Chopping Down Your Trees

Are you one of the hundreds of thousands of Floridians who had their property and liberty violated by Charles Bronson’s incompetent war on canker?

If so, looky here. Apparently Eric Copeland isn't afraid to fight. I received this press release yesterday:

Tallahassee – Today Eric Copeland, Democratic candidate for Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services, opened a new offensive in his campaign to unseat Republican incumbent Charles Bronson by filing a public records request with the Florida Department of Agriculture for the names, addresses and contact information of the estimated 600,000 Floridians who had citrus trees removed from their private property under Florida’s defunct Citrus Canker Eradication Program (CCEP).

“Hundreds of thousands of Floridians had their property and liberty violated by Charles Bronson’s incompetent war on canker,” Copeland said.

As of January, 2006, Department of Citrus records show that 860,000 trees have been removed from private, residential property and more than 12.5 million trees have been destroyed overall. Also in January, 2006, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) effectively cancelled the Florida CCEP saying eradication of canker was impossible.

“To say Commissioner Bronson’s search and destroy mission on canker was a failure gives a bad name to failure,” Copeland said. “It was a grotesque failure and an expensive and dangerous display of incompetence. And Bronson needs to be called to account for it.”

As a result of the USDA decision, Commissioner Bronson’s removal and destruction of more than 860,000 private citrus trees was pointless. Even so, Bronson’s CCEP has already cost state and federal taxpayers more than $1 billion and exposed the state to potentially a billion more dollars in legal liability over seizure of private property.

“I hear from people every day who were run over by this process and they are furious,” Copeland said. “They want real leadership that will fight for them in Tallahassee and I intend to contact them and let them know someone in this race is on their side.”

Despite a staggering cost and untold liability, the Florida CCEP has never been audited. Earlier this year, Copeland called on legislators to audit the failed program. Despite the request, the Legislature took no action to investigate the program, it’s funding or safeguard taxpayers from a similar boondoggle in the future.

“Every scientist who has looked at canker agrees it does not kill trees, damage fruit or harm people,” Copeland said. “But Bronson decided to put program that was designed to fail ahead of the private property rights of Floridians and rights of taxpayers.”

Copeland is a lawyer and taxpayer advocate from Coral Gables who is unopposed for the Democratic nomination and will face Commissioner Bronson in November.