DESOTO COUNTY RESIDENTS – LETTER

DESOTO COUNTY RESIDENTS

In July 2018, DeSoto County Commissioners refused to allow Mosaic to rezone and mine 14,000 acres of agricultural land for phosphates.

In an unprecedented move, on April 23, 2019, the County Commission voted unanimously to follow a mediator’s recommendation and void that rezoning vote and let Mosaic come back and try again in four years. Read details here and here.

In the meanwhile, Mosaic has been organizing public relations activities, to build goodwill, as seen in the film.

In January 2023, the DeSoto County Commissioners will convene again to vote on Mosaic’s re-zoning plan.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

1)    Write a letter (find details below) to the County Commissioner who represents your district!  Does it work? Many elected officials have no staff or admin team. That means they’re the ones who are answering when constituents write in. The amount of mail an elected official gets on a certain issue can help determine its importance in their eyes. Mulitple letters (or emails) will make a big impression, if it doesn’t there’s a recourse for that, it’s voting. (Find a template below)

2)    Attend public meetings of the County Commissioners, find the calendar here.

3)    Keep abreast of the Commissioners’ work – interact on Facebook to let them know you appreciate when they fight for their constituent’s rights! County Commissioners are elected every four years…

4)    Get involved now with local activist groups:

a.    Nosaic

b.    People for Protecting Peace River

5)    Pay attention to the next voting cycle – DeSoto County is served by a five-member Board of County Commissioners, representing all five districts within the county. The commissioners are elected at-large and each serves a four-year term. All terms are staggered with two commissioners being elected in one year and three in the succeeding two years.

DOWNLOAD LETTER, EDIT, SIGN AND MAIL (OR EMAIL)

1)    Determine which County Commissioner represents your district.

2)    Download the word doc letter template, feel free to add in your own personal statement. We will “count” the number of downloads with a tracker!

3)    Edit the address line: Use the person’s title and then their last name. Don’t worry about first names for your correspondence since they aren’t necessary. In the letter template, you can delete out the information you don’t need.

4)    Sign the letter with your name, date, zip code and an email address.

5)    Print, stamp and mail it or

6)    Paste the text into the body of an email.

7)    Share your ACTION UPDATE and we’ll track that!

To help amplify your efforts, once you’ve undertaken one (or more) of these actions in this section, we’ve set up a Google Form to tabulate which activities individuals take. Our hope is that we will be able to share that information.

We will not ask for last names or home addresses and this information will not be sold or shared. We will add you to our email list for updates. Emails may come from our distributors’ email account (Cinema Libre Studio).

DE SOTO COUNTY COMMISSIONERS:

Jerod Gross
County Commissioner, District 1
j.gross@desotobocc.com

J.C. Deriso
Chairman, County Commissioner, District 2
jc.deriso@desotobocc.com

Judy Schaefer
County Commissioner, District 3
j.schaefer@desotobocc.com

Elton Langford
Vice-Chairman, County Commissioner, District 4
e.langford@desotobocc.com

Ashley Coone
County Commissioner, District 5
a.coone@desotobocc.com