Articles by: Gil Smart
Late last month we issued our voter guides for Florida’s Aug. 23 primary election. Between now and election day we reserve the right to update the guides as new information comes to light. We did just that today, in regards…
The following is commentary by Ray Judah, a member of the VoteWater Board of Directors and a former Lee County Commissioner. Poor water quality in the Caloosahatche river and our coastal estuaries is a political problem and requires a political…
The following is a column by VoteWater Board President and Florida Sportsman Publisher Blair Wickstrom which originally appeared in the July 1 edition of Florida Sportsman Magazine. By Blair Wickstrom In the 1870s Dr. Cesare Lombroso, founder of the Italian…
In Florida our iconic waters are central to our quality of life; perhaps even our culture. But we do not have a “culture of clean water.” The phrase was coined by Dr. Paul Gray of Audubon Florida, speaking at a June…
Dear Mike Rowe: First, we’re big fans of your show “How America Works,” and in particular your focus on the men and women in the trenches, rather than the bigwigs in the C-suites. Your recent program, “Behind the Scenes with…
The counterattack was inevitable – and utterly predictable. While the billionaire sugar barons haven’t deigned to comment on the “No Big Sugar Money” campaign which launched last week, they’ve sent their surrogates out to spin. Predictably, it’s been picked up…
Florida Sportsman publisher – and VoteWater Board President – Blair Wickstrom makes the case: In 2020 alone, Florida’s sugar industry — the home of Big Sugar — put at least $11 million into congressional campaign coffers. This happened on both…
This commentary was first published in late April, by Ryan Smart of the Florida Springs Council – no relation to VoteWater Executive Director Gil Smart – as a depressing post-mortem on this year’s legislative session: Going into the 2022 legislative…
As they usually do, the folks at TCPalm get it right in an editorial, this one dated May 6, titled “Manatee deaths, algal blooms suggest Florida’s waters getting worse, not better”: When will legislators address the widespread problems facing Florida’s…
It looked like there was a real wedge between the two most powerful Republicans in Florida – Gov. Ron DeSantis and current Senate President Wilton Simpson, who’s running for state Agriculture Commissioner. But they’ve kissed and made up. And that…