Let Them Eat Cake

What will life be like on Longboat Key when Publix demolishes all the existing buildings at Avenue of the Flowers and replaces them with a new shopping center? A process that may take the better part of a year.

I hope our commissioners are going to tell us that they went to Lakeland and persuaded Publix to somehow maintain a food market and drug store on the island while the old structures are being replaced.

If the commissioners think that tourism, retail and restaurant businesses are suffering now, imagine Longboat Key with neither a food market nor a drug store for an extended period of time.

Ask yourself if you would recommend Longboat Key to friends if they have to travel over ten miles into Sarasota or Bradenton to obtain the basic necessities for vacationing on our island in a rental condominium unit or house. I suspect both Publix and CVS do a lot of business even with day visitors to our beaches.

I am told that there will soon be an anchor business in the Whitney Plaza market space, after two years of being unoccupied. If the commission had foreseen the problems that will arise when Avenue of the Flowers is torn down, perhaps they might have negotiated some sort of arrangement, where both Publix and CVS would renovate the Whitney Plaza buildings and open temporary services at the north end of the island. Such an arrangement could have gone a long way to alleviate the quality of life issues that will most likely result from not having basic services on Longboat Key for months and months. Of course, sales profits would be the motivation for Publix and CVS and would end up costing the chains little to nothing to make the temporary move.

Perhaps the town might have donated both legal and staff resources to assist Publix/CVS to make repairs to the Whitney Plaza buildings, which are somewhat in disrepair. The town is already donating legal and staff services in Mr. Loeb's efforts at the Key Club. If such an arrangement had been negotiated between Publix/CVS and Whitney Plaza, the island residents and tourists would have somewhere to buy food and medicines while Avenue of the Flowers is being rebuilt. Additionally, the owners of Whitney Plaza would at least have had some income for a year and be left with greatly repaired structures.  A win-win solution.

The commission has committee after committee and meeting after meeting presumably working on how to help developers expand their efforts on Longboat Key. It is unfortunate that the commissioners appear to have forgotten about we the people and our basic needs.

The commission's failure to help find an alternative solution to shopping for basic needs on Longboat while Publix is out of service may have a major impact on the reputation of Longboat Key, at a critical time in our community's efforts to improve property sales. Maintaining basic services is job one for any government. 

Great Indoor Cell Phone Service All Over Longboat Key

Line2 Cell Phone App for IPhone, Android and Blackberry Phones

Anyone who wants to save money, whether it be on their monthly land-line bill or their cell phone bill or both, might want to look into the highly reviewed Line2 cell phone service being offered on IPhone/IPad/IPod, Android and Blackberry wifi enabled phones for $10 a month. Here are a few good reasons for having Line2 service on your cell phone.

1. Great cell phone reception inside your home with fast data. Longboat already has good in-car cell phone service except when driving past Avenue of the Flowers. I have never dropped a call in my car for many years except near Publix.

2. Line2 users get unlimited local and continental long distance voice and data for $10 a month. Calls can be placed and received on your cell phone anywhere that wifi is available.

3. Line2 will port your current home phone number over to Line2 at no charge. Or you can get a new phone number or port any phone number. Verizon charges $29 a month for their basic Verizon Freedom^® Value land-line service. Comcast charges about $30 monthly for their VOIP phone service, which is what I was using before I switched to Line2. Now I get local and long distance for $10 a month with my same home phone number on my cell phone. I have cut the wire!

4. Using the Line2 service will enable you to reduce your monthly minutes on your cell phone contract for both voice and data, since all the calls you make and receive at home on your cell phone using Line2 will  not count against your cell phone plan. This will also save you lots of money.

5. While traveling you can make and receive calls on your cell phone from family and friends at no charge from your hotel room or public wifi hot-spots around the world. If there is no available wifi then you can always use your normal cell phone service.

6. Line2 service includes unlimited messaging with the added convenience of voice-to-messaging so you won't even have to type. Thank goodness this feature probably won't work while you are driving.

The Line2 app looks and functions just like the regular phone app on your cell phone.

If you are renting your home then the renters need not worry about being from a foreign country or having a cell service provider that has no coverage in this part of the country. Simply have them download the Line2 app for free for 30 days. It couldn't be more simple.

The term "convergence" is fast becoming part of the mainstream cell phone conversation, as carriers try to off-load traffic from their beleaguered networks, and wifi is the way they are all headed. Already T-Mobil offers service exactly like Line2 to their customers. All new cell phones are wifi enabled and automatic wifi calling from cell phones will soon be an integral part of cell phone service.

If you are one of the Longboat Key residents who wants, but does not have, good indoor cell phone coverage, then Line2 may solve your problem while saving you money. You can try Line2 for free for a month to see if Line2 fulfills your in-home cell phone needs.

