Amendment 4: billion-dollar boondoggle?

Opponents of Amendment 4, such as Florida Chamber of Commerce's President & CEO Mark Wilson, are fond of saying, “If you like the recession, you'll love Amendment 4.”

That's the controversial state constitutional amendment on the Nov. 4 ballot that would require citizens to vote on all amendments to city and county comprehensive plans — everything from minor, technical amendments (some say typos too because nothing is excluded by the ballot language's wording) to whole new plans of enormous detail and complexity.

Unfortunately, a lame financial impact statement prepared by the state as required for proposed constitutional amendments only states that Amendment 4's impacts on local government expenses “cannot be estimated precisely,” and that “Local governments will incur additional costs due to the requirement to conduct referenda ....”