TRUE TEXAN

RED STATE FLORIDA - IS FIGHTING BACK! They tried to slip a mosque expansion through Pinellas County without ever calling it a mosque. The town showed up and said HELL NO! Even a burqa-clad resident came out! Most people in Pinellas County had never heard of 2577 Keystone Road. It’s a 2.7-acre parcel on a quiet, scenic stretch outside Tarpon Springs. The property has operated as Masjid Al Rahman for years, a mosque in a converted house. The owners applied to expand it. County agenda materials and staff reports never used the word “mosque.” They described the project only as a “community assembly facility.” That was the Islamic trick. The applicant’s own plans identified it as Masjid Al Rahman and a place of worship. Churches in the same county get named as churches in official documents. This one did not. When the final map amendment came up, Commissioner Vince Nowicki was the only one who asked the obvious question on the record: Why are we describing this as a generic assembly building when the plans say mosque? Staff pointed to federal religious land-use law and a 2019 code change that forces neutral language. The amendment still passed 4-3. Why, America, are we working against ourselves...we are HELPING Islam take us over! Then the town showed up. Even one in Burqa playing Islamic "prayers.... This was not just a handful of people who came out. A packed hearing full of residents from Tarpon Springs, Palm Harbor, and Dunedin who said they never got clear notice. Speakers called out the minimal mailings, the sign posted on the side street instead of Keystone Road, and the newspaper ads almost no one reads. Several said the whole thing was kept quiet until after the earlier votes were already locked in. Those who attended the meeting discussed traffic on a rural corridor, precedent, separate Sharia men’s and women’s entrances, no-trespassing signs on a site being sold as a “community” facility, and the long-term Islamization patterns these troubling projects follow. Almost everyone demanded the process be reopened with plain language so the public actually knew what was being approved. Staff’s answer was that every legal minimum had been met and the case is complete. The window for certain abutting owners to appeal is still open. This is how it works. Not with a big dramatic takeover. With euphemisms that hide the actual use, minimal notice, and the assumption that residents won’t notice or won’t bother showing up. Florida voters keep electing people who talk about protecting the state. At the local level, the same quiet bureaucratic softening keeps happening, until enough people get angry enough to force the actual word into the record. Thank you to all the Patriots who showed up. They spoke their minds. They challenged the trick of never saying “mosque” in public. Whether the rest of Pinellas County treats that as a warning or a done deal is the next fight.