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Environment
Voices of Lake Okeechobee
Meet a farmer, an activist, an environmentalist, the fish finders, the immigrants and the berm buster, the people who are at odds.
The Foot of the Dike
“I jokingly tell people the city of Pahokee is five miles long and 550 feet wide,” says Mayor J.P. Sasser. “And you see I’m not too far wrong.”
 "We are a fully integrated community on all levels. The poverty is just as equally spread as the wealth. I think that throws a lot of people off. They think it’s rich white people and poor blacks." — J.P. Sasser, Mayor, Pahokee [Photo: Jeffrey Camp] |
And after what Hurricane Katrina did to New Orleans, you might guess that Sasser and his citizenry would be anxious to see the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fix the dike. They are anxious all right, but not the way you expect.
The faded charms of the city’s buildings speak of a better past. “We had everything. We had movie theaters. We had restaurants. We had stores,” says Sasser, who runs an auto body shop in nearby Belle Glade.
 business: Mayor J.P. Sasser fought a plan to build a berm around the dike, arguing that it would kill the city’s tax base. [Photo:U.S. Army Corp of Engineers]] |
Says Sasser, “I try to be eloquent, but the only way to say this is, we’re trying to get the city of Pahokee off the government tit, and they keep trying to put the tit back in our mouth. We don’t want to be a welfare city any more than you want us to be a welfare city.”
