Enshittifying Bok Tower to fuel the Great Citrus Nepo Baby Bailout

As a viable for-profit industry, Florida citrus is as dead as Florida newspapers. Citizens should sacrifice *nothing* to help the owners of its legacy capital keep their inherited wealth and status.

The three stories/images that follow are deeply related:

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A 90 percent production collapse in the Florida Citrus Industry.

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A new highway proposed to come within 2600 feet of Historic Bok Tower.

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J.D. Alexander and Big Charter godfather Ralph Arza, who hate public schools, trying to get a $150M-plus government payday to build a new public school on land that’s now worthless for citrus.

In a piece of good news, I think this article helped blow up Ralph and J.D.’s deal and cost them money. So there’s that.

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In any event, all of those stories above are markers of Florida’s ongoing Great Citrus Nepo Baby Bailout. Inheriting a Florida OJ empire today is of negative value if you can’t cash out the legacy land into roads, track houses, big schools with no teachers, or some other rent-seeking mechanism. And that’s what the citrus nepos of East Polk are doing.

And they will happily destroy Bok Tower — or anything else good in and around their communities — if it keeps them in the style to which they’ve become accustomed.

Bok Tower was created 100 years ago by wealthy snowbird Edward Bok. Stepping into the quiet and beauty of the gardens, punctuated by carillon bell music, is an act of personal De-Shittification. So naturally, Florida state government, acting in the interest of citrus Nepo babies, wants to enshittify it.

You can follow the particulars of the Bok Tower part of this larger ongoing story here and here.

Let’s not be obnoxious

I, personally, was deeply amused to see Lake Wales MAGA Mayor “Rev.” Jack Hilligoss, a professional enshittifier of almost any situation, recently express shock to learn that he lives powerlessly in the same state dictatorship as the dirty libs:

“I think we're all stunned by this,” Lake Wales Mayor Jack Hilligoss said. “Frankly, I don't know that anybody's happy about any of these routes that they've proposed. I guess I would wonder why the Turnpike (Enterprise) wouldn't talk to the governing bodies of a municipality about these things.”

LOL. You would wonder?

My beloved cousin Robin Gibson, a Lake Wales city commissioner who serves in some sort of Bok Tower board emeritus role, called for a forceful city reaction to the Bok Tower enshittification.

“I think it's important for us as an entire community to take a position, and I don't object to being obnoxious about it because this is something we want to do for our community, for the benefit of our community,” Gibson said.

Good luck with that, Robin.

One need only follow this passage from Gary White’s article, and the exchange between Hilligoss and LW Commissioner Keith Thompson, to get a sense of where “the benefit of our community” ranks.

“I do happen to agree with a lot of the sentiment that I think we might be a little out over our skis right now, in terms of needing to pass this proclamation,” Thompson said.

He suggested that the commission should try to have influence over the process rather than stating outright opposition to the highway.

“We're not the final say on where this road goes as a city commission, unfortunately,” Thompson said. “We don't have jurisdictional authority over that. We want to have a voice at the table. We want to shape the conversation, and so I would love to hear more from the community.”

Hilligoss conceded Thompson’s point.

“I think everybody in Lake Wales is pretty united in that we don't like what we saw, and that's what we said at the work session,” Hilligoss said. “But I would say, with Commissioner Thompson, that line we’re opposed to the implementation of the project, what that says to me is, we don't want it at all. And I think that would be detrimental.”

Let me translate Thompson for you into real speak:

Hey, the handful of people and forces who stand to benefit from those highways — and general enshittification of Lake Wales area life — have given me a measure of status in my town. I’m not risking that to, you know, do anything. Come on.

You don’t get to be masters of the universe forever, nepos

The entire Great Citrus Nepo Baby Bailout depends largely on continued growth roughly along U.S. 27 — and Florida generally. That may or may not be a good bet. I sense that the Lake Wales area, particularly, may actually be “a little out over our skis right now” in terms of planned versus actual growth.

But I could be wrong in those specifics; and Lake Wales really isn’t my problem.

I am not wrong in the larger developments of Florida state migration/growth as a whole. The Florida Chamber of Commerce itself is getting worried about the balance of in-flow and out-flow and youngs versus olds.

Diminished population growth is death to legacy citrus owners. Florida will almost certainly follow the California pattern; it’s already doing so in Miami-Dade, Monroe, and Pinellas. Miami-Dade is actually ahead of California on outflow. See my article below:

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The Pinellas/Monroe/Miami-Dade canaries in Florida's coal mine

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The Great Citrus Nepo Baby bailout depends on Florida remaining a growth state. That’s a very, very dubious proposition — especially considering that Florida government hates the international immigrants propping up growth numbers in Miami-Dade.

I think the Citrus nepos get that.

They know they can’t run an actual business successfully. Inherited status, enforced through petty politics, has been their real business for a long time now. Maybe this frenzy to grow houses and roads and schools (which they hate) while the getting is good-ish means they see the end of the reign approaching.

Maybe enshittifying Bok Tower is just an act of desperation. Or maybe they just like enshittifying for its own sake.

That’s a distinction without a difference; and we citizens should do nothing to assist in the bailout, either way. Let the market sort it out.