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.

The More You Know

"The more we know" is a recurring theme in my efforts to add to the community conversation. I have contended for decades that small town government lacks the resources to find optimal solutions to community challenges such as our communications infrastructure, our pension plans funding and our beach management practices. Many of these challenges are technologically complex even for much larger communities with departments of specialized workers. I have always worried that we are making poor choices because we fail to recognize our limitations as a small town with only a few minimally trained workers in each department.

The previous town manager frustrated many commissioners and town staff with his unwillingness or inability to investigate a range of options for the many issues that confront any small municipality over time. He was known for quickly forming uninformed opinions and then refusing to get off the dime even in the face of overwhelming evidence that his positions were unproductive.

The journey is the destination. This is an adage that might serve well as a road map for a town government with limited staff resources and an unpaid commission. Small communities must rely on outside advice, hopefully from disinterested experts in various fields of knowledge. Small town governments must resist taking the short route and taking the advice of the first "expert" to come down the road or worse yet an "expert" who espouses some sort of political agenda. Making the journey the destination  requires a commission that is ever vigilant to well camouflaged propaganda and motives.

Traditionally our town manager has assumed the role of "decider" since the town manager presents the commission with most, if not all, of its information. He also formulates the choices available to the commissioners and in general holds most of the cards. The current commission has been a good deal more active than previous commissions. I feel that this has been positive for our community even though I may disagree with some of their policies. I hope the commission will enjoy a long honeymoon with the new town manager and work as a team to intelligently formulate informed decisions concerning some fairly complex problems.

It is easy to make decisions in an information vacuum. The more we know about all the challenges  confronting our community, the more likely we will make better decisions. The problem as I see it is knowing when you need to know more. Often problems appear to be easily understood when in fact there are subtle nuances that complicate the decision making process. Taking time to throughly examine issues may be the only way to arrive at any sort of sound conclusions.

Ask a Question

• Do Background Research
• Construct a Hypothesis
• Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
• Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
• Communicate Your Results

The bottom line is that our town government needs to cast a broader information net in the future. We need to enlist more experts in the process. We need to insist that these experts be truly disinterested contributors. Decisions need to be based on a sound understanding of the problem and an open-minded approach to resolving the problem.

We are a small community with limited governmental resources. We are not alone in this. I have found that there is already a wealth of information available by consulting with other communities with similar problems. What we should not do is assume we know everything.

See also: http://lbk-folk.blogspot.com/2011/02/skeptical-advice.html

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.

Politics vs Pragmatism in Government

damnant quod non intellegunt

Two weeks ago I met with a Manatee County Commissioner. The purpose of my meeting was to lobby the commissioner to seek alternative solutions to unpopular tall cell towers. I did not know what to expect when I entered the county commissioner's office.

I was greeted by a smiling affable young man who asked me to sit down. We spent a few minutes becoming acquainted about where we lived and both being or having been commissioners. I then began to talk about alternative technologies to cell towers. As we talked I presented the commissioner with several printed reports and informational materials. My presentation quickly became a discussion about cell phone reception and I soon realized that the commissioner already knew quite a bit about cell towers and the county's involvement in a cell tower litigation at Lakewood Ranch.

We talked about the fact that there are over 200,00 cell towers in America but that there are also over 300,000 Femtocells being used in homes throughout the country to improve cell phone indoor reception.

Our meeting lasted over 45 minutes. At the end of our meeting the commissioner informed me that he would ask his technical staff to research Lucent's LightRadio technology and that he would let me know what his staff learned.  

I left the meeting with the feeling that Manatee County has acquired another hard working intelligent commissioner, who is vitally interested in making the best possible decisions based on facts and knowledge. I will request meetings with several other county commissioners with the same expectations of discussing cell tower alternatives with pragmatic public servants more interested in optimal solutions than appeasing their friends or business interests at the expense of voters.

It takes a lot of effort to do the work that is required to gain a full understanding of the many complex issues that confront elected officials every month. However, not doing the work, and making decisions based solely on the votes of fellow officials, is a betrayal of public office. Too often uninformed decisions are made that adversely impact residents and entire communities, when a little honest work and an open mind could have resulted in policies that are win-win for everyone concerned.

How can anyone make an intelligent decision from a place of ignorance? It is one thing to not know what questions to ask, but in this day of Goggle one need only enter a few words and a wealth of information is immediately available. Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn. Making uninformed decisions is a disservice to the voters who placed in their elected officials with their trust and faith. From my meeting with a Manatee County commissioner I feel confident that he and his fellow county commissioners will do their best to make informed decisions.

Skeptical Advice

This article is based in part on concepts expressed by Michael Shermer

I want to begin by thanking the entire commission for all their hard work and commitment to our community. Believe me when I say it is a difficult arduous task not without the slings and arrows of resident discontent and inescapable pluralism. I wish our community had many more dedicated, civic-minded residents willing to do the hard work that comes with being a town commissioner. I wish many more residents would become actively involved in the day-to-day politics of our community. At times, I feel like our island newspapers could carry a headline stating "the town commission has revolted and beheaded the town manager", and not a single resident would submit comments or a letter to the editor. Compared to other communities where I have lived, this community seems to be content, if that is the right word.


