{"id":60182,"date":"2024-11-12T19:00:13","date_gmt":"2024-11-13T00:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=60182"},"modified":"2024-11-12T19:00:19","modified_gmt":"2024-11-13T00:00:19","slug":"did-you-know-237","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2024\/11\/did-you-know-237\/","title":{"rendered":"Did you Know?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Paul Waldmiller<\/p>\n\n\n

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Did you know that the head of Florida\u2019s environmental protection agency has stepped down?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shawn Hamilton\u2019s resignation comes following a backlash against his proposal to develop golf courses, pickleball courts, and hotels at state parks, known as the \u201cGreat Outdoors Initiative.\u201d His proposal outraged thousands of Floridians who want Florida parks and recreation areas to remain with native plants and trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This past August, the FDEP unveiled Hamilton\u2019s initiative, which aimed to transform nine state parks into recreational hubs. However, the plan sparked rare bipartisan opposition, with top Republican legislative leaders, U.S. Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, and Democrats, as well as environmental groups like the Sierra Club and the Cleo Institute, raising concerns and outrage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The amount of opposition to both Hamilton and his plan, led Governor Ron DeSantis to announce that plans for the parks would be put back on the drawing board. The result was Hamilton\u2019s resignation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alexis Lambert, chief of staff of the state\u2019s bond finance division, will replace Shawn Hamilton as secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The change in leadership comes as the agency attempts to recover its image of a protector of Florida\u2019s pristine nature and beauty after the controversial proposal and works to rebuild trust with environmental groups and Floridians and tourists who enjoy our parks and natural landscapes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Paul Waldmiller Did you know that the head of Florida\u2019s environmental protection agency has stepped down? Shawn Hamilton\u2019s resignation comes following a backlash against his proposal to develop golf… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":60183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[294],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60182"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60184,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60182\/revisions\/60184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}