DeSantis says Florida will go 'back to the drawing board' on state park plan

WINTER HAVEN, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis broke his days of silence Wednesday on the controversy that has erupted over his administration’s plans to build golf courses, pickleball courts, hotels and more on Florida state parks, saying the state will go “back to the drawing board” on the idea.

Since they were revealed last week, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s proposals have struck a nerve in the state, sparking widespread condemnation from Republican and Democratic politicians alike plus days of protests by outraged Floridians across the state. Artists created “Keep Florida State Parks Wild” graphics that ricocheted around social media. Musicians wrote songs of protest.

DeSantis held a lengthy and unrelated news conference in Winter Haven, during which he and law enforcement officials touted Florida’s hard-line policies on drugs, policing and immigration. No new policy was announced.

When he was asked about the state park proposals by reporters afterward, DeSantis distanced himself from the plans.

“It was not approved by me, I never saw that,” he said. DeSantis said the plans were leaked “to a very left-wing group” while they were still “half-baked.”

The Department of Environmental Protection posted the plans on their website as well as on social media, and officials were slated to hold public meetings about them this week before those were canceled.

“We’re not going to take away any greenspace,” DeSantis said. “If we do nothing, then that’s fine with me.”

Nothing more on the plans will happen for the rest of the year, the governor added, saying officials would “go back and listen to folks.”

His comments reversed the stance his administration took last week when the blowback first began, and the environmental agency posted justifications for the plans on social media. DeSantis spokesperson Jeremy Redfern last Thursday cited Teddy Roosevelt in a statement that defended the initiative, saying “it’s high time we made public lands more accessible to the public.”

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from South Florida, posted on the social media site X that there needs to be further investigation into the scuttled proposals.

“Together, we all stopped DeSantis from bulldozing and paving our state parks. Now he acts clueless,” she wrote. “We need DeSantis to release all records on this greedy land grab, plus an IG (inspector general) investigation into who really backed it.”

DeSantis confirmed Wednesday the involvement of a national veterans nonprofit called Folds of Honor, which holds golf tournaments to raise money for scholarships for the families of killed or disabled service members or first responders. Folds of Honor had previously pitched state and local officials on building a golf course in Jonathan Dickinson State Park a year ago, but those officials advised them against it.

DeSantis said the group had a proposal to convert an abandoned military base within the Martin County state park into a golf course and the proceeds would help fund the charity’s scholarships. But because of the controversy, that group has withdrawn its proposal and now may refurbish an old golf course in the state instead, he said.

DeSantis met with the group’s leader, Lt. Col. Dan Rooney, on April 10, his schedule shows. They discussed the charity’s plans in Florida for a course to honor the Tuskegee Airmen, he said.

“Not gonna happen at the Camp Murphy site in Jonathan Dickinson,” DeSantis said, adding that “the state was not going to give any money” to the golf course.

At the news conference, a Times reporter asked the governor about his June vote for a land swap that would grant 324 acres of Withlacoochee State Forest land to a golf course company called Cabot Citrus OpCo LLC. That deal was separate from the Department of Environmental Protection’s initiative. It was added to the Florida Cabinet’s agenda at the last-minute through a mechanism typically used for natural disasters or other extenuating circumstances.

DeSantis said that swap would bolster the state’s conservation efforts. If that deal gets final approval from a council within the Department of Environmental Protection, the state would get 861 acres of timberland in rural Levy County in exchange for the Hernando forest acreage.

“We were getting better conservation land ... and we gave them less-desirable land,” DeSantis said.

Not everyone agrees.

Eric Draper, who served as the director of Florida’s state parks between 2017 and 2021, including under DeSantis, has said the swap was unusual and not carefully evaluated.

The land the state is giving up is part of a contiguous wildlife corridor, Draper said. In contrast, the land the company is offering in return is isolated from other conservation land, not on the state’s land acquisition wish list and not part of a wildlife corridor.

As for the initiative scrapped Wednesday, it would be unlike DeSantis to have such a proposal come out without his knowledge. DeSantis is well-known to have a tight grip on state agencies under his executive branch, so much so that his office has been found to review public records requests received by agencies before they are released to journalists.

State Sen. Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota, who had publicly opposed the plans, said the governor deserves credit for listening to the feedback from the public. Gruters heard plenty from his constituents via “lots and lots of calls, emails.”

“I think that they misjudged the public’s feelings on this one,” he said. “The governor ultimately is responsible for everything his agencies do, and he’s a very hands-on governor.”

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