I want to talk about what is called "the argument from ignorance". This is most often manifested in thinking that says "it must be true because it has not been proven false". Or "because I cannot imagine a viable alternative, there cannot be one". I believe that our town government frequently finds itself making these sorts of assertions when they are confronted by large or complex issues, where the commission has to choose between several courses of action. Further, I believe that the argument from ignorance prevails through no fault of the commissioners, but rather because the commission lacks the necessary tools and adequate information to make truly informed decisions.


How do we avoid the argument from ignorance? I want to look at the current beach bond conundrum and look at some alternative scenarios that might have occurred, if more information and more input from professionals had been part of the process. Reading comments in the newspapers, and talking to residents, it is apparent that voters are unsure, confused and unclear as to the actual condition of the island's beaches, the future course of beach management and the financial implications of our current and future beach policies. At this point, I would refrain from forecasting the outcome of the beach bond initiative. Looking at the upcoming $16 million bond referendum, along with future beach management bond initiatives, I see confusion and a lack of understanding on the part of the electorate. Perhaps this is simply a reflection of the commissions actions over the past few months. I personally am unable to discern any clear direction going forward that offers any relief from escalating costs.

To anyone who has followed the tortuous course of actions that has led to the current bond referendum, one cannot help but see a conscious effort on the part of the town and the commission to limit discussion about our beach program. For instance, when the town manager held a special workshop on beach cost containment alternatives, no one advocating alternatives was invited to attend. Instead, the discussion was restricted to two "experts" who categorically stated that there are no alternatives to ever more expensive dredging. Since then a respected contractor has presented an example of an alternative to dredging that has been working well for many years. I do not believe many commissioners have understood the implications of a viable alternative, since the town manager blasted the working beach sand alternative for being site specific, and certainly not appropriate for Longboat. Personally, I worry about policies based in inference rather than experimentation and analysis.

If there are alternatives that contain costs, I fear our commissioners will never be open to examining them since the town manager will once again bring in his experts to convince the commissioners that the world really is flat. Not playing with a full deck of facts seldom leads to best conclusions.

As a commissioner, I tried to advance the need for special advisers to the commission. These experts would answer only to the commission and not be hired by or part of the town bureaucracy. I believe the commission makes decisions based on incomplete or politically colored information. These experts would be retained as needed and would advise the commission without being part of any other town business. Each adviser would be an expert in a particular area of interest to the commission. As the town is confronted by increasingly more complex issues we need to avoid "the argument form ignorance". 

My New Vision Plan

Last Monday night the town commission "adopted" a vision plan based on pre-2008 focus group data, that is no longer relevant in light of today's economic and demographic realities. The current commissioners tweaked the old information by adding a new emphasis on commercial development in a exclusive residential second-home community. Why?

So I am proposing a New Vision Plan based on current socio-economic realities, which do not include inappropriate commercial enterprises that detract from our community's residential composition.

Ask yourself if you would prefer a liquid real estate market where, if you wished, you could sell your home in less than a month at a good price, or hoards of tourists, traffic and condo-tels like Reddington Beach or many of the other commercialized Pinellas County beach communities? If you prefer the former, then you may like my New Vision Plan. This plan includes many incentives to attract new residents, not contained in the old Vision Plan "adopted" by our current commissioners.

This afternoon Elisabeth and I went to the Manatee Art Center to see the National Watercolor Exhibition. WOW! I highly recommend it to anyone who appreciates beautiful art. The art center was packed with people obviously enjoying the exhibition. Elisabeth struck up a conversation with one couple who informed us that the entire group was from The Villages and had arrived on two buses. We noticed that everyone was our age and obviously having a good time with one another.

As our discussion progressed we inquired about the housing market in The Villages. They said that currently over 250 new homes are sold each month at The Villages, and that figure did not include sales of existing homes. I have since confirmed the 250+ figure with the developers.

Then we discussed community activities at The Villages such as the outing to the National Watercolor Exhibition that we were all attending. The woman directed me to the Activities Web Site for The Villages. I have since looked at the website and I am astonished by the breadth and depth of activities available to the residents. Here is the link: http://www.thevillagesdailysun.com/app/files/recnews.pdf

So the cornerstone of my New Vision Plan is creating more activities to draw our community together rather than promoting more tourist businesses up and down GMD. My New Vision Plan has the town using its resources to promote community values, community activities, development of a community center and spearheading a concerted effort to promote our community as the place to own a home, a place to meet new friends and a place where residents are actively engaged in life.

My New Vision Plan envisions a re-build-out of our residential neighborhoods, fueled by a strong demand by perspective baby boomer home-buyers, who want to be part of an exclusive seaside community, at the forefront of defining the new American way of life. Tourism oriented strip malls and condo-tels may be fine for Reddington Beach, but they have no place on our island.

My New Vision Plan has no place for traffic grid-lock or beaches crowded with day visitors. The New Vision Plan promotes an active yet relaxed community. One need only look at other successful communities, Florida communities, where real estate is in high demand, to realize that tourism is by no means essential to a vibrant growing community.

My Vision Plan has our community redefining itself and becoming part of today's New America, where it seems people want to be more active and more social. We need to have our town government turn its efforts towards community development, not commercial development. We are an island community that has failed to stay abreast of current community trends and we need to change direction now.

