The Mythos of the Vision Plan



Mythos - a pattern of beliefs expressing the characteristic or prevalent attitudes in a group.

I find it interesting that my reading of the now "adopted" vision plan differs so greatly from the interpretation of the vision plan being expressed by a couple of the town commissioners.

1. Background - the opening paragraph of the new vision plan states that the entire vision plan is crafted against the background of a momentary economic cycle. I feel that a vision plan should be rooted in prevailing community values and not on ephemeral economic conditions. Whereas the commissioners justified their actions based on business and money, those are hardly the values one looks for when looking for a new home or new schools or community social amenities. The entire vision plan is all about business and commercial profits. Only here and there is any mention made of residents or neighborhoods or town amenities.

2. Vision - the second paragraph also emphasizes commerce as stated "The core values are to create and reinforce a welcoming community and government atmosphere with a common sense approach to managing the mix of resident, visitor, and commercial uses of Longboat Key". Note that two of the three core values are tourism and business.

3. HOW WE GET THERE - in this section of the vision plan we again see an emphasis on restoring tourism and commerce, creatively reinvigorating underutilized commercial areas and supporting restaurants. In 1983 I participated in a sort of vision plan effort in Lake Tahoe. In Tahoe it was all about the people, schools and quality of life. I do not believe any mention was made about supporting eateries. Perhaps the greatest deterrent to families buying homes on Longboat is a lack of good schools. Perhaps we might do better as a community working at facilitating quality education in the two counties rather than what is on the menu.

4. CHALLENGES - here again 6 of the 8 paragraphs deal specifically with the deteriorated condition of businesses and tourist facilities on the island. As far as I can tell if a motel or shop looks dilapidated there is no one to blame other than the owner. Do the current commissioners really expect the taxpayers, most of whom cannot even vote, to devote town resources to prop-up failing businesses that are no longer in demand by island residents? I sincerely hope not.

5. "What is the potential future of Longboat Key if nothing is done? Longboat Key will be a much less enjoyable and convenient place to live, if all basic necessities, from gasoline to groceries to medical needs to entertainment, will only be found off the Island. Visitors will still be amazed at the beauty of the island, but may also come to the conclusion that there is absolutely nothing to do here beyond the beaches and possibly the resort. They will opt to purchase homes where they can have both - beauty and the conveniences that Longboat Key should offer."

I find this passage in the vision plan to completely miss the obvious - there really is nothing to do on this island. Except for a ridiculously high priced golf course and a really good community tennis center, what else is there to do for the greater part of the population? Surely the commissioners do not believe that going to an over-priced gas station constitutes something to do. As for aspiring to a robust medical system in our seasonal tiny community, I suggest the commissioners attempt to find an analogous community model somewhere else, before including it in a vision plan. We do need things to do and they are nowhere to be found in the vision plan. We need an adequate community center to the focal point of community activities that appeal to all our residents. We need social amenities and activities scattered throughout the community. We need places for residents and visitors to meet one another and provide entertaining healthy activities.

6. Points of Community Consensus - "The strength of a vision plan is directly proportional to the level of community consensus in support of it. The following points enjoyed a high level of consensus and were valued input in the writing of the plan:"

I do not know of any evidence that here is "a high level of consensus" concerning the vision plan. I was one of the 300 panelists on the original vision plan. My table of 8 was comprised of 100% business people and only two of us were residents. Observers of the process have confided in me that they believed the great majority of the panel members were business people. There is nothing wrong with the business community being the major component of the vision plan so long as that is make that clear. The town hired a $100,000.00 expert named Marlowe to manage the original vision plan effort. Mr. Marlowe advised the town that the then vision plan would not be legitimate without a comprehensive community survey to validate the vision plan. Instead of that we are now given a hand-picked committee and told that that constitutes the new consensus for the new vision plan. I don't believe the vision plan has been validated by the community so it remains illegitimate.

I suggest that the commissioners might better serve the community by finding a way to sell houses since that is our most pressing problem at the moment. What good is a vision plan, drafted by a hand-picked committee, aspiring to resurrect a business and tourist presence that may never have made economic sense, when all we see is For Sale signs everywhere. That, and not what some restaurant is serving for supper, is making the greatest impact on the vitality of Longboat Key.

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.

Representative Government on Longboat Key

Representative Government: a form of government in which the citizens delegate authority to elected representatives.


A large percentage of our residents do not in fact enjoy representative government, because they are  non-residents or foreign nationals. These people cannot vote. They have no say about taxes or town codes or vision plans.


