James Gaddis had just returned home Saturday afternoon when he found a dismissal letter waiting on his townhouse’s doorstep.
The former two-year Florida Department of Environmental Protection employee told the Tampa Bay Times he was the one who leaked information about the state’s plans to build golf courses, 350-room hotels, pickleball courts and more at nine state parks, including two in the Tampa Bay area.
Now, the agency appears to be firing him, according to a copy of the letter shared with the Times.
Gaddis, 41, who was hired by the agency as a cartographer, said his actions weren’t political, and that there were two main reasons he chose to speak out: The rushed secrecy that was behind the park plans, and the vast environmental destruction that would be caused if they were to be completed.
“It was the absolute flagrant disregard for the critical, globally imperiled habitat in these parks,” Gaddis said in an interview Monday morning. Gaddis said he was tasked with making the proposed conceptual land use maps that depicted the golf courses and other developments. Two proposals were especially egregious in his eyes: The Jonathan Dickinson State Park golf course, and the 350-room hotel at Anastasia State Park.
“This was going to be a complete bulldozing of all of that habitat,” Gaddis said. He recalls his hand, hovering over a computer mouse, shaking with anger and frustration as he was told to rush his maps from senior leadership. “The secrecy was totally confusing...
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