The Villages is not located on a beautiful island in the Gulf of Mexico. Yet they are attracting 250+ new home-buyers a month while our community is attracting a dozen if we have a good month. I believe we as a community are not currently able to offer a lifestyle that attracts the new generation of home-buyers; and that we need to change as quickly as possible. We might want to look at why we would even want to devote resources to tourism that is probably a decade in the offing. Until we understand why people want to move to such places as The Villages and not here, we should not embrace the commission's vision plan that emphasizes tourism.

The ink is barely dry on our new vision plan, the one some of the commissioners defend as being community friendly and absolutely unbiased towards commercial development, and the commission already has the town spending taxpayer money on a lawyer to immediately change our trusted comp plan to do one thing - promote commercial expansion on Longboat Key. The commission's actions speak much louder than their rather hollow protestations, that their vision plan is little more than a manifesto for commercial development of our precious residential community. One would think that at this time, when so many Longboat taxpayers are financially stresses and unable to sell their homes, that the commission would not hurry so to help their business friends, while doing nothing to assist their fellow residents.

Government and the 3 Minute Boogie

A writer named Hugh Prather wrote that he and his wife had learned to argue long enough to learn what it was they were really arguing about. I never forgot that thought and I wonder if it might be applied to the way our town government operates.

Last Thursday I attended a special commission meeting specifically about the beach. I thought the meeting would last as long as it took the commissioners to vote on the four previously proposed referendum items. Instead what ensued was a four and a half hour ordeal where no one appeared to be listening to one another.

Particularly baffling was a three-hour monologue by the mayor attempting to convince the other commissioners that Commissioner Younger's new beach proposal was the wrong answer to the question about what to do about our beaches. I personally believe that Commissioner Younger's idea is a doable compromise between doing too little and doing too much. As the town manager put it "an ingenious" concept. It now appears the town manager is having second thoughts and is unwilling to accept a 6-1 commission vote to adopt Commissioner Younger's proposal and no other proposals.

The town manager had his beach consultants tell the commissioners that Commissioner Younger's ideas were inadequate and that only a full beach re-nourishment a year ahead of schedule would do. I felt that neither the consultant's or the mayor's words had any affect on the resolve of at least four of the commissioners.  In the end, six commissioners rejected the town manager's consultants' admonitions.

Still the mayor pressed on, hour after hour, unrelentingly, in his quest to defeat Commissioner Younger and champion the town manager's much more costly plan.

While I was watching the mayor's labored, perhaps over-labored monologue, I recalled all the times that the mayor has limited input from residents and commissioners alike to 3 minutes, when that person is talking about something that is not part of the majority agenda. I wonder if limiting dialog to 3 minutes, for all those who do not agree with the majority, serves the residents of this community well. Do as I say, not as I do it seems.

Of course the political majority of commissioners have the power to curtail input from residents and commissioners. Also there seems to be a generally accepted philosophy amongst our unpaid commissioners that commission meetings should not be allowed to "drag on". The shorter the better. I wonder if this is good for a community where the town government is faced with some truly daunting issues. Is it a good idea to allow people who have political cache, or are friends with the current majority faction of the commission, to have greater access and more time to advance their ideas, while restricting the general public and minority commissioners to only a 3 minute boogie, so to speak?

The present beach dust-up between the town manager and the majority of the commissioners, or should I say the majority of the commissioners at last count, appears to lack any sort of clearly defined parameters. Cost estimates have ranged from 7 to 50 million dollars. Sand quantities have ranged from 35 thousand to 1.5 million yards. Bond interest has ranged from 2.5 to 5 percent. Bond terms have ranged from 2 to 20 years. I doubt the commission fully understands the details of what they approved. I certainly did not and I have attended the meetings.

For the most part this has been a one-sided conversation. Opposing points of view have been limited to 3 minutes. Strangely the majority has swung a couple of times between the town manager's proposal for a high-priced replenishment to commissioners Brenner's and Younger's less ambitious plans. Nowhere have I seen a measured and balanced dialog that included commissioners and residents with differing views.

What I believe I have seen in the process that has ended up with a 6-1 commission vote to place Commissioner Younger's proposal on the March ballot, and the town manager's continuing refusal to accept that vote, is a lack of hard facts and information. Yes, the town manager's beach consultants have had many hours to advance their views. Unfortunately, no one else has been invited to the table. I think that is what commissioner Brenner is alluding to when we asks for some sort of evaluation process. I concur.

Three minutes is not enough  time to explore alternative facts and views in a multi-million dollar conversation. I hope we find a better political path into our future. Political might may not always be right.

Beach Management - A Broader View



Three weeks ago the town manager brought in two beach experts to shoot holes in the belief, previously expressed by a couple of commissioners, that it might be prudent to maintain the existing beach management time schedule, and take a year to seriously look at ways we might lessen the yearly cost of beach maintenance.

