The Ends Justifies the Means?

Certain town politicians are now espousing the rationale that we must retain the Planning and Zoning Department director because she is too professional to lose. They are employing this rationale as their justification to excuse the director's behavior that had been allowed to go on under the former town manager. I am sorry that this story is not pretty. This article is based on official employee testimony that exposes the town to further criticism. As time goes on we may discover that all was not sweetness and light under the leadership of the former town manager. Personally, I cannot imagine being in the work environment described by numerous employees in the building department. In fifty or more years in the workplace, I have never witnessed anything like what is contained in the employee interviews. To say that girls will be girls or that managers repeatedly swear at staff, dismisses unacceptable behavior and abuse of power over employees with children to feed and mortgages to be paid. I am unable to stay silent in the face of numerous instances of humiliation and denigration. How this was allowed to go on for so long is something that needs to be investigated.

The commissioners appear to have a clear choice between their "useful" zoning director and the well being of an entire department. To me there is no choice and there is no lack of even more qualified land use and municipal code experts who can be retained by the town. We already hire consulting experts in several areas of town activities such as utility and beach projects. Marty Black comes to mind as an extremely qualified consultant who is already familiar with the town's codes and comprehensive plan. I believe Mr. Black is far more qualified and licensed than Ms. Simpson. Why not retain Marty Black?

No one is irreplaceable and no one should be indispensable when it comes to working conditions. If only one or two building department employees had complaints about their work environment, there might be a case for trying to mediate the manager / worker relationship. The current situation involves ten employees and descriptions about extreme and prolonged behavior patterns.

When one examines the input from all the land use experts who have disagreed with Ms. Simpson's interpretations of the town's poorly written codes and comprehensive plan over the years, it might be an unpleasant shock for the commission, the town's land use attorney and the town attorney if a new well qualified manager was hired to replace the current planning and zoning director. Perhaps that is why the commission has trespassed into areas of the town's charter that deny commissioners the right to hire and fire town employees. And that is just what the commission has done by hiring the former town manager's assistant to be the acting town manager, and then having her, in turn, return Ms. Simpson to the workplace, in spite of the fact that a well qualified acting town manager recently placed Ms. Simpson on leave until an investigation of her actions was completed. When the commissioners crossed the line in our charter they may have exposed the town to litigation. What the commission did was pure shenanigans to retain Ms. Simpson as a predictable interpreter of the town codes and comp plan.

I am one of many who feel that the current commission is abusing our charter and codes and that Ms. Simpson has repeatedly demonstrated her willingness to "find a way" by contorting and misrepresenting the the town's codes to suit the wishes of the pro-development commission and town attorneys. If Ms. Simpson had been doing a rock solid job of interpreting the town codes and charter, why has her work been challenged by so many residents and so many law suites?

I have always questioned Ms. Simpson's role in the cell tower struggle. I sincerely believe that she has been openly biased in favor of the cell tower builders. Rather than lead the commission to a place of informed decision making, Ms. Simpson has instead repeatedly told the commission that in her professional judgement that cell towers are the best solution. To the best of my knowledge, and having had conversations with Ms. Simpson, I am not aware that she possesses any expertise in the area of wireless communications. However, that has not stopped Ms. Simpson from leading an unsuspecting commission to baseless conclusions.

Marty Black would be an ideal solution for the present town dilemma. We do need expert advice concerning the future of our community and I believe Mr. Black would be of invaluable assistance.

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.