Quote:
Originally Posted by bimmertl
This thread meets the text book definition of "beating a dead horse".
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It is running on a bit long, but frankly, I don't think this horse is dead until we find out which self serving person or persons did this and make them pay, rather than making those of us citizens who had nothing at all to do with the cutting of the trees pay. Those who did this would love for us to declare this horse's demise.
A violation was committed, and the District had an obligation to ensure that one would not be committed. Thus they were fined and had to pay to repair the violation. I don't see any other choice that the District would have. If they don't pay a levied fine in a timely manner then that fine gets increased, and they would then be denied the ability to be assigned protection of environmentally sensitive areas in the future. It's the district's responsibility to protect the protected environment. They didn't. They got fined.
Law enforcement, with the cooperation of the local prosecutor, could find out who was responsible, and the district, through legal means, could recover the cost of the fine and repair, and should. For the life of me, I don't see how the Developer or the Developer's marketing strategy could be considered a serious suspect, either in the cutting of the trees, or the inability to determine who cut the trees. I just don't think that wrongly cutting down some trees, as bad as it is, is going to stop the sale of new homes. If the Developer had the clout to stop this investigation, we would have never in the past heard about the sex on the squares or the cases of drunken vehicle violations, which in my opinion are far more detrimental to the community image.
I think we all know who the prime suspects are in this caper, and I'm at a loss to know why we can't pursue this from a law enforcement and legal standpoint, and provide a just solution, meaning the perpetrators pay and we as innocent and law abiding citizens of The Villages don't.