At that meeting if one listened to Mr. Woodruff, from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, he stated that one way to lower costs is to approach beach management on a regional level instead of going it alone, which is what we are presently doing. I have been advocating the regional concept for over five years after reading the following article about such an approach on the east coast of Florida.

http://gene248.web.officelive.com/Coastal_Engineering.aspx

If there are enough municipalities participating in a regional program then things such as owning a medium sized cutter-head dredge, along with a small cutter-head dredge for maintaining canals, become economically feasible due to economies of scale, where there are enough beaches and canals to keep a dredge busy on a continuing basis. Hillsboro Inlet taxing district spends $1 million annually to maintain Pompano Beach, which has not requird dredging since 1985. Longboat Key will spend $50 million to maintain our beaches for the next 7 or 8 years, followed by who knows what. The Hillsboro Inlet taxing district has contained costs while Longboat's costs continue to double periodically.

Perhaps the only rational for conducting island-wide dredging projects, which frequently place sand on beaches that do not need sand, is the millions of dollars required to setup and dismantle a large dredge operation, along with the high cost of paying beach engineering companies to permit each separate renourishment project. If Siesta, Lido, Longboat and Anna Maria beach taxing districts owned a dredge the logistical costs could be greatly reduced and spot dredging would become economically viable. Spot dredging would most likely require far less sand and maintain a consistent beach profile as opposed the feast followed by famine cycle we presently support.

The various taxing districts would pay for their share of costs. The regional program would work under a ten year renewable permit from the state, just like other beach districts such as Hillsboro Inlet and others, creating an aggregate savings of tens of millions of dollars over a decade.

We can only hope that the town manager and the town's beach engineering company will at least encourage the town commission to look into the advice offered by Mr. Woodruff from FDEP. I suspect that a regional beach maintenance program would be more attractive to Federal and state funding. Other regional beach efforts in Florida have been successful.

Perhaps the commissioners might retain an independent engineering company to research possible ways our community might reduce spending on beach maintenance. Longboat Key's "go it alone" approach may have been financially supportable when dredging projects cost less than $20 million. Those times appear to have vanished and our community is facing doubling cost increases every 7 or 8 years.

The commission seems unable to add $28 million to the pension funds, so that the town can transfer our unsuccessful pension plans into the Florida Retirement System and be done with the problem, while still offering our employees a fair retirement. The pension plan funding is a one time fix. The beaches are an ongoing problem that has doubled in size each replenishment cycle. It should be noted that the town and the commissioners have spent magnitudes more time on the pension fund dilemma than the far more expensive, and still uncontrolled, beach maintenance cost problem.

If the commission approves advancing the beach maintenance schedule, then our community will be ignoring the possibilities of controlling our beach maintenance costs for another eight years. The town's beach engineering consultants have stated that our beaches do not presently need any sand except for the north end. What's the hurry?

I believe our community needs to explore all possible ways to reduce beach maintenance costs and not wait until the last minute, again, 8 years from now. Waiting until the last minute is no way to spend $50 million tax dollars on a temporary fix.

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.

Clouds Over Longboat Beaches

Last Monday's commission meeting turned into a lengthy forum on the town manager's proposed $56 million beach project that has the town manager recommending that the scheduled beach renourishment be moved forward a full year. Once again I state that I object to the town using the face value of bonds as opposed to the figure that appears on our tax statements which is the bond value plus interest. The bond value is in the vicinity of $45 million.

I spoke to the commission and the gist of my statements appears below followed by the town manager's rebuttal of my claims. This column represents a new paradigm in our community government in that I can now respond to the town manager's enviable position of always getting the last word. So please read to the end, because I believe you will enjoy the new and I feel improved process of governance.

Here are my comments to the commission on Monday evening:


Initial Bond $45 million

Minus $7 million for a north end jetty.

$45 million bond minus $7 million for the jetty leaves $38 million as the projected cost for sand.

Interest on $38 million sand bond at 3% for 8 years = $9.12 million.

The true cost of the project is $38 million plus interest of $9 million = $47 million.

$47 million is what appears on our taxes.

The town manager has stated that 1.2 million yards of sand will be required.

$47 million divided by 1.2 million yards of sand equals $39 dollars a yard for sand.

At $39 per yard the most we could expect to be reimbursed from Port Dolphin would be 128 thousand yards of sand. That is 1/10th the amount being used for the proposed sand renourishment. If Port Dolphin pays us money, the cap is set at $5 million which is linked to our costs for removing the sand from the Port Dolphin right-of-way. There are absolutely no guarantees the town will get a nickel from Port Dolphin.

If the beach project is advanced a year the taxpayers will lose a full year of amortization on the previous beach bond which is approximately $660.000. In addition the taxpayers will have to start paying $1.3 million annually on a new beach bond a year early. I am not even including any discussion of possibly far less costly beach maintenance technologies that will not be examined if the beach project is advanced a year.

Is Port Dolphin worth advancing the project with all the extra costs involved?

The total cost for both the sand and the jetty is $45 mil + 3% interest for 8 years equals $10.8 mil, for a grand total of $55.8 million added to our resident’s taxes.

I include here a lower cost projection in an attempt to show that even at a lower coast project that the financials still do not make sense to me.

Low end sand only estimate: $32 mil for sand bond / $7.7 mil for interest / $40 mil total / 40 divided by 1.2 = $33 per yard / 151 thousand yards reimbursed from Port Dolphin – still not worth it.

