Accountability and the Common Good

In 1975, while touring Asia with a popular band at the time, we experienced a two hour water outage in  the early afternoon at our hotel in the Ginza district of Tokyo. On the evening TV news he learned that the water commissioner for the Ginza district had committed harikari late that afternoon, for his failure to the Japanese people. I was horrified at the level of accountability expected by their culture at that time.

Today I read that a vice-president of Apple is being fired because he refused to sign a corporate letter to the American people, apologizing for the recent Apple Maps App failures. Once again I was taken back by the level of accountability within the Apple company. Perhaps being held responsible is a contributing factor  to the company's great success and superb quality in their products.

I look at the past three years of governance on Longboat Key. I see no one being held responsible for a dismal record of failed policies that have hobbled our real estate market, compared to likened communities such as Bird and Lido Keys. The property owners within the Islandside community have been denied full access to the real estate market, as a result of unlawful actions taken by the current town commission surrounding the now dead Key Club expansion application, that led to three legal actions, the last of which will be decided in late November. The first two judgments strongly rebuked the town government for violating their own laws and ordinances.

I do not see any of those responsible for the failed policies of the past three years willing to accept any responsibility for their actions.  Save for the unceremonious dismissal of the manager of the Key Club, no one else is taking responsibility for actions that have damaged the Longboat Key economy.

Then I wonder what would come to pass if the entire commission did commit political harikari. Are there any other residents willing to take their places?  The voting record of the current commission has been relatively monolithic when it comes to land use ordinances and changes to the town's Comprehensive Plan. This commission has devoted its energies almost exclusively to pro-development and pro-commercial tourism  legislation.

I know there is a great deal of concern and dissatisfaction with the present commission. People come up to me and express their apprehensions and their desire for a change in leadership. I always ask them if they are willing to serve as a town commissioner, or even willing to make the effort to write letters to the present commissioners. We all know their answers by the dearth of candidates and emails appearing in the News. 

I do not see how the current commission can justify their course of action over the past three years with anything but apologies to the residents for having bogged our community down in endless legal battles that so far have gone against the town government. Unfortunately these protracted litigation's have had a serious negative impact on the commerce of the island. 

It is sadly ironic that a pro-business commission has been singularly unsuccessful in attracting any new businesses to Longboat Key. To the contrary, there has been a steady decline in the number of retail businesses on the island along with a steady decline in property values during the past three years. Personally I do not attribute this decline to anything the commissioners have done, because they have done nothing to actually promote commerce. We hear a lot of talk. We do not see things getting better. Where this commission has focused their efforts on gutting our protective land use codes, they should have been working with the real estate community to create coordinated effective national and international marketing efforts to advertise our wonderful town's lifestyle. 

The retail stores on  Longboat Key never played apart in our meteoric development as an exclusive seasonal retirement destination. Likewise the commercial segment of the island's economy will never become a major influence on property values. The types of businesses being promoted by this commission are unneeded by the residential community. The primary concerns of today's Longboat seasonal resident center around restaurants and domestic services including furniture, house painters, appliance repair, Publix and CVS.

If Longboat Key somehow  finds itself on an irreversible course towards commercial tourism becoming the dominant business on the island, there will also be a painful period of transition, taking perhaps a decade or more, where our well-to-do residents will flee the congestion and the constantly changing unfamiliar faces of tourists, for communities just like what exists on Longboat Key right now. If our property owners wanted  to live in Bradenton Beach they certainly have the financial wear-with-all to do so.

If the commercial tourism proposals that have been entertained, and encouraged, by the current commission, come to fruition, the number of tourists on Longboat Key will almost double in a short period of time from current levels - Key Club expansion, Colony rebuild, Hilton expansion, north end motel. This is a huge expansion of tourism in an otherwise bucolic residential community. 

It is the obligation of people holding offices of public trust to act for the common good of their community. This has not been the case for the past three years. Property owner's interests have been ignored while a mostly appointed commission has been devoted to passing ordinances, overlays and codes that are exclusively for the benefit of commercial developers.

If the community at-large does not express their views, then we will continue to have a mostly appointed town government, with a narrow agenda that does little to nothing to promote real estate values over commercial development.

I advocate that the town redirect its energies to clearing the glut of for-sale properties on Longboat Key through a concerted national and international marketing program to attract home buyers. I would much rather see the town pay for effective marketing than architects for yet another plan for a costly, and most likely unneeded, expansion at Bayfront Park. 

This commission has been playing a zero-sum-game with the island's economy.

When a tourist developer wins some residents lose.

Year-to-year Property Values - Aug. 2011-2012

Longboat Key$472,4002.8%

Whitfield$151,40017.7%

Cortez$140,6003.9%

Bradenton Beach$230,8000.4%

Sarasota$130,60011.6%

North Sarasota$74,7008.6%

Note how poorly Bradenton Beach has performed. 

Perhaps tourism is not such a great asset.

We need to do a better job marketing our beautiful community.