No Free Lunch

What is occuring on Longboat Key involving the Key Club litigation, could be a very costly zero-sum-game. Since the commissioners have once again unanimously decided to adhere to their stance on the Key Club expansion proposal, they have created a situation where a developer stands to gain tens of millions of dollars from government sponsored added value, to what is currently golf course acreage. By doing so, the town government has inadvertantly placed a huge financial burden on some residents, as they are now in the position of having to protect the value of their property.


From reading the recent town lawyer's letter to the commission listing nine active legal actions against the town by residents, it would appear that IPOC is not alone in their grievences against the commission and thus the town. All these residents are so dissatisfied with the town that they are willing to spend their time and money to fight against what they feel to be unjust treatment. The more oppressive, rigid, and developer-friendly the commission becomes, the more lawsuits are launched against them and the town.  Monitarily, this appears to be a beneficial situation for the attorneys, quite the opposite for the town and the taxpayers.

On Monday night, the commission unanimously agreed to allow the town lawyer to proceed with a costly and lengthy appeal of a recent court decision which had slammed the commissioners on their high-handed abuse of resident's property rights. The court decision cited seven issues with the commission's passage of ordinances 2009-25 and 2010-16. Since there was no meaningful discussion about the morality and advisability of appealing such a strong court ruling, one must assume that each commissioner had throughly weighed the wisdom of their decision prior to the commission meeting.

Nowhere in the commissioners' non-discussion was there any question of possibly being wrong. All that was said by our lawyer was that the commissioners needed to somehow overturn the court ruling. What if the court was right?

Given that their separate decisions had to be made without group communications with the town lawyer, their confidence in this legal matter is significant. The commissioners are surely aware that if the town lawyer had communications with each commissioner in "rapid succession" prior to Monday night's commission meeting, that could constitute a violation of the sunshine law. In a December 3rd article in the Herald Tribune newspaper, the possiblity of abuse of the sunshine law in this manner was discussed in reference to the actions of the Bradenton School Board. If communications and agreements were made "behind closed doors" so to speak, coming forward when the town lawyer asked whether any violations of the sunshine law took place would have been the right thing to do to be fair to all the residents involved in the Key Club expansion litigation.

During the Monday night commission meeting, when the town lawyer was politicking to get permission to appeal his most recent pending land-use litigation defeat, the lawyer stated that the commission had always stepped up to defend their actions. I recall that previously the Klauber lawsuit appeal request made by Mr. Persson was wisely denied by the commission. This time Mr. Lesser is supposedly paying all the legal and staff expenses, as the commissioners try to reverse all seven of the adverse rulings made by the court.

Now for the no free lunch. We all know that courts can be unpredictable, as evidenced by the recent Key Club ruling against the town commission. The commissioners, in their appearant haste to appeal that ruling, did not take any time to discuss what could befall Longboat Key taxpayers if the town loses its appeal. Under Florida statutes it may be possile for property owners to sue the town for losses to property values as a direct result of illegal actions by the town commission. If that happens, Loeb Partners will most likely run away from the town. The taxpayers would end up having to pay for expensive lawyers. If the property owners prevail, the taxpayers could be stuck with a huge settlement that would be levied against the town. This is exactly what happened in the Klauber suit. Don't think it can't happen again.

Florida Statutes : 70.001 f.s.
Abstract: (2) When a specific action of a governmental entity has inordinately burdened an existing use of real property or a vested right to a specific use of real property, the property owner of that real property is entitled to relief, which may include compensation for the actual loss to the fair market value of the real property caused by the action of government, as provided in this section. (d) The term “action of a governmental entity” means a specific action of a governmental …

The commissioners are playing for high stakes, though they may not know it. By not seeking some sort of compromise between Loeb Partners and the property owners of Islandside, the commissioners are now exposing the taxpayers to possble liabilities that will adverasely affect the future of our community.

There is a distinct feeling of unfairness in the dogged efforts of the commissioners to assist Loeb Partners' efforts to add value to their golf course. By not seeking compromise, the commissioners have created a very costly zero-sum-game, where someone wins financially and someone loses. By appealing rather than demanding a workable expansion plan from the Key Club, the commissioners have prolonged the start of anything positive at the Key Club for another year at least according to the town lawyer.


Worse yet is the possibly tenuous and greatly increased financial exposure of the entire community to  losing an appeal of a fairly severe court ruling. This is foolhardy. I am amazed that the commissioners spent hours rangling over ten feet of parking space at the Publix hearing, and fewer than six minutes on the largest lawsuit on the island since the Klauber suit, which went terribly wrong for the taxpayers.