We are told by our representative government that this is the price one pays for having a second home in paradise. Yet the disenfranchised group pays a large percentage of our taxes. They are forcibly a part of a silent majority without voice or political power. No one asks them how they feel. A few individuals write letters. One or two attend town commission meetings. But in large part this group of unrepresented taxpayer residents go unheard.


Now we have a few commissioners who say over and over that the great majority of residents have approved the previous vision plan. Of course we do not know how the unrepresented taxpayer residents feel about the previous vision plan, or the new improved vision plan, because no one will ask them how they feel.


No matter that very few residents were given an opportunity to express their views about the old vision plan. No one really asked any taxpayers if they wanted to spend 100 thousand dollars on a piece of paper that will never see the light of day.


Only a few chosen people are being included in the new vision plan process. The old vision plan process at least included a few hundred business and real estate people and a smattering of regular residents of which I was one. The makeup of the new vision plan committee includes representation from the chamber of commerce and seems to be oriented mostly towards the business community on Longboat. I feel any vision plan should focus mainly on the residents who after all pay over 95% of the taxes.


I suspect we will be informed that since the previous vision plan was overwhelmingly approved by the residents, which it was not, because no one ever saw the old vision plan, the new vision plan need not be approved by anyone save the chosen group. After all isn't one vision plan is just like another vision plan?


I am amazed at what is now being created out of whole cloth.


I am wondering where representative government enters the picture. A sizable part of the residents have no representation at all, and now the residents who are able to vote are also being left out of the vision plan process.


The highly paid expert, who was hired to moderate the old vision plan process, told the town that the plan was not valid without carrying out a legitimate survey of the community. His words went unheeded.


Commissioners are now saying that the community approved the old vision plan, and by extension they approve the new vision plan.


What do you think?


I have been an active advocate of community participation in local government. That cannot happen if the government is not willing to engage the community.


Our current set of commissioners seems to ascribe to some sort of  "Noblesse oblige".

I cannot imagine that any sort of unvalidated vision plan, that may severely affect the fortunes of our residents, would be legislated into power without asking the people how they feel.


I believe we need a through examination of any proposed vision plan by the community at large. To me to have four or five commissioners impose some sort of illegitimate vision plan on the community is the antithesis of the spirit of representative government.

Longboat Needs a Great Marketing Campaign

Every Longboater should look at the lists below of the best places to live or retire in America and be mad that we are not even in the top 100, much less in the top three communities.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/real_estate/1009/gallery.best_places_retire.moneymag/index.html?hpt=C2

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/real_estate/1009/gallery.Where_we_retired/

I believe that the our efforts as a community might be better spent on public relations and marketing rather than on some visioning statement crafted by five self-appointed residents who all appear to favor over-development of our community. If Longboat was in the top five of lists such as the one above, it might prove to be a far more effective means of revitalizing our community than a few people mincing words.


The original vision plan was crafted by three hundred self-appointed business people, many of whom did not live on the island, and a smattering of residents. Mr. Marlowe, the professional coordinator hired by the town, stated that the process was incomplete, just because it was created by a self-appointed group. Marlowe recommended that the process be validated by a professionally conducted statistical survey of the entire community. The funds were appropriated by the commission for the survey. Then unfortunately a four member committee was created to finalize the vision statement and arrange for the survey. Unfortunately the committee was composed of two members who were in favor of the vision plan and two members who were opposed to it. The result was a stillborn vision plan that was never presented to the residents for their approval. To say that the vision plan was validated by the referendum on rebuilding and replacing tourist units is specious at best since these two issues were not part of the vision plan; sort of like comparing apples to giraffes.


Now we have an even less representative clique of five like-minded members of the commission, planning board, PIC and the chamber crafting a transparently pro-development vision document that they intend to foist off on the community without any validation at all. To me it appears that we are headed backwards towards less inclusive, less representative government, controlled by a few that can only benefit a few by design.


Five years ago the taxpayers of this island spent $125,000.00 to fashion a vision plan that was never approved by the residents, and is now dated and economically irrelevant. What is happening now is even more irrelevant since in is unrepresentative of the residents by purposeful design.


Instead let's be great marketers like the other communities in the above list, that are receiving national praise as desirable places to live and retire. A vision plan is just a piece of paper that will be blown about by the winds of socio-economic realities. On this I agree with Al Green. I believe we need superlative marketing much more than we need well crafted documents that will most likely have little to no affect on the future of the island.


Perhaps a real vision plan effort that is representative of the entire community, not just the business people, might produce a more dynamic statement of intent that will serve the many rather than the few. It might even focus on what is working well for other communities - marketing and public relations on a national scale.