If we are going to pay between $33 and $39 a yard for sand that will be half gone in two years, I believe we need to research alternatives first. $33 - 39 a yard is simply too much to do otherwise.

Below are my responses to the three statements made by the town manager to refute the above statements.


1) The town mnager stated that each year we lose 250,000 cubic yards of our beach sand. I am assuming that is what he is saying when he stated that there is yearly loss of $4 million worth of sand from an initial renourishment of 1.8 million yards. 1.8 divided by 8 = 225,000. From what I have read and what has been stated by CP&E, there is an initial accelerated equilibrating process that occurs in the first two to three years where approximately 50% of the dry beach profile is redistributed as the beach profile approaches equilibrium.

“The time scale for profile equilibration has been examined for several projects and it has been found that the project will stabilize to one-half the equilibrium adjustment in approximately 2 to 3 years.”…NOAA quote.

The rate of sand loss in a perfect system (no storms) then decreases logarithmically each year as the dry beach comes closer to equilibrium with the greater shore profile. This would indicate that sand loss in the final year would not be 1/8th of the whole, as the town manager stated, but much less. I disagree with the town manager's assertion that waiting a year would cost an additional $4 million dollars. I do not believe the taxpayers come out ahead by early termination of the current beach project.

Sand Loss Graph: (note logarithmic loss curve - less and less sand lost over time)

2) The proposed north end jetty: The town manager rebutted that not advancing the beach project would leave no sand in the north end system for the proposed jetty, and that a jetty needs sand in the system because jetties do not produce sand. I wish to say I do not agree with that statement. Jetties are expressly designed to keep sand out of a system, in this case out of Longboat Pass. I do not believe we need to worry about not enough sand reaching the jetty. Rather we need to hope that not too much sand escapes the jetty, and is lost into Longboat Pass, which is the whole rational for a jetty in the first place. Jetties are designed to retard the loss of shore sand into an inlet.

I believe the town manager has stated on several occasions that 50,000+ yards of sand are lost annually into Longboat Pass off just the most northern two thousand feet of Longboat. Without an accurate measurement of the sand crossing the inlet from Anna Maria onto Longboat, we have no way of predicting how much additional sand will pile up against the jetty. In short I cannot agree that waiting a year will in any way adversely affect the intended function of the proposed jetty.

3) The town manager's third assertion, that it will cost more for sand if we wait a year, is a more complex issue and one that has never been broached before. If one follows his reasoning we should terminate every beach project early to save money. I am reminded of Zeno’s Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise. Accelerating a beach project also accelerates the need for the next beach project, and so-on. It is a zero-sum game. Since our sand costs have risen exponentially from project to project, I find it difficult to believe that any new sand will be less expensive than sand from a previous project.

I still maintain that there are adverse financial consequences for advancing the beach project and a total lack of any assured benefits.

Termination of the current beach project a year early adds $660,000 to the existing bond amortization schedule.

Managing our beaches intelligently

In this blog I will link to two beach maintenance technologies that might be explored to maintain sand on our beaches at minimum cost and maximum longevity, instead of hopper dredging that lasts only a few years.

In my previous post I stated that the town might serve the community well by researching what beach management alternatives are available, and how they might be applied to our particular beach challenges.

I believe it is essential to look at preserving sand along our entire 10 miles of beach, not just the beach adjacent to Longboat Pass.

For the past 20 years I have always tried to offer positive alternatives if I questioned a particular town policy of activity. The current beach conundrum is no different and here I am suggesting that we look at two specific beach maintenance technologies because they make sense to me. I have looked into both companies enough to believe that each has promise. Both systems can be economically applied to the entire island to provide a semi-permanent solution that does not require spending tens-of-millions of dollars every 8 years or so.

In the case of the Sand Saver company, they are willing to ship 20 of their units to Longboat, at no cost to the town, so we might conduct a small test lasting for a month or two as proof of concept. Since the Sand Saver units are highly portable and quickly and easily removed, the town can assure the Department of Environmental Resources that the test will cause no permanent damage to the coastline. I like companies that believe enough in their technology to fully underweight the pilot project.


As soon as ideas for a long term low maintenance beach solution are presented, I suspect there will be opposition from several quarters. I can see no reason why these technologies should not be explored to the point where a consensus of experts reject them. Ask yourselves if you believe all the communities that decided to use these various beach maintenance methods acted impulsively and without evaluating what they were doing. In the past the town manager has defended his continued use of hopper dredging by saying that all other technologies will not work on Longboat Key. My question is how do we know this without throughly exploring the promising technologies and how they apply to our particular beach conditions.

Are we the only ones who know what we are doing? Is there nothing to be learned from the efforts and collective experiences of other communities? Do you really want to reject all seemingly successful technologies out-of-hand? I don't when $50 million is on the line with a life expectancy of only seven or eight years, and even higher costs the next time we re-nourish our beaches.

The Movable Wall: The first technology I want to highlight is called "Sand Saver". This beach maintenance technology uses movable semi-porous retaining wall modules to build beach profile and then maintain the built-out beach on an ongoing basis. The semi-porous units can be repositioned up and down the island to both acquire sand and to maintain the beach. Please watch the entire video and note how quickly sand is acquired using the Sand Saver modules.

