As Florida’s soil and water boards face scrutiny, supporters stay hopeful about their future (2024)

Karen Heriot tended chickens for years. She said that made her eligible to serve on her local soil and water conservation district. But when code enforcers forced the chickens’ removal, she found a new way to meet eligibility requirements. She now grows citrus trees.

Heriot, a sixth-grade history teacher from Oviedo specializing in ancient civilization, won reelection this year to serve on her soil and water board in Seminole County — volunteer work that she has found fulfilling since 2018.

She acknowledges the district eligibility rules “are so squirrely: If you are preparing food, then you meet the qualifications (but) that can be a sous chef preparing a salad.”

As the Nov. 5 general election approaches, many candidates have run for elected, unpaid positions on boards for soil and water conservation districts across Florida.They’re vying to represent districts that in recent years have come under increased scrutiny in Florida.

In 2022, stricter membership qualifications were imposed for candidates. In January, a bill unsuccessfully tried to dismantle the districts statewide in favor of seven regional ones. Most recently, a consultant’s report concluded that there is still lots of room for improvement for districts to operate properly, and it also determined that two districts have been voluntarily dissolved.

But some candidates this election season say it’s a great opportunity to still serve on such soil and water boards. They say the work they provide is essential.

Jessie Bastos, of Davie, a candidate seeking a seat with Broward’s Soil and Water Conservation District, said she wants to be part of the crew of “competent and capable people … to come up with initiatives to encourage best management practices for agriculture, to be able to conserve water, to educate people on better irrigation practices.”

A legislative proposal

A state bill earlier this year, which called for adjusting the number of districts, didn’t pass — in favor of giving previous rules time to show change, said Hillsborough County Soil & Water Conservation District Executive Director Joe Walsh. Walsh is a paid staff member who handles his duties as part of his county government position.

The item is anticipated to come back in 2025, Walsh said, because “the assumptions are you get more professional execution of the mission by having dedicated staff.”

His district in Hillsborough, which includes cattlemen and strawberry growers, is considered a “minority among all of the conservation districts to have that kind of stability” because there are paid staff members, he said. (Broward County’s district, for example, does not have paid staff or an executive director.)

In the meantime, a consultant has examined districts and readied reports for the Florida Legislature’s Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, and one of those reports was recently released in August. There are a total of 53 districts, 49 of them independent. The consultant found that of Florida’s 49 independent districts, 45 of them “lacked performance goals, objectives, performance measures, and performance standards.”

Pushing for improvements

The purpose of the districts statewide is “to provide assistance, guidance, and education to landowners, land occupiers, the agricultural industry, and the general public in implementing land and water resource protection practices,” according to state law.

The consultant’s report suggested improved meeting notice procedures and records retention, as well as better working with elections supervisors to ensure candidates are eligible to serve based on residency and agricultural experience requirements.The report identified key areas that were oriented around improvement: Ensuring districts have better service delivery, better budgeting and financial reporting, and better performance management.

Most of the districts didn’t provide proper notice about meetings, and more than half didn’t maintain proper records, a report concluded.

Among those examined were the districts in South Florida, where it was determined that the Palm Beach Soil & Water Conservation District “does not have a strategic plan or written goals and objectives,” an analysis showed.

Laura Bloom, the director for the Palm Beach County district, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that her district is working on that, and it’s now a requirement for all special districts by state law.

Among her district’s work: Free irrigation evaluation and improvements for farmers and nursery growers, and coordinating classroom programs for water conservation and wetlands education. Last year it reached 600 high school students, sent them on field trips to Mounts Botanical Garden and taught them to read a dichotomous key, which is a chart to discover the kind of animal they discovered.

The consultant’s report may have scrutinized various districts. “But there are a good dozen or more that are like us, and they are running many programs and doing a lot of good out there,” Bloom said.

In its review for Broward, the consultant similarly concluded the Broward Soil & Water Conservation District “does not have a strategic plan in place as the District does not provide services.”

Fred Segal, an elected and unpaid volunteer as chair of the Broward Soil & Water Conservation District, told the Sun Sentinel that “we are absolutely in the process of establishing a strategic plan.”

He said the group gets no funding and without money “it’s difficult for us to provide services.”

Still, it provides education programs and refers people to the proper agencies for specific issues, such as to the right state or federal agency for grants to help an agricultural business be sustainable, he said.

Members feel so passionately about their service that the funding to attend conferences or travel to Tallahassee to meet with legislators “is on our own dime, out of our pockets,” he said.

‘A good service’

David Ramba is the executive director of the Florida Association of Special Districts, an organization that has a board of directors and encompasses 400 special districts including fire districts, water districts, hospital districts and mosquito districts.

The findings in the consultant’s report could be seen as giving fuel to the call to abolish or modify districts, but Ramba argues in favor of keeping the districts, which were created by the Florida Legislature in 1937. “Some provide a good service” and “offer useful services,” while “some have outlived their usefulness,” Ramba said.

