Sex, promises and 150 room hotels

Mr. Spoll has now publicly assured the residents at the north end of Longboat Key that he will not force them to accept anything taller than a 3 story hotel over 2 stories of parking. Mr. Spoll may have forgotten that nice hotels usually have a spacious lobby and a restaurant on the first level. That makes 6 stories and counting the additional 14 feet allowed by town codes for elevator and stair shafts and equipment rooms on the roof.

Since the town commission is working on the second legal reading of their sweeping changes to the town's Comprehensive Plan, residents may no longer expect any sort of protection in the legal area of our codes. This commission is quickly making the process of granting variances to developers a political process. We have already reached the level of politics where our unelected mayor represents clients, as their architect, before the Planning and Zoning Board that he appoints. Who would you hire if you too wanted your building plans to have smooth sailing through the town?

No matter that two hotel developers have stated that a minimum of 150 rooms is essential to build a financially viable hotel at the north end of the island. Mr. Spoll knows better it seems. Three year ago, the same Mr. Spoll voted to spend $25K taxpayer dollars to hire a traffic engineer who would agree with Mr. Spoll that traffic roundabouts are bad and unsafe. Now that same Mr. Spoll appears to have done a 180 degree reversal and now embraces traffic roundabouts. I wish he had saved us all the $25K in the first place.

I typed into Google Images - "150 room hotel" and came up with dozens and dozens of pictures of 150 room hotels. You be the judge whether Mr. Spool has any idea what a 150 room hotel looks like. All the pictures show 6 to 9 story hotels. Please note that the two tallest condominiums at the Key Club are 10 stories tall.

When you vote, remember that Mr. Brenner publicly supports tourism development at the north end of Longboat Key. Then think about who would want to buy your home if your island becomes a commercial tourism destination at both the north and south ends.

L'Ambiance condominium - 10 stories tall

Faux Sure

Faux Sure is a mixed-use of languages for sure. It is meant to point to the predicament the community finds itself in, where a small group of powerful people have hijacked the town government and are telling us we need to greatly expand development on Longboat Key. The problem is how do we know they are right? If they are wrong they will destroy Longboat Key as we know and love it. This self-assured group is working tirelessly to rewrite both the land use codes and the comprehensive plan in an attempt to deconstruct the very codes and comp plan that have been used to create our great and unique community. How about another Plymouth Harbor behind Publix and/or at Whitney Plaza?

What are the Faux Sure people offering you and me? What do we know about their career histories? Would you want a clique of unknowns to have control of your finances? What do you really know about the present commissioners? What will happen to the market value of your property on Longboat Key if they are wrong? Expanded commercial tourism seldom mixes with low density exclusivity.

Up to now it made little difference who was on the commission because the town had a strong town manager who was easily able to control the commissioners by limiting their choices and feeding them well massaged information. So long as the town manager was on a strong course the commission was sure to follow.

This is no longer the case. We now have an activist commission who are on an accelerating quest to rewrite both the land use codes and the comprehensive plan to allow developers to have a free hand in developing large projects on the island with little accountability required. The commission has gone through four town managers in less than a month. What does that say to anyone wishing to apply for the town manager position in the future? The Faux Sures have re-instated the building department director when it is convenient for their purposes for short periods of time, in the midst of what may be a bona fide employee grievance process, by firing our police chief as the acting town manager. I was at the special meeting where Mayor Brown humiliated the police chief infront of the community. This was obscene. This sordid affair should have been carried out in a less offensive way. An already fractious situation has been exacerbated by ill tempered words and actions. Damage has been done and trust and confidence have been diminished. It is unclear if Ms. Simpson has been reinstated or not been reinstated. She appeared before the most recent planning and zonimg board meeting so one would assume she had been reinstated. Everything is unclear at the moment, the commissioners are unusually quiet and town hall is walking on soft boiled eggs hoping nothing else happens.

Where do we go from here and how to we find out if the Faux Sures are on the right track? We seem to have reached a point where the entire governance of Longboat Key is on shaky ground. The position of town manager has been compromised by five commissioners who shoot first and don't bother to ask questions later.

The current commission has now demonstrated that they either do not intend to be limited by, or do not know, the confines of their elected offices. We do have a town charter and that charter needs to be followed and obeyed. In recent years I cannot recall when the town attorney has been unable to find a way to support the commission. I find it hard to believe that everything the commission wants to do is always legally OK.

De-constructing Longboat Key

I admit I am apprehensive about the flurry of activity taking place in our town government during our summer doldrums. There are more town commission appointed committees than I can keep tabs on. Each one seems to be tasked with rewriting major parts of our comprehensive plan, a plan that has created one of the most successful communities in America.

To date our energetic commission has not told us why we need so many committees making so many major revisions to the town's land use policies. Since the commission has chosen to use committees to carry out the commission's grand design, very little that is being done is recorded or tracked by the two town newspapers. It appears that the commission is operating in a stealth mode via committees and when no one is around.

Somewhere down the road, or at the end of the summer, we will see a glimmer of the commission's grand design for our island, and one suspects that the developers will be happy.

Since there is little to no unused land on Longboat, one wonders how and where the developers plan to create something out of whole cloth, so to speak. If the commissioners do not have a fairly robust development effort in mind, one wonders why the long hours, during what is usually a quiet period in town government, and why all the committees?  Do they see opportunities to expand tourism and increase retail business on our island?  And if so, where do they see these opportunities?  It has been over 5 years since the 250 room referendum was approved by the voters, and not a single room has been taken.  Publix may actually reduce retail at Bay Isles, including all the shops behind Avenue of the Flowers that they now own. One doubts the owners of all the newly acquired land on the north end of the island at Whitney Beach Plaza will be using the land as any sort of retail center. They have had enough time to understand what happens on Longboat during the nine months of off-season to want to repeat the mistakes of their predecessors.

For now it appears that both tourism and retail are diminishing on Longboat, in spite of the assurances by some commissioners that they will save Longboat by promoting new tourist facilities that will in turn support a burgeoning retail renaissance on Longboat. I do not see that happening even after the commission has done serious damage to what have been an effective comprehensive plan and building codes. Have many residents have said they even want more tourists and more development?  Have residents been asked whether they want it?

If all this extra effort, and all the hours of committee meetings, and all the extra costs of  two town attorneys, is on behalf of the Key Club, I will be stunned at how the tail now wags the dog on Longboat. Hopefully all this effort is not for one developer, who says he plans to build a hotel at one of the least desirable locations one can imagine. There are already too many lovely, sparsely occupied, hotels located right on some of the most beautiful beaches around. The Key Club hotel has no Gulf beach, only a view of an ordinary and noisy bridge and the boat docks of a few nice homes on Lighthouse Point. I doubt a hotel will be built at that location. Mr. Lesser understands location, location, location.

Why then all the sound and furry and rush to recast our comprehensive plan as a testament to lax control of land use and overly permissive building codes? Do the commissioners really believe they are fashioning a panacea for our future?  The coming economic times may have a far greater impact on our futures than any machinations of a small group of like-minded individuals, well-intentioned though they might be, who have gained the power to alter what was working, without really understanding what the ramifications might be.

I do not believe our beautiful community should welcome developers. They make their money and then leave. If we are doing well, as I believe we are, there is really nothing that needs doing. Especially increases in density solely for the sake of promoting retail commerce which is what some of our commissioners are telling us.