Donna Green-Townsend
Multimedia Productions
Aired on WUFT August 30, 2013
The sequel to the popular comedy, Boeing-Boeing is now on stage at the Hippodrome State Theatre in Gainesville. Don’t Dress For Dinner, which is the first play of the Hipp’s 41st season, has had success on Broadway and in London. Donna Green-Townsend talked with Michelle Bellaver who plays Suzette the cook in the play. Bellaver says she’s glad the season kicks off with a comedy.
Don’t Dress For Dinner runs through September 22. Longer version of the interview:
The late Mem Semmes from Dunnellon loved music. Not only did she write hundreds of songs, but she also helped provide a long time venue for Florida’s singer songwriters through the monthly concert series, The Sunday Sampler. Just a few years before she died her son Jon Semmes helped Mem produce her first CD. Mem talked about songwriting with Donna Green-Townsend in this one hour special aired on WUFT in December of 2007 on Across The Prairie.
Mem Semmes on These Diamonds CD Project
The late Will McLean spent his life writing songs to save Florida through music. Now the foundation named after the father of Florida folk is marketing an environmental CD trying to continue McLean’s lifelong mission. The acoustic CD features musicians from across the Sunshine State singing about a wide variety of environmental stories and issues. As Donna Green-Townsend reports even the CD title, These Diamonds carries a story behind it.
Florida musicians included on the CD are:
The Eagles Fly – Mindy Simmons
Lullaby of the Rivers – Bob Patterson
Rose and the Gold – Mem Semmes
Florida Pines – Paul Garfinkel
Paw Prints in the Sand – Ken Skeens
These Diamonds – Grant Livingston
Turtle Tears – Amy Carol Webb
Rand McNally Map of Florida – Jim Bickerstaff
Plumes – Steve Blackwell
Apalachicola Doin’ Time – Dale Crider
Song For Our Children – Mary Ann Dinella
Singer Songwriters Steve Gillette and Cindy Mangsen from Bennington, Vermont often tour in Florida. While in the Gainesville area for a house concert the popular duo met up with WUFT’s Donna Green-Townsend.Gillette, who has had a number of his songs recorded by national recording artists, has ties to one of Florida’s legendary guitar players. Steve and Cindy recalled how they first met the late Gamble Rogers. Rogers, who is in the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, is nationally known for his quick wit and guitar playing ability, all while weaving stories about a mythical Oklawaha County in Florida. He died in 1991 trying to save a drowning man off Flagler Beach. Gillette and Mangsen talked with Donna Green-Townsend at the home of environmental troubadour Dale Crider from Windsor, Florida about their mutual friend.
Alachua County Voters had the chance in the 2010 November election to decide on an airboat curfew. This feature produced by Trent Kelly and aired on WUFT-FM examines the issues involved. (videographer and editor- Donna Green-Townsend)
Winner Elisabeth Williamson “F-L-O-R-I-D-A”
2nd place Susan Brown “My Florida”
Here’s Susan performing her song accompanied by musician and singer-songwriter Jamie Defrates
3rd place Rog Lee “Florida, No Appointments and a Full Tank of Gas”
(aired nationally on August 21, 1998 on Marketplace)Original Anchor Intro: Six years ago this month, the country’s most costly storm ever- Hurricane Andrew- put Homestead, Florida on the map. Before the storm, Homestead was the winter vegetable capital of the U.S. Tourists may remember seeing the city marker on their way to two national parks and the Florida Keys. But dreams to revitalize the town’s shattered economy by converting the old Air Force Base has brought about a bitter fight with environmentalists, as Donna Green-Townsend reports. Original script:
(Krome Ave nats) Six years ago, Hurricane Andrew decimated the city of Homestead, FL along with the nearby Homestead Air Force Base. The after-effects of Andrew aren’t visible on downtown’s Krome Ave. anymore. But locals say traffic is thinner because somewhere between 8 and 11,000 jobs have disappeared since the federal government decided not to rebuild the shattered air force base. Retired Air Force Veteran Michael Richardson is also Vice President for the First National Bank of Homestead. He says without the base, Homestead has lost 400 million dollars a year and its middle class.
“We transitioned from a community that paid with checks to a community that lives on a cash basis. What we’ve seen in the wake of the hurricane and what the community sees is we’ve lost that middle class pool of jobs and that middle class group of people that were associated with the base,” said Richardson.
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. First George Bush, and then Bill Clinton, promised to make the conversion of the old Homestead Air Force Base a national model – one that would make the new civilian-run base the engine of the town’s rebirth.
The plan was to retrofit Homestead into a commercial airport to help with overflow from Miami International. But there’s a problem. The airport site sits directly adjacent to two national parks – That’s right – not just one, but two national parks.
(Nat snd of park with birds and quiet)
Everglades National Park sits about 10 miles away from the old air base. Biscayne National Park is even closer – just 2 miles away. And tourists say they don’t come to national parks to hear jet noise.
(Montage Of Tourists)- “The vastness and the freedom and the tranquility is something to behold. Maybe not everybody appreciates it, but it certainly should be preserved as far as possible.”
“Seems to me the beauty of the Everglades is very subtle and the peace and the quiet is part, an important part of it. If you have airplanes flying over I think it would really destroy a lot of the beauty.”
“I mean you got a local economy and you’ve got to keep that going but you gotta’ find a happy medium between the two.