At this point I am not saying that the Sand Saver is the answer to all our dreams. I am saying we should, as a community, honestly evaluate this technology, and others, both in terms of cost and effectiveness. The Sand Saver has never been permitted since the 1970s. Many of the technologies being proposed for examination have to deal with a $3 billion a year dredging industry along with its attendant lobbyists. Sand Saver has recently obtained all required permits for a project on the Great Lakes in Michigan. When this technology was permitted it was successful in accretion 100 feet of beach in a few weeks.

Link: http://www.sandsaver.com/main.wmv

Link: http://www.sandsaver.com/

Sub-current Stabilizers: Holmberg Technology is a local company has been reclaiming beaches for decades around the world. They have hundreds of satisfied clients. Holmberg has hundreds of success stories of reclaimed beaches that have lasted decades without needing further work and money. I have spoken with Mr. Holmberg and for a few thousand dollars we can have Mr. Holmberg evaluate our beaches and make a preliminary proposal.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA7D8UERl6A&feature=related

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBTroxOvczc&feature=related

I have presented two differing beach maintenance technologies. Both have been successful in other communities. There are many more alternatives to the expensive temporary dredging solution being championed by both the town manager and the town's beach engineering consultants. Look at my LBK beaches web site to see several other shore maintenance technologies that are in use around the world.

Link: http://www.lbkbeaches.com/

I do not believe we should continue to support expensive dredging projects without first having a disinterested independent expert beach management company evaluate the major alternative beach management technologies that have been successful in other communities.



Sandcastles In The Air

What are informed decisions? What are uninformed decisions?

What role does foresight play in our decision making?

The taxpayers of Longboat Key will soon be asked to once again approve a beach bond in the vicinity of $50 million to replenish ten miles of beach. I am reminded of George Santayana's admonition "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." If today's commission proceedings are any indication of the commissioners final decision concerning the scope of work on the island's shoreline, we are doomed to throwing an enormous amount of money into the Gulf of Mexico, again.

To view some of the erosion control solutions employed by other communities look at the link below.

http://www.lbkbeaches.com/

I honestly believe that any decision to repeat a process that has been shown to be temporary and increasingly costly is an uninformed decision if no attempt is made to seriously examine as many viable alternatives as possible.

I also believe that waiting until the last possible moment, when the town is between the devil and the deep blue sea, does not lead to a successful informed decision making process.

At the previous commission workshop, the town's beach consultants appeared to be ill-prepared at such a late date. They had no innovative and cost saving suggestions for the commission to consider. When commissioner Larson brought up the idea of geotex tubes as a means of retaining expensive sand, the consultants appeared to be caught off guard and had no immediate answers. One would think for what we pay the consultants, that they would have come to the deadline meetings with more than "the same old same old".

I believe the time has come, and the costs high enough, for the town commission to finally approach our beach problem with true due diligence. We need to seek solutions from more sources than just our current beach management consultants. If one takes the time and does the research it becomes apparent that communities use many different methods to control the costs of maintaining their beaches. If money were of no concern, then our present policy of replenishing our beaches ever seven or eight years might be the easiest approach. However, money is a concern and we need to attempt to find a permanent solution if one exists.

Informed decision making will require a great effort for an unpaid commission. It will also require that the commission instruct the town manager to bring in other coastal engineering companies from around the country and around the world if necessary. The projected cost of the upcoming beach project is $50,000,000.00 plus when interest is added to the $40,000,000.00 bond issue. That works out to over $5,000,000.00 a mile for sand replenishment that has been proven again and again to last only a few years.


False Economies: eventually taxpayers will tire of geometrically escalating beach management costs and insist that a permanent solution be found. As sand borrow areas become more difficult to find and competition for limited sand resources increases, so will the costs associated with our present sand replenishment policy.

The town commission can choose to remain passive and accept the advice of the town's beach consultants, or they can insist on input from a number of qualified engineering companies. I suspect that there will be no real effort to evaluate the many proven methods for erosion management used by communities around the world. Instead, and as usual, the commission will be willing accept the choices offered by our beach consultants, even in the face of launching the largest bond referendum in the history of Longboat Key.


The pending beach management project includes provisions for some sort of sand retaining structures at the north end to slow the loss of sand into Longboat Pass, depending on the outcome of an inlet management study. Inlets account for 86% of sand loss off our beaches.

Since the town has refrained from conducting a north end inlet management study for many years, until such a study was mandated by the state last year, the taxpayers of Longboat Key will be asked to "trust" the town to do the right thing, since the sorts of structures to be used at the north end may be undefined at the time of the bond referendum.

This week the town's beach consultants told the commissioners that they had stabilized Longboat's beaches with the exception of Longboat Pass and that sand replenishment was a prudent approach to maintaining the beach profile.


At the same time the consultants detailed the amount of yearly sand loss from the various sectors of the beach in terms of hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of sand. The stabilized beach they spoke of is still losing sand at a prodigious rate in terms of dollars that will soon be required to replenish that sand again.


I believe we need to explore means of keeping sand on the beach through the use of various technologies.

If the commission chooses poorly then some poor commissioners and many property owners will be faced with an even more enormous financial problem a scant ten years from now.

We cannot afford to continue throwing tax dollars into the Gulf of Mexico every few years if there is some way to retain the sand more effectively.

