The (un)Official 2009 Guide To New Year's Resolutions of Some Very Important People

(Note: To help start the new year right for the prominent men and women named below, the columnist has generously volunteered the following resolutions on their behalf, in case they're too busy to make their own.)

Gov. Charlie Crist: First, I swear by Richard and Pat, Ronald and Nancy and George H.W. and Barbara, that we, Charlie and Carol, will make our new marriage work. Because Lord knows, otherwise I won't be on the Republican presidential ticket in 2012 or 2016. Then what would be the good of the marriage yoke in the first place?

Second, I will NOT spend the 2009 year explaining why I couldn't balance the state's budget.

If I can't do it by selling Alligator Alley to those !##x*@!!! foreigners, I'll just sell Lee and Collier counties. That's 3,225 square miles of mostly swamp with a million resident whiners looking for handouts from my administration every time some little wind blows. The Spanish prime minister, what's his name, Zapatero? — he went to Iraq, so he's sucker enough. I'll bet you a Seminole casino against a doughnut that I can sell him Southwest Florida.

Smart Growth Director Wayne Daltry: I vow to be more of a green activist in 2009, which my wife has been pushing me to do for years.

So this year I'll start with golf courses, because they're already green — too green. There are 35 public or private golf courses in Naples, four on Marco Island, 17 in or near Bonita Springs, 28 in Fort Myers, four on Sanibel and Captiva Islands, and seven in Cape Coral or on Pine Island. That's 95 suck-holes into which we pour water like a drunk pours booze. By year's end I'll seed 'em all with salt. By the time I'm through, they'll look like the Bonneville flats. Then, unless I'm mistaken (and I haven't been mistaken since 1978) the two counties together will save 1.8 billion gallons of water by the time 2010 rolls around.

Lee County Manager Don Stilwell: These good ol' boys here in Lee County have to quit thinking like tourists and start thinking like farmers. So I vow in 2009 to show 'em how we do it in the country. When you grow a corn stalk, you don't grow it short, you grow it high, as high as an elephant's eye, way up to the bright blue sky. And that's how we have to grow our communities. So I'm not recommending a building project that's less than 25 stories this year, because we just plain don't have room to spread out anymore. And if that whippersnapper Brian Bigelow and that enviro-hippie Ray Judah don't like it, they can kiss my !##x*@!!!

Lee County Commissioner and Board Chairman, Bob Janes: I resolve to handle the county commission this year the way Grandpappy Janes would have done it — with a fire hose. Every time one of my fellow commissioners opens his or her mouth to say something negative about another one, I'll hose 'em off the dais. I figure a 4-inch hose will do it for Frank, although with Tammy and Ray it might have to be a 6-incher… Note to self: Call fire chief, ask if they have a 12-inch hose for Brian.

State Sen. Dave Aronberg: Every morning before I report to the office, I resolve to mutter the following mantra:

"I think I can, I think I can, be President, be President, I think I can, I think I can, be President, be President…."

FGCU President Wilson Bradshaw:

Every morning, before I report to the office, I resolve to mutter the following mantra: "Barack and me We're twins, you see But if you don't Then look at me — I was 'president' FIRST, hee-hee!"

FGCU Division I Head Basketball Coach, Dave Balzac: I vow this year to join Jumpers Anonymous before I fly even one mile to recruit a center, a forward, or a guard. And every morning from now until Dec. 31, I'll repeat the JA motto three times:

"White men CAN jump, White men CAN jump, White men CAN jump…"

Andrew McElwayne, president and CEO, Conservancy of Southwest Florida: I resolve in 2009 not to drink one drop of water unless it comes directly from the Fakahatchee Strand. Of course, that means I'll have to buy a couple hundred bottles of that peatsmoked malt whiskey from the land of my Scottish ancestors to kill the toxins those developers north of the Strand will dump into the flow way, which means I'll be drunk all the time… boy, this is going to be a good year.

Rick Johnson, general manager of WGCU-FM: I vow to track down Kathleen Davey and pay her back for burying classical music in Southwest Florida, because I can't stand these Brits whining all day in mock horror about bloody politics in Pago Pago, or some other godforsaken place.

It was Davey's last act before she retired — to kill classical music by moving it to HD radio. She stole the horses and left me with the cart. So if it's my last act at WGCU, I'm going to wire a recorded loop of the melodies from "Romper Room," "The Jetsons," "Leave It To Beaver" and "Gilligan's Island" into her house, and run it 24-7. See how

she likes ugly noise all day.