| RIPTIDE | ▼ FLORIDA WIDE OPEN SPACES I THE FLORIDA WILDLIFE CORRIDOR ITSELF IS ENDANGERED. BY JOSHUA CEBALLOS f Florida’s natural environment is a board game, creating the Florida Wildlife Corridor is how you win: Connect its disparate pieces to form a contiguous pathway so na- tive animals like panthers and black bears can move from one end of the state to the other. Passed in July of 2021, the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act mandated that the state “create incentives for conser- vation and sustainable development while sustaining and conserving the green infrastructure that is the foun- dation of this state’s economy and quality of life.” The goal is to preserve 18 million acres of undeveloped land so native animals and water can migrate unim- peded, even as Florida’s human popu- lation continues to expand. But the legislation itself is somewhat symbolic in that the animals will pay the penalty if the humans don’t uphold the law. “It helps to inspire folks,” sums up Jason Lauritsen, chief conservation officer of the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation. “Now there’s this unifying vision that so people can recognize that work done in the Panhandle prioritizes a connected system that goes down Florida Bay. “ In the past year, Lauritsen says, 35,000 acres were preserved within the corridor, bringing the total amount of conserved GET MORE NEWS & COMMENTARY AT MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/NEWS ▼ MIAMI SLAP ON THE WRIST T 4 STATE ATTORNEY DROPS STEAKHOUSE BATTERY CASE AGAINST CJ GIMENEZ. BY JOSHUA CEBALLOS he Miami-Dade County State Attorney’s Office has dropped its simple battery case against Carlos “CJ” Gimenez. Gimenez, the son of U.S. Rep. Carlos A. Gimé- nez, was arrested February 9 at a Coral Gables steakhouse after allegedly striking City of Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who was sitting at a table outside the restaurant. This latest development comes less than two weeks after New Times reported on the exis- tence of a Coral Gables Police Department (CGPD) video that showed a City of Miami Police Department (MPD) officer attempting to take Gimenez into custody, even though Coral Gables already held Gimenez. After the alleged slap outside Morton’s steakhouse, Gimenez exchanged words with Diaz de la Portilla’s sergeant at arms, MPD One of two 2-year-old Florida panthers that were released into the wild on April 3, 2013. so there’s demand for more homes, more water supply, more commercial areas,” Lauritsen notes. “The challenge is: How do we design, develop, and zone communities responsibly? It’s an immediate and pressing need to plan development with the corri- dor in mind.” In South Florida, much of the remaining Everglades is already preserved, but there are gaps be- tween critical areas like Big Cy- press National Preserve west of Fort Lauderdale and Caloosa- hatchee Regional Park northeast of Fort Myers. Those protected areas are connected by private land the foundation considers “critical linkages” that will have to be protected in order to make the corridor a reality. To get Florida residents more Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images lands to about 10 million of the targeted 18 million acres. That said, conservation will have to speed up significantly in order to reach the state’s environmental goals and protect Florida’s natural treasures. “We need to accelerate the pace of our conservation,” Lauritsen asserts. “By 2030, we feel like we need to conserve another 900,000 acres. That’s a big number. That means we’ll need to take more than 100,000 acres a year in conservation.” Meeting that goal will require local gov- ernments, conservationists, and the State of detective Stanley Paul-Noel. Video from outside the restaurant showed the encounter ending with Paul-Noel throwing Gimenez to the ground. CGPD officers soon arrived on the scene, arrested Gimenez, and took him to police headquarters. CGPD public information officer Kelly Den- ham confirmed that footage captured at police headquarters showed an MPD officer entering Gimenez’s cell, handcuffing him, and walking him out, only to return Gimenez to his cell after a brief phone conversation. “We appreciate the state attorney’s acknowl- edgment of what we suggested from day one: that this matter should not be pursued,” Michael Band, Gimenez’s attorney, tells New Times. “Among the twists and turns of this tortured jour- ney, MPD sought to take custody of Gimenez from CGPD — to what end I could only hazard a guess. That didn’t happen because of [CGPD] Chief [Ed] Hudak’s intervention and I appreciate that.” The strange circumstances around the at- tempted extradition, along with Gimenez’s over- night stint at the Turner Guilford Knight Florida to get creative about filling holes in the corridor. That might mean a local parks department acquiring more acreage for an environmental park or the foundation negoti- ating with farmers and ranchers to leave some portions of their fields open and unde- veloped for wild animals to move through. Given Florida’s increasing population, Lau- ritsen says, preserving the corridor sometimes requires speaking with real estate developers and persuading them to design projects in a way that allows for open green space for wild- life, as opposed to isolated patches of grass. “So many people are moving to the state, detention center (TGK), raised questions about how the case was handled. “In the vast majority of these cases, the of- “I AM DISTURBED THAT THE STATE ATTORNEY HAS RUN AWAY FROM HER RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT CRIME VICTIMS.” fender would be issued a notice to appear before a judge, but my client spent 18 hours in custody at TGK,” Band ex- plains. “It’s unfortu- nate that perhaps what was exhibited in my opinion is that political figures in the city might hold some sway in the criminal justice system, which is troubling.” Reached by New Times via text on Tuesday, Diaz de la Portilla responded, “You’re a joke.” Pressed to respond in reference to the allegations that politics played a role in Gimenez’s arrest, the commissioner doubled down. “You are still a joke and not a real journalist. Everyone knows that. I only respond to credible people,” he texted. Hours later, the commissioner, who’d involved in conservation across the state, environmental advo- cates founded the nonprofit LiveWildly Foundation earlier this summer. The founda- tion manages a website, LiveWildly.com, where Floridians — including urban residents in Miami who aren’t familiar with state for- ests or parks — can use interactive maps to explore the Florida Wildlife Corridor and, ideally, follow that up in real life and contrib- ute to the state’s conservation efforts. “What I’d like folks to do is get out there and appreciate the rest of wild Florida they might not know. A lot of people that live in ur- ban footprint aren’t aware of how amazing and wild these places are,” Lauritsen says. described the slap as “cowardly” and “more like a flick of his wrist” on the day of the incident, sent a more detailed comment. “As the Victim of an unprovoked criminal at- tack in broad daylight, I am disturbed that the State Attorney has run away from her responsi- bility to protect crime victims. Obviously, she bowed to the demands of a high-ranking public official to protect daddy’s little boy,” de la Portilla wrote. “This result is all too common in a politi- cized criminal court system in which pay-to-play takes a front seat, while justice and protection of the innocent is all but forgotten. This is a trou- bling indication of the State Attorney’s priorities. We must demand more accountability from our too-timid prosecutor.” Meanwhile, Detective Stanley Paul Noel, Diaz de la Portilla’s sergeant at arms, remains under investigation by MPD’s Internal Affairs unit fol- lowing a civilian complaint that Diaz de la Portilla and Paul-Noel conspired to “kidnap” Gimenez from Coral Gables. [email protected] 3 miaminewtimes.com | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | MIAMI NEW TIMES MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 AUGUST 11-17, 2022 NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com
