In the heart of our community, preventing awful development on OLF 8 will take nothing short of an organized, political campaign with all the signs, sign waving events, T-shirts and public action that a campaign requires. I am giving it my last ounce of energy and my faithful cohorts are, too, but we need you. If you care about Beulah, do it not just for us, but for the next generations.

Maybe you are wondering why our own District 1 commissioner is selling us out to DR Horton. Take a look at his campaign contributions at myflorida.com. His contributors largely are the usual downtown money men whose families have controlled what happens here for a century or more. Three different confidential sources have told me that DR Horton hired a lobbyist to lean on the commissioners hard, to go from one to the other putting the pressure on commissioners to go with Horton. The name they use is Jayer Williamson, a former state representative, and he is one of the recent $1,000 donors.

So it is no surprise when Bergosh talks about OLF 8 that his talking points rarely stray to the exciting potential for Beulah residents. We are part of the "compromise" he made while holding his nose. The consistent points he hits are the steak and wine for him, that this is a county project, that he wants jobs on lots of light industrial - even though the current market will bring big trucks and low-paying warehouse jobs soon to be automated. He reminds us that he never wanted ANY residential on OLF 8, then swallows and pushes a plan with MUCH MORE RESIDENTIAL, the DR Horton/Stirling Properties two-week mock up done without any public participation.

The DPZ plan we helped to shape with 860 surveys has much less residential. It was the BCC's promise to us, to Navy Federal and to the rest of the business community. With its design code, it is our only defense against the outdated strip shopping parading as a town center that Stirling proposes and tract home development like DR Horton has already built throughout Beulah.