A letter to the Englewood REVIEW editor
By Michelle VanderHaar, Executive Director Lemon Bay Conservancy
At Lemon Bay Conservancy, we’ve seen what a community can do when it decides a place is worth saving. Our supporters have helped protect more than two dozen properties around Lemon Bay, one parcel at a time. But no one nonprofit can keep pace with the kind of growth happening in our community, and neither can the county. Conservation works when everyone has a hand in it: landowners, nonprofits, local government, and voters.
For more than 20 years, I helped private landowners manage and restore the natural land on their property. As a Private Lands Biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, I worked alongside ranchers, farmers, and families to restore wetlands, streams, grasslands, and coastal habitat on their property. That work taught me two things. Healthy land does a lot of work most of us never see, and protecting it takes partners who are willing to invest in it.
Start with the work the land does. A wetland is a sponge. In a storm, it holds rainwater and lets it go slowly, instead of sending it down the street and into someone’s living room. The marshes and woods along our creeks slow runoff and filter it before it reaches Lemon Bay, Gasparilla Sound, and Charlotte Harbor. After Ian, Helene, and Milton, no one here needs to be told what floodwater can do. Every acre of natural land that soaks up water is an acre that isn’t adding to the problem.
Our natural lands are disappearing fast. County planners counted about 5,500 new homes in just ten months, from April 2024 to February 2025, and they expect roughly 17,000 more by 2030. Every new subdivision paves over ground that used to absorb rain.
Twenty years ago, Charlotte County voters saw this coming. In 2006, they created Conservation Charlotte to buy and protect environmentally sensitive lands. Since then, it has protected more than 2,500 acres across five preserves. These preserves store floodwater, protect our drinking water sources and give birds and wildlife a space to thrive. They’re also places where any of us can take a walk and remember why we chose to live here: to be close to nature.
But the funding voters approved in 2006 runs out at the end of this year. Charlotte County Referendum 2 would renew it for another 20 years, so Conservation Charlotte can keep protecting land through 2046. It isn’t a new tax; it keeps the same rate we’ve paid for two decades. That’s why I’m asking Charlotte County voters to invest in our land, our water, and our future by voting ‘Yes, For Bonds.
Local money also opens the door to outside money. In my career, I helped secure several million dollars in grants and partner contributions for habitat projects. Nearly every funder asks the same question: is there money on the table at the local level? State agencies, federal programs, and private foundations want to invest where local communities have already shown they care. Conservation Charlotte is that local commitment. It’s our leverage to bring in outside dollars, so every local dollar goes further.
On this ballot, you’re the partner. Let’s renew our investment to our land, our water, the place we call home. Please vote “Yes, For Bonds” on County Referendum 2.
For more information about Lemon Bay Conservancy, click here.
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