By now you may know the name of James Gaddis, the Florida DEP whistleblower who leaked the plan to “develop” Florida’s state parks. Gaddis, as you probably also know, was fired by FDEP for revealing the plan, which Gov. Ron DeSantis called “half-baked.”

Officially, he was let go for “conduct unbecoming a public employee.”

Apparently that’s how FDEP views telling the truth and being transparent with the public.

What we don’t yet know is how “Parksgate” happened — that is, the mechanism by which this “half-baked” plan was hatched by half-baked politicians.

This is important because Parksgate will rear it’s ugly head again in 2025 — DeSantis has said so. And whatever process was used to expedite this bad plan could be used in new attempts to sneak dubious proposals past an unsuspecting public.

Our state government is deceiving us, and we need to know how and why.

There are reports that a new law passed last session could have paved the way for Parksgate. House Bill 781 allows for unsolicited proposals for public-private partnerships, allowing “a responsible public entity” to proceed without a public bidding process if certain requirements are met.

A March editorial in the Cape Coral Breeze presciently warned that the bill “opens the door to abuse.” “All one would need to do to close the field to free-market competition is submit a plan that hands the government essentially what it thinks it wants and maybe a check to cover the staff review process,” editorialized the Breeze. “The governor’s pen could open the door to a wave of “unsolicited” bids for a plethora of projects.”

There’s even a Change.org petition demanding HB 781 be repealed. So, is this how Parksgate happened?

We can’t be sure; the DeSantis administration isn’t answering questions.

Enough; it’s time for a real investigation. State Rep. Anna Eskamani is right to demand DeSantis “release copies of any proposals or other materials submitted by any outside organizations as part of this Great Outdoors Initiative.” But we also need to know more about how the Governor’s Office and FDEP expedited the proposal.

Gaddis, a cartographer, said he was told to hurry as he mapped out plans to build golf courses at Jonathan Dickinson State Park and massive 350-room hotels at Anastasia and Topsail Hill Preserve state parks. “This was going to be a complete bulldozing of all of that habitat,” he told the Tampa Bay Times.

Gaddis said the directive came straight from Gov. DeSantis’s office, and that DeSantis’s deputy chief of staff, Cody Farrill, was intimately involved.

“Half-baked” or not, this was DeSantis’s baby.

And we need answers before the next half-baked proposal comes down the pike.

The fight against our own state government must end, with government laying down its arms, submitting to the people and providing honest answers.

For once.