Screenshot of ad to hire people to protest FL plan for water management.

[madfloridian]

The screenshot was posted by the Broward Palm Beach New Times

Tea Party activists are encouraging people to "stop the land grab" — meaning stop the state from buying 46,000 acres of land south of Lake Okeechobee that environmentalists say would be critical to cleaning up the Everglades. Tea partiers held a protest yesterday at the South Florida Water Management District's West Palm Beach office — but now screen grabs seem to reveal that the group hired actors to pose as protestors.

A screen grab provided by Progress Florida seems to suggest that a Fort Lauderdale realtor named Karen Donohue posted an ad to the Broward Acting Group, offering $75 for people who would hold signs and pose as protestors.

Sugar companies that operate on the north side of Lake Okeechobee discharge massive amounts of phosphorous from fertilizer into the lake, which has thus become horribly polluted. During the rainy season, the water gets high and threatens to break the dam and flood the surrounding area, so water managers must divert that dirty water east through the St Lucie River and west through the Caloosahatachee. Last year, horribly polluted water killed dolphins and fish all along the rivers to both coasts, destroying local fishing and tourism economies and lowering property values.

If the state were to buy the land south of the lake, scientists say, water could go south and the plants there would naturally filter out pollution. Environmentalists have eyed this land for decades. The state now has until October to purchase the land or the deal expires. This year, conservationists were especially optimistic that a deal would go through because last November, voters passed Amendment One which specifies that money from the documentary stamp tax — a few dollars charged when courts process paperwork lie deeds and mortgage documents — would be used for conservation.

But now, those monies are being hijacked, say the people who campaigned for Amendment One.

More on this from the Palm Beach Post.

‘Tea party’ protest against proposed land deal mostly actors


Protestors chant, "Stop the waste", during a rally against the buying land from U.S. Sugar south of Lake Okeechobee on April 2, 2015 at the South Florida Water Management headquarters in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Brianna Soukup / Palm Beach Post)

More than 50 actors from a Broward County acting group were paid $75 each to protest outside the South Florida Water Management District on Thursday about a controversial land deal they knew little about.

The protest was called by the Tea Party of Miami and Florida Citizens Against Waste, a recently formed group that has no contact information on its website and is not registered to do business in Florida.

[madfloridian]

1. Voted for and supported Amendment One. Where's the money going?

It's almost like the amendment never passed.

[BrotherIvan]

2. Busted

[MisterP]

3. NO BREAKFAST--that should become like the motto for any astroturfing ...

[Omaha Steve]

4. Happens all the time (for tea party rallies including Morans)

I never got paid for any of the many rallies I've been to.

K&R!

[madfloridian]

12. If they had as many members as they claim..wouldn't need to hire actors.

[Baitball Blogger]

5. Where's the surprise?

Money corrupted the government process a long time ago.

[madfloridian]

6. No surprise. Just good to see it done out in the open so blatantly.

[TBF]

7. That's for sure -

I've noticed how blatant they've all become now that they have all the money (the owners that is - they are not nearly as confused about what they are doing as the teabaggers are).

[Eleanors38]

10. Two words for this...

No Opposition.

[midnight]

8. Good information.

[JDPriestly]

9. Does anyone recognize any of the "protestors"?

Might be interesting to get their real opinions on this. How many are real protestors? How many are actors? I'd like to know what they have to say. I wonder whether someone could interview some of them for a TV program or maybe on Democracy Now. Some of them may be real protestors, some not. This could be very interesting.

[Eleanors38]

11. Good point. Think Gore v. Bush, 2000. FL has done this shit for years. They can bully.

[madfloridian]

14. This picture comes to mind. Never forget the names.

[erronis]

13. Amazing what people will do for $75

Probably since they can't earn a sustainable wage in real work.

What was the slogan back when - "Keep dem folks poor and uneducated".

[madfloridian]

15. And these hired protesters have no idea what they pretend to protest.

[Bluenorthwest]

17. The ad says it is a 'shoot' not a protest, and in her illiterate right wing way, tried to employ the

professional jargon associated with the hiring of extras for film shoots. The participants were deceived. They were also stupid, but that's no crime.

[hay rick]

16. A recently formed group...

A group of environmental activists, including yours truly, showed up at the South Florida Water Management District's Board of Governors meeting on March 12. Our protest included a "death mermaid" and specially minted $ugar bucks.
[link:https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=716623075122264&set=gm.1463654453856989&type=1|]

From the front page PB Post article the next day:

The mermaid of death, the man flashing phony $100 bills with Gov. Rick Scott’s picture and “$UGAR” on them and a chorus of environmental activists chanting “No purchase, no peace” made for some first-rate political theater at the South Florida Water Management District headquarters Thursday.

But the displays, along with hours of passionate public comments, failed to persuade water managers to take action on a proposal to spend up to $500 million to buy 46,800 acres of U.S. Sugar land south of Lake Okeechobee to create a reservoir. The Everglades Foundation and other advocates say storing water there would reduce harmful discharges into the St. Lucie Estuary and the Caloosahatchee River.
...

Before the board’s Thursday meeting, about 70 sign-waving, costume-wearing, slogan-chanting demonstrators stood outside district headquarters west of West Palm Beach calling for the purchase. Linda Curtiss of Stuart turned the most heads with a black and white mermaid skeleton costume and matching face paint to dramatize the effects of lake discharges on marine life in the St. Lucie Estuary.

Two days later, stopthelandgrab.org was registered. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Unfortunately for them, they left their tracks all over Facebook and their astroturfing turned into a PR nightmare. Their protest also earned a front page, above the fold article in the Post under the headline "Land-buy 'protest' is staffed by actors." Hoist by their own petard.

[madfloridian]

18. When we passed Amendment 1, didn't it include buying these lands?

I thought that is what we were voting for. BTW thanks for being there in support of the "land-grab". They are so skilled at turning the terminology back on us aren't they?