Longboat's Looming $54 Million Gift to the Gulf

http://www.lbkbeaches.com

Let me be perfectly clear. I am 100% committed to maintaining our beautiful beaches. I believe they are key to the value of our homes and attracting tourists.

For the past 10 years my problem has been how we maintain our beaches. I have never agreed with the town manager's unwavering approach to expensive dredging projects while rejecting examination of possible alternatives suggested by numerous coastal engineering and technology companies. My question has always been how do we know what is available if we never ask. In the past the town manager has responded to this question by saying we do receive professional advice from the coastal engineering consultant the town has retained for over a decade, and that the town's consulting firm continues to advocate sand replenishment on a periodic basis.

"In 2008, the Florida Legislature passed House Bill 1427, known as the beach management bill, which contained an Inlet Management Initiative that strengthens DEP’s ability to manage sediment around the more than 60 navigational inlets located throughout the state. These inlets, which interrupt the natural flow of sand along beaches, account for more than eighty percent of Florida’s coastal erosion" - NOAA quote. Knowing this, for the past several years my question has been, why not farm the inlets on a regular basis and return the sand to the beaches from whence it came?

The town manager has asserted for the last decade that inlet management is not feasible on Longboat Key, and that dredging from more and more distant underwater sand deposits is our only viable solution. After the passage of HB 1427, the town manager finally initiated an inlet management study of Longboat Pass. I do not feel comfortable with the town manager's decision to hire the same coastal engineering company to do the inlet management study that the town uses for its sand replenishment programs. It seems reasonable and logical to seek new fresh ideas from several qualified sources.

The town manager also rejected a recently completed comprehensive Humiston & Moore study of Longboat Pass even though the H & M work had previously been funded and approved by the Florida Department of Natural Resources, the West Coast Inland Navigation District (WCIND) and the the Army Corps of Engineers in Jacksonville.


Commissioner Brenner has recently expressed his own concerns regarding our present beach management program, where half the deposited sand washes into the Gulf in the first two years "by design", followed by incremental losses in following years, until our beaches reach a depleted state and we do it all over again.

The truth of the matter is that many communities use many different means of controlling beach erosion. Coastal engineering appears to be an inexact science beset with constantly changing conditions and events. Still the time may have arrived when we need to look outside the box at what other communities are doing that works, and to see if their solutions are applicable to our island.

Further I want to know why we need to be looking at a beach bond referendum this year. If Port Dolphin has not indicated if and when they will begin their project, are we still obligated to remove sand from the impacted borrow areas by a certain date or is that date predicated on the commencement of the actual Port Dolphin project?

Second, exactly how many cubic yards of sand will be used from the Port Dolphin borrow sites in the proposed 2011 beach project, given the darker color of the sand from the Port Dolphin borrow sites? Is the town reimbursed on a yard-by-yard basis, and if so, how much money are we actually talking about coming from Port Dolphin, if they do decide to build the pipeline? What does the town get if Port Dolphin does not commence work until after our beach project is complete? Is the Port Dolphin sand the best choice at the least cost if the Port Dolphin project fails to materialize?

If we do not really need to replenish the beaches in 2011, and the north end danger is alleviated by the current project to add some sand to the north end beaches, might this not be a good time to pause and take another look at how we manage our beaches and postpone the bond question to 2012 when it was originally scheduled?

I hope we ask for opinions from a number of experts and look to see what is working for other communities.

In case you are wondering about the $54 million figure in the headline, I have always disagreed with the town's way of defining public debt (i.e. bond cost). The town never uses the true debt cost, which is the bond amount plus the interest on the bond. In the latest $40 million beach management bond proposal, the actual levy against the properties of Longboat Key is approximately $54 million. That is the amount that will be added to your yearly real estate taxes for the next decade.



Is There Too Much Retail Real Estate?

Several Commissioners are eager to drastically alter both the vision plan and the town's comprehensive plan in order to save retail on Longboat Key, they say. The town attorney believes the vision plan and the comprehensive plan are virtually one in the same.

The commissioners are paying special attention to Whitney Plaza at the north end, which is now even more closed than it has been for past several years. More on WP later in the blog.

Anyone with a modicum of sense can reason that there is a causal relationship between population and the number of retail stores that exist in any locality or neighborhood.


National and regional demographics highlight the decrease in the length of time snowbirds spend in Florida and the fewer number of trips people make to neighborhood stores. The internet is an ever increasing percentage of retail sales world-wide. Both the retail shopping habits and the vacationing habits of Americans are changing.

The bottom line is that there are progressively fewer year-round residents on Longboat and the snowbirds are staying progressively fewer days.

If our community sacrifices exclusivity for tourism we will no longer attract the high-end of the residential market. Studies have shown that residents do not like to mingle with tourists.


Fulfilling the resource requirements of a growing population ultimately requires some form of land-use change--to develop the infrastructure necessary to support increasing human numbers.

Conversely fewer people require fewer retail stores and less commercially zoned land.

A resident spoke to the commission earlier this year about the over abundance of commercially zoned land on Longboat and expressed his belief that places such as Whitney Plaza would be better used for residential homes in keeping with the north end ambiance.

