HERE'S A MEETING WORTH NOTING

The non-partisan Tiger Bay Club of Polk County will meet at 11:30 AM Monday (21 May) at the Peace River Country Club in Bartow. Reservations are required, and the cost is $15 per person regardless of wheather an attendee chooses to eat or not (Lunch is extra, of course).

Featured speaker for the monthly event is former State Senator Richard E. "Rick" Dantzler of Winter Haven. Known to many as a moderate, Dantzler served a total of 15 years in the Legislature before resigning from the Senate in 1998 to run for governor. After his gubernatorial campaign ended, the attorney was picked by eventual Democratic nominee and then-lieutenant governor Buddy MacKay as his running mate.

Dantzler will be addressing the Heartland Parkway, a proposed 152-mile toll road which would stretch from the eastern Fort Myers area through mostly rural, agricultrual and enviromentally sensitive lands north into Polk County. He has been the voice of the Heartland Economic, Agricultrual, and Rural Task Force (HEART), a group formed in late 2005 by some of Florida's elite landowners. The group also has ties to State Senator J.D. Alexander (R - Lake Wales), grandson of the late citrus and agricultrual baron Ben Hill Griffin, Jr.