- March 28, 2024
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It's easy to spend $295 million when it's not yours.
In the latest installment of a wide-ranging audit of Lee County's land purchases, Lee County Clerk of Court Charlie Green detailed instances when government overpaid for conservation land despite the real estate bust.
It's a public-relations pickle for the environmental lobby and self-styled “green” politicians who support the Lee County land-buying program, known as Conservation 20/20.
Of course, one would have to be naïve to think that the government spends money as carefully as individual taxpayers. Problem is, we're not talking small change here.
So far, Lee County has spent $295 million of taxpayer money to buy just 24,039 acres for conservation. That's a lot of cash for land that in many cases can't be developed at all. You could build three Red Sox spring-training stadiums with that sum.
But even as the real estate bust took hold, Lee County paid higher prices for land than it did in the years leading up to and into the boom, Green's audit revealed. (The county's response is that it bought costlier land with entitlements within municipal boundaries, a fact that raises more questions.)
From 1997 to 2005, Lee County's 20/20 program paid $7,247 per acre. From 2006 to the present, the county paid $16,978 per acre, or more than double, despite values plummeting. Of the total paid for conservation land, 72% was spent since 2006, a time when the county could have picked up land for much less money.