Perhaps the commissioners might work towards affordable family housing at Whitney Plaza for some of our employees. One year-round family of 4 is equal to 12 snowbirds in terms of purchasing power on the island.


Longboat Key was originally platted for a population of 75,000 residents, along with open space and land set aside for commercial and retail development to serve that community. At a later date the island was re-platted for a maximum population of 25,000 residents, or 1/3rd the original population.

The community planners did not adjust the land set aside for commercial use, which created a plethora of commercially zoned land, that could never be profitably utilized for retail business given the drastic population down-sizing that occurred.


Unfortunately three retail centers had already sprung up on the island and an insidious struggle ensued between the three shopping centers with, I believe, an inevitable outcome.


When there is three times more commercially zoned land than is required to adequately serve a community, two things occur - there is not enough business to support all the stores, and merchants migrate to the most profitable locations. In our case the Center Shops appears to be the winner.

Retail has virtually disappeared from Avenue of the Flowers and Whitney Plaza. Publix may build new retail space when and if they redesign their commercial real estate holdings. However, the inevitable functional ratio between population and needed retail business will remain, there will be two remaining shopping centers and a new struggle will begin.


At the end of the day only so many retail stores are required to effectively service a given number of people.

Tourism: the commissioners, who are eager to change our land use codes and comprehensive plan, assure us that greatly increased tourism is all that is needed to bring back the golden era of business on Longboat.

The truth is there was never was a golden age for retailers. I was here, and it was always a seasonal struggle. Longboat morphed into a highly desirable seasonal residential community.

Real estate prices skyrocketed along with land values and taxes. Florida has a "best use" tax system that penalizes commercial property when condominiums are worth far more. Taxes collided with declining seasonal business and many smaller tourist facilities converted into still more seasonal residences. The death spiral continues whether we like it of not.


Home owners did very well for three decades as their property values and taxes increased year after year. The activist commissioners site the post 2008 decline in real estate values as some sort of continuation of Longboat as a declining community, desperately in need of tourism. If that is the case then all of America is in need of tourism. Their arguments are ridiculous.


The types of retail stores that prosper in a tourism community are seldom the same as those that flourish in a residential community. Tourists do not need hardware stores for dry cleaners or doctors and dentists. Tourists want tee-shirt shops and jet-ski rentals.

Location, location, location: if our activist commissioners get their way we will have as many tourist facilities as it takes to make Whitney Plaza and the Center Shops and the ghost town called Avenue of the Flowers all profitable. How long will it take to build all this stuff. Who will be the first brave developers to risk money in a seasonal residential community? What will be the critical mass of tourism that will be needed to attract tourists to Longboat as opposed to Siesta Key or Boca Raton?

Finally, given the "best use" real estate tax system used in Florida, how many stories tall will a tourist facility have to be to be profitable? If our activist commissioners have their way we may need to be prepared for very tall hotels and greatly increased density at the north end.

I believe what we really need is a whole lot more community image building on a national scale and a lot fewer ill-conceived schemes to profit a few developers.

http://lbk-folk.blogspot.com/

The Need for a Community Fiber Network

If you are not already aware of my efforts to have the community of Longboat Key get on the Community Communications Network, you should be. A CCN (Community Communications Network) could save you lots of money and increase revenues to the town's general fund, as well as present an attractive element of community living on Longboat to visitors and perspective home buyers. These are good things.

We spent one million dollars on a tennis center building that does augment the community to some degree. However, the tennis center building has little direct benefit to the majority of taxpayers on the island. I supported the tennis building and voted for it as a commissioner.

Currently a typical Longboat resident pays Comcast/Verizon about $100 a month for internet and phone services.

A Community Communications Network (CCN) can deliver these same services for half the cost and at the same time be a revenue source for the town, and light up the island with everywhere WiFi.

There are approximately nine thousand residences on our island. If each of these residences is paying $100 a month for internet/phone that comes out to be $900,000.00 a month or $10,800,000.00 a year.

The estimated cost of installing a Community Communications Network on Longboat is around half a million dollars, or half the cost of the tennis center building.

A CCN can deliver internet/phone for half the cost currently paid by the community as a whole, which translates into a possible five million dollar yearly savings to the community as a whole.

A CCN could be built using Sarasota County Infrastructure Tax funds. This is the same funding source used to construct the tennis building.

Do you see why I am so keen on a CCN?

Go to www.lbkalive.com for more information. It's your money.

Evaluating the Evaluators

Long ago those people involved in the science of psychometrics - concerned with psychological measurements - found that "interviews" lacked any real validity when it comes to evaluating personnel performance. Usually the person being interviewed puts his/her best foot forward so to speak.

The commission's current effort to arrive at a realistic evaluation of the efficiency of the town government is starting one tier down from the town manager. How can that yield a comprehensive overview of the organization?

I believe it will take a lot more than an interview or two with department heads, who want to keep their heads, to arrive at any effective plan to improve the town's operations.

It is all too clear that the town is woefully behind the technology curve.

I do not believe less than an expert consulting company will be able to effectively evaluate the town government as a whole.

One danger I see is that we use a citizen's "expert" committee to "sort of" evaluate the workings of our bureaucracy, do little in the way of much needed changes, deem the job complete and once again return to being asleep at the wheel.