According to the consultant’s performance review, two districts (Lafayette County and Lake County) voluntarily voted to dissolve, and one district (Santa Fe) in Columbia County inquired about voluntary dissolution.

Segal, who also is president of the Broward County Farm Bureau and owns and breeds horses, said the current system should stay in place.In Broward over the years, the district has completed sea oats planting on the beach to preserve the dunes, and run educational programs on conservation and where the water supply comes from, and all completed “without taxpayer support,” Segal said.

Seeking office

This election season, there have been many contests for the districts in Florida, amid a stricter qualifying criteria.

In 2022 in Florida, new rules were passed requiring members to live in their district and be “actively engaged, or retired after ten years of being engaged in, agriculture.”The idea to meet qualifications is: “Are you raising chickens, eggs, vegetables, fruit?” Walsh said.

Heriot, the history teacher from Oviedo, has served on her district’s board in Seminole County since 2018. There won’t be a soil and water district race in November because no one filed against the incumbents. Heriot was one of the three people who automatically won.

For years Heriot saidshe met the agricultural requirements to serve because she helped tend to her son’s garden in Deltona and his 40 young chickens. “I’m the chickens’ grandma,” she joked. But after code enforcement forced her son to remove them, she planted citrus trees this past winter with the intent to donate the crop once they bear fruit, she said.

She said she feels the rules should be expanded to allow environmentalists to serve. “We don’t want political opportunists, those are the people we don’t want, they are fly by night.”

She’s glad she’s able to serve. Among Heriot’s district’s accomplishments: pushing to secure federal grants to help ranchers get clean water for their cows, she said.

Meeting requirements

Candidates for soil and water conservation districts have to swear with a notary stamp that they meet the qualifications. State law requires members to be involved in the practice of soil or water conservation, or “engaged in agriculture or an occupation related to the agricultural industry for at least five years at the time of their appointment.”

Some candidates’ qualifications have at times come under review.

One instance of vetting candidates came in a letter Aug. 30 to the executive director of the Hillsborough Soil & Water Conservation District. One member resigned after being told he didn’t meet the current qualifications. He apologized for the misunderstanding in a letter, saying he thought he qualified because of his “family animal hospital” where his wife works as a veterinarian providing “medical treatment to bovine and equestrian owners at their ranches and farms.”

The candidate’s qualifications via the spouse “was like playing six degrees to Kevin Bacon,” Walsh figured. But Walsh said the official had integrity amid the misunderstanding: He was “flabbergasted and immediately tendered his resignation.”

Upcoming election in Broward

The Nov. 5 general election features an opening this year to serve on Broward’s Soil and Water Conservation District.

Already, the district drew several candidates who ran unopposed ahead of the November election. That includes Robert Sutton, who’ll serve Group 2 for the district.

Sutton, a high school teacher, said his qualifications include growing pineapples, cherries, dragon fruit, star fruit, mangos, figs, and guava, and grew up on a “property that grew blueberries, rhubarb, pears, apples, grapes, strawberries, blackberries, tomatoes, potatoes, and more.”

“We, the people, should be involved in our local government,” Sutton said. “You got to walk the walk and talk the talk. Step up and be involved.”

As a brand new incoming member, he said his goals are to work to keep the “Everglades and ocean as pristine as possible and all parts in between” and encourage people to grow their own food to combat inflation.

Another member who won automatically was Celeste Ellich, a real estate agent who ran unopposed for Group 3. She said she meets the qualifications because her giant mango tree gives off “thousands” of mangoes each year that she bags and gives away “as fast as I can every day.”

Sometimes the day’s take is so prolific that “I give them to random people. I take them everywhere I go. My attorney, I hang them on his fence.”

As Florida’s soil and water boards face scrutiny, supporters stay hopeful about their future (1)

If iguanas get to the fruit first, they eat the mango and leave behind the pit, which overnight seems to sprout into a baby tree “close to a foot high” and she gives those away, too. “This morning there were four,” she said. “Everyone knows me as the mango lady.”

She said she wanted to join the board because “I’m an environmentalist” and if voters “get the right people, we can get stuff done.” She said she wants to push for conservation, and encourage people to grow their own food.

“There’s something rewarding being able to eat something you’ve grown,” she said.

As Florida’s soil and water boards face scrutiny, supporters stay hopeful about their future (2)

In addition, there is an election for a seat: Jessie Bastos qualified because she is the chair of the Town of Davie’s Agricultural Advisory Committee, Board member of the UF/IFAS Urban Horticulture Advisory Committee and Board Member of the Davie Area Land Trust. She is running as the incumbent for Group 4. Bastos was appointed to fill the empty seat in January 2023.

Bastos works in technology sales, and as a Davie resident, grows and donates fruit and vegetables to food pantries. She also teaches gardening workshops for the town.

Bastos is being challenged by Mark Pilling, who couldn’t be reached for comment.

Lisa J. Huriash can be reached at lhuriash@sunsentinel.com. Follow on X, formerly Twitter, @LisaHuriash

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As Florida’s soil and water boards face scrutiny, supporters stay hopeful about their future (2024)
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