Green on green

As the Lee County Clerk of Court, Charlie Green challenged the amount of taxpayer money the county was spending on conservation land during the real estate bust.

Green spearheaded the scathing audits last year of a multimillion-dollar spending program called Conservation 20/20. The audits conducted by the clerk's office revealed that the county spent more money per acre buying conservation land during the bust when the market was dead than it did during the years leading up to and into the real estate boom.

Some election observers speculated that the audits led to the defeat of longtime Lee County Commissioner Ray Judah, an outspoken supporter of Conservation 20/20 even after the audits were published.