Fired parks employee claims DEP intended to keep ‘atrocious’ plan secret as long as possible

John Gaddis. Image via GoFundMe.

A Florida parks planner says he was fired after plans for more active uses in state parks made headlines.

James Gaddis set up a GoFundMe page claiming he was terminated by the Department of Environmental Protection’s Office of Park Planning. He lost his job, he said, after leaking a “secret, fast-tracked plan to build golf courses, 350-room hotels, disc golf courts, and pickleball courts within critical habitats across 9 of our Florida State Parks.”

“These atrocious proposals, which were not going to be released until the day before the scheduled public meetings, have been suspended for now, and we are all feeling great about that,” Gaddis wrote.

“As a state employee and single dad working a weekend side-job, I knew that sounding the alarm was a risky move. However, I saw myself as a public servant first and felt that it was the only ethical thing to do.”

Last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis claimed “half-baked” plans were “leaked out to a left-wing group to try to create a narrative.”

Recommendations for development at nine state parks were announced on Aug. 19 in a DEP press release about the Great Outdoors Initiative. The agency initially planned to hold simultaneous public workshops on Aug. 27 to discuss plans with the public, but public outcry prompted the agency to postpone those meetings and accept recommendations on larger venues.

But amid bipartisan outcry from Cabinet members, state lawmakers and congressional representatives, DeSantis announced last week DEP would go back to the drawing board on any projects and abandon efforts for now.

The Tampa Bay Times’ Politifact reported the newspaper had received leaked plans before the DEP press release went out, but also graded DeSantis’ assessment as “mostly false” as the proposals were in fact ready to unroll within days. The newspaper’s coverage of the proposals came out after the agency publicly released plans.

Gaddis’ GoFundMe page suggests that was not the plan, and that DEP intended to sit on the proposals until immediately before the originally planned workshops.

“I have been with the Office of Park Planning for over two years, serving with dedication while building my skills as a cartographer and specializing in maps of Florida’s mosaic of conservation lands, especially Florida State Parks,” he wrote.

“After the best two years of my professional career, where I built great relationships with Florida Park Service staff all over the state and enjoyed mapping out a significant swath of our amazing park system, I was directed to create nine maps depicting shocking and destructive infrastructure proposals, while keeping quiet as they were pushed through an accelerated and under-the-radar public engagement process.”

He signaled he may now bring his skills to a “more conservation-minded organization.”