The issue of airport noise has been around a long time, but lately, environmentalists have been making some headway when it comes to stopping jet noise near national parks.
They won a precedent-setting legal case regarding an airport near the Glen Canyon Recreation Area in Arizona.. and they’re fighting overflights at the Grand Canyon. Homestead Mayor Steve Shiver says this plan only calls for Homestead to take some pressure off Miami’s airport, not to become south Florida’s second major hub.
“We’re not talking… in phase one development we’re not talking about another JFK,” said Shiver.
But Don Barger with the National Parks and Conservation Association – who successfully fought the Glen Canyon airport – says he doesn’t believe the developers who say they’ll only put in a one-runway operation.
“Unfortunately airports are just like landfills. Once you get the first cell in you know where the next cell is going to go….there are proposals, there are maps out there that have shown the second runway,” said Barger.
(Nat snd of airport noise at Everglades National Park)
Homestead’s leaders point out that airport noise is nothing new in the Everglades and Biscayne National Park. For half a century, there was the roar of planes from the air force base. And even today, air traffic from Miami International is audible overhead.
(Nat snd of airport noise up full)
Everglades National Park Superintendent Richard Ring.
“I was in Long Pine Key campground in our amphitheater talking to 200 members of the leadership Miami we had an F-16 come in just above treetop level and it blotted everybody out for about 15 seconds,” said Ring.
But that’s exactly the point say Homestead’s civic leaders. It’s not like the base was ever a garden spot, says Mayor Steve Shiver.
“I mean we’re talking about a facility that was actually an air force base for over 50 years. This is not pristine land; this is not undeveloped property,” said Shiver.
But a 30-year leader in the “Save the Everglades Movement,” Joe Browder, says there’s a big difference between what people are willing to put up with for the sake of national security and what they’re willing to give up for a profit making venture.
“If we’re defending our country against real or perceived threats, then there’s a sacrifice level that everyone’s willing to consider. If we are thinking about moving jobs and investments away from Miami, Hialeah, Opa Locka in order to subsidize some real-estate flippers in South Dade County, that’s a completely different rationale for whether there should be damage to birds, national parks or anything else,” said Browder.
The question is, aesthetics aside, does jet noise really damage the environment?
(Nat snd of airboat starting up)
Louis Wommer doesn’t think so.
(Nat snd of airboat up full)
Perhaps not surprisingly, since Wommer has been running airboat tours of the Everglades for 15 years.
‘You were just on an airboat with me which is loud to you I’m sure. Did you notice how the birds are right there and simply just move out of the way if I’m going fast. They go right back to the same spot…. They’re not bothered by noise, its people who are bothered by noise,” said Wommer.
But Biscayne National Park Superintendent Dick Frost wants proof.
“The military jets made tremendous noise. It’s possible that we might have had another several hundred thousand tourists visit if there hadn’t been noise. It’s possible that we might have had a healthy breeding colony of shore birds if we hadn’t had noise. We don’t know that because nobody ever studied it,” said Frost.
Late last year, about a dozen environmental organizations won a battle to require the Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration to study development, water runoff and noise from a new airport. The environmental impact statement is expected to take another year. Mayor Steve Shiver says he’s tired of waiting. A deal is a deal.
“It’s been five years, we’ve had President Bush, and also President Clinton come to this community and claim to have claim to want to make re-use of Homestead Air force Base a model reuse and nothing has happened. That’s frustrating, that’s very frustrating,” said Shiver.
(Restaurant nat snd)
So Homestead has become a national case study Instead of a national model. And it looks like the plans to rebuild the town’s middle class will be circling to land for a long time. From Homestead, Florida, I’m Donna Green-Townsend for Marketplace.
Aired on WUFT on May 25th, 2012
Memorial Day weekend is usually one of the busiest times on Florida’s waterways, lakes, rivers and the ocean. According to statistics compiled by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Office of Boating and Waterways, the number one cause of boating deaths in Florida is drowning, so wildlife officials remind people to wear life-jackets. Other suggestions for a safe weekend of boating include: not overloading the boat with people or equipment, carrying a cell phone, filing a float plan with relatives and being weather-wise. In addition to these suggestions, wildlife officials are also warning boaters to look out for sturgeon jumping out of the water in many of North Central Florida’s rivers, especially the Suwannee River. Water levels are especially low which puts many boats and sturgeon in closer proximity. Florida’s 89.1, WUFT-FM’s Donna Green-Townsend talked with FWC spokeswoman Karen Parker about the dangers of jumping sturgeon
Aired on WUFT on August 9th, 2011
More than 1.3 million alligators live in Florida. Next Monday the official state alligator hunting season begins at 5 p.m. Nearly 7,000 permits have gone out to people who want to try their luck at hunting the reptile. Donna Green-Townsend talked with the Coordinator for the Alligator Management Program for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in Tallahassee, Harry Dutton who says over the weekend the commission even extended the hunt by four hours each day.
New USFWS emergency rules regarding management of manatees has pitted Crystal River dive shop owners and area businesses against the USFWS. WUFT-FM’s Trent Kelly examines both sides of the issue. (videographer- Donna Green-Townsend)
In an effort to increase fish populations off the coast of Tampa/St. Pete in Florida, city leaders have supported taking old concrete construction material from builders to create artificial reefs. Donna Green-Townsend looks at the program’s success.