’t be talk of newspapers dying.”