By Jesse Phillips, Founder
Winter Springs Water Quality Initiative
If you care about the environment, you should be paying close attention to what’s happening with the Seahawk Cove development—and how our city is handling the $227,000 in tree mitigation fees.
Because what’s at stake here isn’t just a check. It’s the difference between performative politics and real environmental progress.
Like most cynical politicians, the mayor is framing the issue as a binary choice: either we take the money and let the project move forward as is, or we don’t take the money and let the project move forward as is.
Go back and re-read the last paragraph and notice what both options have in common. It’s the “as is” part.
The mayor’s current demagoguery is a desperate attempt to hide the fact he’s committed to letting the project move forward as is. This is what we expect from someone whose tenure includes DEP investigations, EPA violations, Consent Orders all related to his deplorable environmental track record.
Here’s what serious-minded environmentalists like me are asking: why isn’t an Option C on the table? If the mayor truly cared about the environment, he would try to use the leverage the city has to gain concessions so that the $227,000 actually results in tangible improvements to the environment for the project in question (i.e. things like expanded tree buffers, canopy restoration, etc).
But that’s not what we’re getting. We’re getting a project moving forward as is—and the Mayor is surrendering any leverage to change that.
Even worse, the Mayor’s approach could end up costing taxpayers morethan the $227,000 in question. Here’s the simple truth: the development is in progress and trees have already been cleared. But instead of being honest about that, the Mayor has misrepresented a poorly written agreement and falsely implied the city granted a waiver—none of which is true.
It’s a tactic to distract from his deplorable environmental record and shift blame elsewhere—when in reality, he’s the one pushing a deal that offers no environmental improvements and puts the city at legal and financial risk.
This is what I call “green-standing”—pandering to environmental concerns while actually hurting our ability to protect the environment.
This has become a pattern. We’ve seen it before—with the public storage facility on Tuscawilla. The Mayor had tools to influence the outcome but refused to use them. Instead, he let it go forward and later blamed the county. The result? A giant concrete box as a welcome mat to one of our most scenic neighborhoods.
And the pattern continues.
As an environmental advocate since 2019 when I formed the Water Quality Initiative, I have watched my own family suffer from the consequences of our city’s failing water system and its environmental damage. I’m tired of watching Mayor McCann play politics while denying our efforts at reform.
If he truly cared about the environment and not just environmental politics, he wouldn’t be abdicating his responsibilities to lead under home rule. He’d be using every bit of leverage we have and thinking through ways to tangibly mitigate the impact of these projects on our land.
Instead, we’re getting a performance. One that costs us real environmental gains in exchange for a political talking point.
“So Winter Springs—what’s the better approach?
A) Keep up the green-standing, dump the cash in the general fund, and let the project move forward unchanged?
B) Use our leverage to negotiate real environmental concessions and protect what we have left?
Text me your take. I’d genuinely love to know.
📱 407-492-4915 – Just shoot me “A” or “B.”