the view from lake county
An Organic Farmer Tells a Cautionary Tale 

Hugh Kent, owner of King Grove Organic Farm, says he is deeply troubled by changes in the political and economic landscape in Lake County and Central Florida that are reversing the innovative land-use codes that so many local advocates worked so hard to put in place. “We were able to do some really good things with zoning before the recession,” he reports. “But at the beginning of the economic downturn, when people stopped hearing backup signals on earth moving equipment, they just forgot about what the rampant development was doing to the land around here.  Then some people gained traction with an absurd argument that it was the new codes that were stopping economic development – not the national recession.  They got people voted in who have now gone about the process of eviscerating all the good code that got written.   So it is pretty much gone. 

“We just keep supporting the same economic pattern,” he says. “…that is, enormous short-term personal gain for a small group of people, largely at the collective expense, and the expense of the future.”
“We went from this model people were holding up for the state, look what Eustis did, to a place where we elected city commissioners who went through and crossed out every reference in the code to anything “sustainable” or “green” because it was so offensive to them.  The guys who are sitting on cheap land for the next building uptick captured them.  It is happening on the state level as well, and by the time things heat up again they will be back to building the same incredible garbage we all know doesn’t work. We have watched it go on throughout the state but I am afraid that is what we are going back to.”

Indeed Hugh fears that Lake County is marching in the same direction as so many other places in Florida and across the country that “just aren’t worth caring about anymore.”
Above: The Changing Landscape of Lake County.

“We just keep supporting the same economic pattern,” he says. “…that is, enormous short-term personal gain for a small group of people, largely at the collective expense, and the expense of the future.”

Although he can cite many reasons to be pessimistic, Hugh has not given up hope that the regenerative vision he shares with more than a few like-minded people like Ken LaRoe in Lake County can be realized: “There are a lot of good people here in this county, even though it is in many ways a pretty regressive place,” he says.  “For me this is an exciting place to be, among those people trying to participate in the change.”



more on the view from lake county

Lake County Commissioner Welton Cadwell Reflects on an Economy in Transition

To begin our Lake County “story of place” we speak with Welton Cadwell, a 23-year veteran of the Lake County Board of Commissioners. Today, as Florida’s real estate market reheats and memories of a pre-recession era of unchecked development remain fresh, thoughtful Lake County community leaders like Cadwell are hoping to chart a balanced, managed growth course for the county that ensures that it adapts to systemic challenges in a way that secures its long-term health and well-being.

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US Green Chamber CEO Michelle Thatcher Crafts a Careful Outreach Strategy

Michelle Thatcher, CE0 and co-founder of the over 1000 member  U.S. Green Chamber of Commerce grew up in one of the “greenest” communities in Washington State.  Now based in the very different social and political climate of Central Florida, she has crafted an outreach program for the Green Chamber that is carefully tailored to a business community that may not always be initially receptive to its message.

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Economic Growth Director Robert Chandler’s Diversification Strategy 

Robert Chandler was the person who was going to leave Lake County where he grew up and never come back. But after a sojourn to North Carolina where he attended Davidson College, he married a Lake County native.  Although they initially settled in Orlando, they returned to Lake four years ago when Robert accepted a job as Lake County’s coordinator of economic development and tourism and in March 2015 was named the county’s first ever Director of Economic Growth.  Robert has never regretted the decision.  


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