More Than 1700 Floridians Urge State Leaders to Save the Lawton Chiles Endowment Fund
Jan 13, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: media@CIVICconcern.org
Tallahassee, Florida (January 13, 2009) – More than 1700 Floridians signed a petition with their names, addresses and emails urging legislative leaders to avoid tapping the funds in the Lawton Chiles Endowment Fund.
The signatures were entirely the result of electronic grassroots organizing and were garnered in less than six days.
The petition was addressed to Governor Charlie Crist, Senate President Jeff Atwater, and House Speaker Ray Sansom, and the text read:
"The undersigned 1767 Floridians urge you to preserve the Lawton Chiles Endowment Fund and avoid using its assets to address the current budget shortfall.
The Lawton Chiles Endowment Fund provides critical recurring funding for services to Florida's most vulnerable citizens, children and the elderly. Especially now in these hard times, we cannot afford to cripple the fund and endanger those it serves. Selling the fund's assets now at dramatic losses would make it almost impossible for the fund to survive.
Florida needs long-term solutions to the budget crisis, not shortsighted stop-gap measures. Please consider alternatives like eliminating special-interest sales tax exemptions and increasing the cigarette tax to the national average."
CIVIC Concern is a non-profit, non-partisan policy incubator, legislative watchdog, and advocate for public policy that benefits ordinary Floridians. For more information, please visit our website at www.CIVICconcern.org.