Dancing in the Dark

I have looked at Longboat Key's town manager form of government and the strong mayor form of government that exists on Anna Maria Island. Certainly neither form of government is perfect and each has its challenges. However, I do see some important differences and perhaps some advantages to the strong mayor form of government.

One of the three planks in my campaign for commissioner centered on the inability of our commissioners to always make truly informed decisions. When it comes to the large and complex, and often the most expensive issues, the commission too often operates as a rubber stamp for the programs and policies of the town manager. I am not slighting our town manager as I have always found him to be a consummate professional with considerable political aplomb. I see the problem as a flaw in an unpaid commission where no one runs for office, and the inability of the commission to learn about and grasp the subtleties often inherent in large programs such as beach management or reclaimed waster. In the case of reclaimed water, the taxpayers spent over $3 million for little more than two bottles of water. The reclaimed water project was complex and relied on the advice of a single contractor with much to be gained from the project. Perhaps if the town had sought the advice of other experts in the field, the taxpayers would not have wasted $3+ million.

The Longboat Key beach management issue once again demonstrates that the commissioners are called upon to make decisions about technical matters they clearly did not understand. The town manager brought in two "experts" to educate the commission about alternative technologies for maintaining beaches. At the end of the day the commissioners were forced to accept the town manager's position, that there are no alternatives to sand dredging, since the commissioners had nowhere near enough knowledge about the subject to form their own informed opinions. I feel this occurs too often. Yet what can be done about the situation when we are lucky not to have to appoint commissioners when a commission seat goes unwanted.

In the process of convincing the commission that there are no possible alternatives to dredging, the town managed managed to sidestep the question of why he wants to advance the scheduled beach project. Again I do not believe all the commissioners were even aware that advancing the beach project may be more costly in the long-run than remaining on schedule. It appears the town manager was able to substitute alternatives as the criteria for advancing the beach project, instead of discussing financial costs, needs or long-range fiscal planning.

The Anna Maria Island communities have strong mayor governments with no town manager. In those communities each member of the commission is personally responsible for some aspect of the town's operations, whether it be finance or water/sewer or beach maintenance or some other department. The Anna Maria form of government requires commissioners to have personal knowledge and experience as a required part of their job description. On Longboat the commissioners do not have to do or know anything. Yet we ask them to make decisions that often have large consequences and high price-tags.

Last week the commissioners decided to advance the next $54 million beach dredging one year. I do not believe that all the commissioners were cognizant of the financial ramifications of their decisions, yet they were asked to decide anyway. I also saw the commissioners agree that there are no alternatives to dredging after listening to the town manager's experts. Yet I felt that few of the commissioners had any real background or knowledge about alternative beach maintenance technologies, even the ones that have existed on Longboat for over a decade, as was pointed out by former mayor Brown in his column this week.

I believe there might have been a different discussion on Anna Maria where at least one of the commissioners would have been intimately involved with beach maintenance as a part of his day-to-day duties in a strong mayor form of government.

I am not the only columnist to have written about the apparent weaknesses in our town manager form of government, in these times of fiscal stress and evermore technically complex problems to be solved.

Since there is little chance that we will transform our government, I am proposing, once again, that the commission retain its own consultants and expert advisers, as needed, as a counterpoint to the town manager's agenda and "Golden Rolodex" of consultants.

We cannot afford to make mistakes.