I am quite happy with Line2. It is transparent to use, looks and works just like the existing phone app. I figure I am saving $50 a month since I was able to terminate my land-line service with Comcast and reduce my voice and data plans. I no longer worry about long phone calls on my cell phone while I am at home. I find I use my cell phone more since I placed the Line2 app on my IPhone.

A Legal Fee by Any Other Name

The town's attorney fees may become a thorny problem. Not only are Longboat town government legal costs 30% higher since the Key Club filed for permission to expand its facilities and increase density, there now appears to be a question as to what the taxpayers are paying for, and what is being charged to the Key Club. Let me explain.

In response to my recent letter to Commissioner Duncan concerning legal costs, I received a lengthy and thoughtful response from the commissioner. Much of what is contained in our exchange has been printed in this paper, so I will not belabor the gist of the two letters, save for the question of who should pay for what. And on this issue there appears to be a disconnect from what was explicitly stated by the Key Club at the quasi-judicial hearings, and what is now the position of at least one commissioner.  Commissioner Duncan contends that work currently being done on the comprehensive plan by the commission, and its legal advisers, is unrelated to the Key Club application, and is not billable to the Key Club. Apparently this includes work on the FLUE - future land use element - of the comprehensive plan. I find this difficult to reconcile, given that a complete review of our comprehensive plan was conducted by the town, the planning and zoning board and the commission as recently as 2007. Several of the current commissioners were either on the planning and zoning board or on the commission at that time, and saw no need to revise the FLUE. The only thing that has changed since 2007 is the Key Club ODP application. Where were Messrs. Brown, Spoll, Samanski, Hackett and Brenner in 2007 when it came to changes in the future land use elements of the comprehensive plan. During the extensive review and revision of the comprehensive plan in 2007, it appears these gentlemen saw no need for changes in land use. What changed in fewer than 3 years?

In the past the town has revisited the comprehensive plan on a ten year cycle, which I gather is customary for communities such as ours. Now the commission has decided there is an urgent need to make major alterations and revisions to the comprehensive plan and numerous building codes only 3 years since the last commission review. Why, if not solely for the sake of the Key Club? Are there other developers who are requesting radical changes in density and building height we do not yet know about?

Looking at the town attorney's billing records, it is apparent that Mr. Persson's law firm has done and is doing considerable work on the Key Club issue. There are even direct billings from Mr. Persson's firm to the Key Club, as well as many billings to the town for work on the Key Club. Have any of Mr. Persson's invoices to the town for work on the Key Club been billed to the Key Club? It is difficult to understand the direct billings. Do they constitute a client/attorney relationship between the Key Club and Mr. Persson's firm? Is it the town attorney's place to decide what is billable to the town and what is billable to the Key Club? Could this inadvertantly create a conflict of interest?

I have not examined each and every line item in Mr. Persson's invoices to the town, but the ones I have randomly looked at are replete with references to DCA litigation and communications with Ms. Patton and Mr. Patterson, both attorneys for the Key Club ODP application. I am unable to see why the taxpayers should pay for conversations with the Key Club's legal staff. Likewise, the DCA  process the town is dealing with is the direct result of ordinances 2009-25 and 2010-16, which were written and submitted to the town by the Key Club staff for the KC ODP application. The latter was created as a  means of lowering the bar on the legal issues confronting the Key Club application. I voted against every provision of ordinance 2010-16. I felt that each element of the proposed ordinance violated the future land use element provisions of the comprehensive plan. I still do. Why are the taxpayers expected to pay for a year or more of DCA litigation for something dreamed up by the Key Club legal staff.

There may be parts of the comprehensive plan that can be visited that are unrelated to the Key Club ODP application. However, it is difficult to believe that any work being done on the FLUE does not directly affect the Key Club ODP application. Additionally, I do not believe that the current commission would be looking at the FLUE, as they did not look at it in 2007, were it not for the Key Club application. At least that is the perception I and others share at present. There are simply no other pending situations that require such a broad alteration of our future land use laws. Perhaps one could speculate that the properties at the north end, including Whitney Plaza, might like to have more relaxed land use ordinances. But then comprehensive plans are not supposed to be changed just to appease a developer. The owners of Whitney Plaza have not yet come forward with any land use proposals, so all the work being done on the comprehensive plan may be for naught.

Perhaps the town needs to define to the taxpayers the rules being applied to the sizable legal fees that are being submitted by Mr. Persson's firm and Ms. Stroud There is a need to differentiate those legal services that are being paid by the taxpayers from those services being passed along to the Key Club. I gather that work presently being done on the future land use element (FLUE) of the comprehensive plan by town and legal staff is not being considered as billable to the Key Club. I do not understand how this can be so.