I stand corrected. I do remember several lawsuits filed against the county earlier by BFO’s pertaining to the earlier customary use ordinance. But I’m sure I’m going get an assful of slings and arrows for not having my legalese in order.
Thanks for owning that. That is the problem, this cycle of jumping on and accepting erroneous beliefs at face value, because it fits an agenda, regardless if it is factual or based on the law or not; that incites others with the same agenda to perpetuate the erroneous beliefs as fact but is an illusion of fact, and the next thing you know lies about local celebrities stole public beach for $400 with quiet title judgments [quiet title has been between two private property owners, never public property, and a judge quieted the title based on the facts/evidence] or single handedly got a FL bill passed, or Walton beaches were all public use until HB631 “privatized” all of “our public” privately owned beaches, and the internet slide from a known “bizarre” CU activist proved the belief. Then the anti-social media jumps on the band wagon, partisan polls show might makes right, and “progressive” news channels echo the erroneous belief that fit the agenda and increases hits, which continues the vicious cycle of repeating over and over again an erroneous belief, that regardless if the belief is lawful or not, tax payers end up spending millions of dollars to litigate the belief, may get nothing in return except the Defendants legal fees, and a whole lot of finger pointing, anger, and ill will that may damage SoWal community for a long time. The premise of this thread.
Regardless of who prevails in court the public demand to enjoy a beach grows but the Walton beach supply governments and private citizens own is fixed. No one will take care of the real property beaches better than an private property owner with an economic interest in the property. Not the public and not the government and you can not ignore property owner’s Constitutional property rights because you don’t like that fact.
Supply and demand (and lack of enforcement) is a major cause of bad public beach behavior. Without managing the demand for beaches, because the supply is fixed, with education of acceptable behavior and respect for private property rights; demanding beachfront owners “compromise” by Commissioners not litigating against 4,600+ owners if they will trade their Constitutionally protected property rights for enforcing bad beach behavior, that is the responsibility of the Commissioners regardless of who owns or has rights to use private beaches, is misguided by a belief American property laws don’t matter polls do, and disingenuous at best.
Sad thing is many owners are willing to share, but not if you force them by litigation (and cost them money to protect their property rights) or social media shaming. That just make us BFOs mad and not want to share any more. Is the CU agenda making a mountain out of mole hill out of a belief in principle regardless of American law? What if BFOs property rights prevail in court? (1) Public education and (2) respect of property rights can change the current course of actions but not if you want to litigate in court and shame on social media. The elected Commissioners made the political decision to litigate instead of finding a political solution to the beach supply & demand problem and self proclaimed leadership of the CU agenda can change civil discourse and social media shaming if they try. It will take time and effort on the leadership’s part. We didn’t get to this point of community ill will overnight. Otherwise what’s for BFOs to compromise? BFOs are the Defendant with private property right they have had since 1776 and have today and have nothing to prove or compromise if they so choose.