Asking for Informed Government

This picture is a licensed surveyor's to-scale rendition of the proposed 150 foot cell tower at the Island Chapel using the dimensions appearing in Ridan's application. The upper 60 feet of the tower is 42 inches in diameter and 72 inches at the base.

Please note the recently purchased Grand Mariner luxury condominiums in the background along with the church steeple. The Grand Mariner building lies within 260 feet of the proposed cell tower that will be located directly in their line-of-sight.

 Did you know that on September 1st the planning and zoning board spent over an hour listening to a lawyer named Gary Resnic, from Gray Robinson in Boca Raton, about multiple cell towers on Longboat Key? Neither did I, until after the planning and zoning board meeting, even though Steve Shields, who is in charge of the current cell tower application, was asked about the meeting agenda two days prior to the meeting, and said the only agenda item was the transportation elements of the comprehensive plan. Mr. Resnic's hour plus presentation did not appear in the published agenda, so no one from the public was informed about a major discussion by the planning and zoning board about cell towers. What has happened to fair and open government in our community that people are sneaked into advertised public meetings? The planning and zoning board then spent less than 20 minutes on the advertised transportation agenda item. I also wish to point out that even if a resident had accidentally attended the meeting, their participation would have most likely been limited to all of 3 minutes. A few years ago when an industry expert from Next-G traveled hundreds of miles to address the commission about DAS, the commission granted him all of 3 minutes, while listening to the cell tower salesperson for hours on end, meeting after meeting. On two occasions the town manager conducted private meetings with the cell tower salesperson, outside the commission chamber, in the middle of an advertised public commission meeting. If the planning and zoning board now contends, after talking to a cell tower lawyer for an hour, that it has vetted the island's communications needs, and commences to once again recommend multiple cell towers up and down our island, then I feel they have failed their fiduciary obligation to serve the public to the best of their abilities. I contend that talking for an hour with a cell tower lawyer, who admitted that he had no technical knowledge about cell towers, the need for cell towers, or the public's desire to have or not have tall cell towers within their community, then the planning and zoning board has failed their duty.

The last time the planning and zoning board recommended multiple cell towers on Longboat Key, the community responded with a petition, with over 630 signatures from north end registered voters, that they did not want any structures over 35 feet. They packed the commission chamber on several occasions and the commission voted unanimously to retain our current cell tower codes. That commission listened and are to be congratulated for being responsive to their constituents. The current chairperson of the planning and zoning board recently stated that we now have a different commission with reference to long standing cell tower policies supported by decades of previous town commissions.

Now we have a commission, along with their appointed planning and zoning board, that do not appear to be even slightly concerned with what the residents want. For the past two years the word resident has been seldom mentioned by the commission. On the other hand, we here more and more about how it is the town's obligation to promote business and development on Longboat, and that the codes and comp plan must be gutted to welcome unbridled development. Cell towers will most likely be their first concerted effort, and their actions will have a severe financial impact on surrounding property values, while reaping huge financial gains for cell tower companies. All this without ever asking industry experts to educate the community about what is best for our exclusive town.

The unwillingness of the commission and the planning and zoning board to get input from anyone except cell tower salespeople, and cell tower company lawyers, will most likely prevent more technically advanced forms of communications from ever reaching our island, thus impeding our path to becoming a technically advanced community that will attract tech-savvy baby-boomer home-buyers. This has been confirmed by a large cell tower company executive.

Our neighbors on Anna Maria have retained an industry expert to assist their efforts to rewrite their communications codes. Here the commission will control the process to include input exclusively from cell tower salespeople and their lawyers. This is unfortunate if your are a homeowner. Our community needs island-wide broadband wifi along with less expensive alternatives to the high fees being charged by Comcast and Verizon. When visitors come to our island they bring their IPads and notebook computers. They want wifi far more that cell phones since they already have VOIP phone apps such as Line2 on all their smart devices. These apps are carrier neutral so even people with small carriers receive great cell phone reception indoors and outdoors if wifi is available.

The Key Club might attract more and younger quests if they offered wifi in the hotel rooms instead of just in the lobby area. Longboat Key is badly behind the times in terms of modern communications available in most other up-scale communities. Pervasive wifi is essential to compete in these times. Cell towers are antiquated and soon to be replaced by less expensive technologies. Ask your children what they think? Do you want a cell tower salesperson to decide your communications future?

If the commission and the planning and zoning board make uninformed decisions, advised only by cell tower salespeople and their lawyers, they will undoubtedly make uninformed decisions and we all know what that usually means. Who will buy homes in a community that is controlled by people who have no regard for well established and proved community codes? Who will buy homes in a community divided by strife and lawsuits and a town government that has ceased to listen to its people?