Meet Vin Marchetti

Via Stoogie: Hillsborough County commissioner Al Higginbotham used land use attorney Vin Marchetti. The latter has hosted a fundraiser for commissioner Ken Hagan. Creative Loafing detailed how Marchetti's (paid for) political ties to the BOCC allowed him to go around the Planning & Growth Management.

He encountered push back from county staff from the very beginning. He also knew that neighborhood residents were dead-set against it, so he had no citizen support. But things like that are only side issues to Marchetti. The Planning & Growth Management (PGM) planner assigned to the case, Susan Mariner, thought it was not compatible. She got shut out of the meetings as Marchetti dealt directly with PGM management. In the end, Mariner refused to sign off supporting it, so Marchetti got her boss to sign off. What he didn’t give enough credence to was the determination and energy of the neighborhood residents, led by Deborah Humphreys and Lynea D’Angelo. They contacted the press, ran extensive letter writing campaigns, held traffic rallies along Lithia Pinecrest, posted signs and made sure they filled county center to overflow capacity during the rezoning hearing and the BOCC land use meeting.

Marchetti thought he could rely on his Team Sprawl associates to bail him out of this difficult scenario. He made subtle threats to the commission that he’d see them in court if they didn’t approve it. He gave both the Zoning Hearing Master and the BOCC copies of case law. He lectured the ZHM that he can’t use “need” as a criteria for determining whether or not to recommend approval (because, obviously, there was no need and everyone knew it). One of his land use attorney friends even lectured the rezoning opponents just before the start of the hearing at county center, saying that if they didn’t agree to this rezoning, they would end up with Section 8 housing in their neighborhood.

So in effect, Marchetti relied on a number of tried and true tactics for winning – intimidation, escalation and political connection.

Hillsborough County Commission Chairman Al Higginbotham thought it would be a great idea if Marchetti interview potential members of the city-county planning commission. Short version: Higginbotham is letting Marchetti pick the people who would regulate land use issues. As if Marchetti did have enough sway over Hillsborough County government.

Jan Platt explains why Marchetti picking members of the city-county planning commission is a glaring conflict of interest.

"It's entirely inappropriate," said former county commissioner Jan Platt. "The law provides that the commissioner makes the appointment; it's not intended that developers -- a single developer or a committee -- makes recommendations to elected officials."

Jan Smith, former chair of the planning commission, agreed. She said choosing Marchetti to interview planning commission candidates shows Higginbotham is trying to "stack the deck in favor of development interests.

"It concerns me that you have someone who is such a well-known land-use attorney making recommendations to county commissioners as to who the planning commissioners should be," Smith said.

It is too much for Florida Republicans to even maintain the false pretense that they are not lackeys of developers. Republicans are just doing this in the open. This is what happens when Democrats can't win elections.