Kay Thacker constantly advises the public about land use, and bemoans the Board of County Commissioner's so-called Gang of Three too often in this paper. Her repeated credentials include owning trailers, summering in Canada, hairdressing and being a concerned blond. I don't buy the cultural myth that blonds are inherently dumber than everybody else, or that saying, "Sorry, I'm blond," is a free pass to err, misinform and smear.

In contrast, I grew up in Marathon, graduated from Monroe County schools, received a management degree from Florida State, flew Air Force B-52s, received a law degree from Columbia and am a graying brunette. For three years, I sat on the county's Planning Commission, stepped down as chair, and a few years later consulted the county as well as private parties in land-use law; for the former mostly on local housing law, which touches, among others, zoning, tax, HUD and state programs, real estate, construction, and landlord-tenant law.

I take constitutionally promised private property rights seriously. They underpin fundamental privacy and expression rights we enjoy in this country. In "Capitalism and Freedom," Milton Friedman said, "[T]he preservation of freedom is the protective reason for limiting and decentralizing governmental power. But there is also a constructive reason. The great advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science or in literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government."

Friedman, with John Locke and others before and after Friedman, explained to some people's intellectual satisfaction the importance of private property ownership and free markets and enterprise. Americans must continuously guard the property rights "bundle" scholars have described against appropriation by the commune (or more commonly referred to these days and here, as the "community," as this latter term goes down easier). The number of those who demand, for whatever reason, that government take property from others usually is, if not always large, enthusiastic, loud and persistent.

I help people rebuff government attempts to take their property rights for the community's character, public morals, national security and what is called, simply, the general welfare. Because I truly think the deck is stacked in government's favor, for me, errant or temporary private party victories are, on balance, metaphysically better than they are bad for overall justice.

I genuinely feel that I am more competent to opine on Keys land-use planning matters than is Kay Thacker, except perhaps where the issue might be how she herself wants to use, enjoy or dispose of her own property. My beliefs, training and professional reputation allow me the liberty to pursue only causes for clients whose attitudes and philosophy, though not necessarily the same as mine, are acceptably compatible with them. I never recall arguing for anything I believed to be bad for any key —West or Largo. My land-use law opinions are as informed and principled as those of Thacker, Ron Miller or John Murphy, or those of Commissioner [George] Neugent or Sylvia Murphy, the BOCC's so-called "Two Boobs."

*Jerry Coleman *

Key West