ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – Community members gathered Sunday morning at Elks Lodge in St. Augustine to celebrate the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s decision to withdraw all proposed changes to state parks that could have added hotels, golf courses and pickleball courts to the protected land.
Members of the Facebook group “Save Anastasia State Park” had initially planned to continue protesting against the proposed development called the “Great Outdoors Initiative.”
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However, the FDEP’s decision to pull the controversial plan Thursday did not stop the group from gathering again Sunday.
This time, the group celebrated the plan being withdrawn.
“We’re celebrating that our voices really made a collective difference when it comes to our state parks,” Stacey Strumpf said. “We protested. We wrote letters. We signed letters. We did all kinds of things last week. And the legislature listened and they pulled the plans back.”
The group told News4JAX they would also be writing thank you notes to the representatives who spoke out against the proposal.
The group is also using this time as an opportunity to remind others to stay vigilant and not let their guard down.
They said they plan to look at other areas of legislation that they believe puts state parks at risk.
“The plan moving forward is we’re going to have the entire community stay in the loop of what’s going on,” organizer Desiree Sanders said. “And just try to stay aware of the things that are happening and try to stop anything that’s happening under the radar that we don’t know about.”
Meanwhile, FDEP said it would revisit the proposed changes again next year. All scheduled meetings for the plan were also canceled.