Hands Across the Sand/Clearwater Beach's Pier 60 on 2/13/10

This event turned out to be a great statewide initiative against lifting the ban on offshore drilling. If our leaders and the corporations had their way, the oil platforms would be within viewing distance of our beaches which would destroy our tourist driven economy. I would say that our corporations and our leadership have gotten greedy! Even our Florida branch of the Solar Energy Industries Association has sold out and is backing the idea for offshore oil drilling! You can see more about that here: http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/florida-solar-group-backs-offshore-drilling/

The whole idea of Hands Across the Sand was generated by David Rauschkolb, a restaurateur from up in the panhandle who put the site together, networked with leaders statewide and made this event happen! Many came out and joined hands across the sand to tell our leaders and the corporations that we say NO to oil drilling on our shorelines! We had 2000 participants in Pinellas County alone, 250 on Clearwater Beach/Pier 60. There is more information on this event on the site here: http://www.handsacrossthesand.com.

On that very cold day, we also had some local politicians and candidates speak. Frank Hibbert, the Mayor of Clearwater, Jack Latvala campaigning for State Senate District 16 and Russell Patterson campaigning for State House District 60, Susan Smith of DFA and the local Democratic Party, and myself campaigning for Hillsborough County Soil and Water all took the mike and spoke for a few minutes each. Kevin Burns, former mayor of N. Miami and campaigning for Senate arrived too late to speak, but we got to meet him and his family and he is definitely a supporter of this cause! Sal Belloise, a long time resident of Clearwater Beach entertained us with song once the line broke up.

Thanks to everyone who took part, especially Lisa Hinton and to so many more who volunteered, organized and spread the word! The only regret I have is that we had very few media representatives at our location. If anyone has pictures, blogs, videos of this event, please send them to me at anitastewart@gmail.com. I did post pictures on the Facebook event here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=188161010943

Please FAN the page here for FLORIDIANS AGAINST BIG OIL!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Floridians-Against-Big-Oil/134043516320