Longboat's Hidden Tourist Industry

While the town commissioners go about their self-appointed crusade to build high-density lower-middle-class tourist hotels on our exclusive island, they have failed to look at their own community and realize that Longboat Key already has an extensive and burgeoning tourist accommodation industry. Perhaps ten to fifteen percent of all properties on Longboat Key are already on the vacation rental market. 

One has only to go on-line and Google "for rent by owner Longboat" and there are dozens and dozens of websites advertising vacation rental homes on our island. Typically one finds headlines such as "

Longboat Key - 527 vacation rentals - VRBO

The above website alone lists over 5% of the total properties on Longboat Key as rental properties  I recently attended a party in a home in Bay Isles. Talking to the occupant, who herself was seasonal  renter, I was told that approximately half the homes on her street were rentals. 

Everyone, except the current town commission, has known for years that there is a steady, and now accelerating, economic transformation occurring on Longboat Key. More and more of Longboat is becoming increasing wealthy. Property costs continue to go up. Over the past four years, the island has witnessed a McMansion building boom. Gone are the days of modest homes being built on the island. Now we see 10,000 square foot beachfront cottages and $4 million+ homes being torn down to make way for even more opulent abodes.

Many of us remember a simpler community where people spent a majority of their year. We now see the profile of a new wealthy, highly seasonal, property owner. The new Longboater spends two or three months a year on-island. They are vacationing and do not require neighborhood services such as hardware stores or clothing shops. 

Many of the houses owned by people who are seldom here become rentals. Since the town has made no attempt to understand the island private home rental market, there are no substantiated figures, other than what one is able to see on the internet.

Looking on-line it is readily apparent that the Longboat Key visitor market is alive and well, and also highly promoted. Given the seemingly large rental inventory already available, one has to wonder why the town commission is driven to increase tourism still more.

It should be noted that all local restaurants have been experiencing record business in recent years. The commission might look into where all these customers are coming from.

The current commission's tourism dreams may have already been fulfilled. They just have not noticed in their zeal to  promote commercial development in an exclusive, residential community, where it is doubtful that property owners of luxury homes even want more tourists.

A new form of tourism may in fact be evolving on Longboat Key. This new form of visitor accommodation is softer and lower profile than the high-rise hotel-like structures of the past two decades. Along with residential tourism comes a transformation of island neighborhoods into assemblages of private and rental houses.

It is of interest that many of the rentals on Longboat lie "behind the gates". The American economic landscape is changing, As wealth disparity increases, exclusive communities such as Longboat Key, with abundant upscale home rentals, will continue to attract the discriminating vacationer, who now prefers the comforts of a house to the limits of a hotel room. Personally I always rent flats or condos, as opposed to hotel rooms, when I travel.

There is no lack of advertising and promotion of Longboat Key as a vacation destination on the internet, where all promotion now takes place. What has changed is that increasingly wealthy travelers and seasonal visitors are choosing larger more commodious accommodations. Why stay in a 500 square foot noisy crowded box when you can stay in a beautiful home for not much more?

The town commission may be a day late and a dime short when it comes to accommodation trends on Longboat Key. Their baseless rational that a high level of commercial tourism is necessary to promote home ownership is outmoded in today's new vacation rental world. Increasingly the owner promoted residential rental market is displacing the older hotel room model. The internet is displacing the travel agent. Longboat is unique as there is such a high percentage of wealthy seasonal absentee property owners, coupled with an attractive island ambiance that makes home rentals attractive to travelers.

This is the new reality and the town commission needs to get on board.

Poineers!, Oh Pioneers!

To paraphrase a Walt Whitman poem:

Come my tan-faced children,

Follow well in order, get your lawyers ready,
Have you your agenda? have you your sharp-edged tongues?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Once again this town commission is already girding up its loins to do legal battle with all those who would criticize yet another uninformed venture by a failed group of people who speak with a single tongue it seems. It should be noted that this commission has so far lost every single legal squabble they have precipitated.

This time it will be very expensive and actually create more problems for future generations of taxpayers than the commission's north end beach plan might help.

Below are images of every inlet in the state of Florida. I include them so taxpayers can clearly understand that building two groins at the north end is unique. No other county or municipality has chosen to build groins near an inlet. Why?

I want to use images to try to inform residents just how ill- advised it is to spend tens of millions to construct unneeded groins that will severely and quickly erode Beer-can Island which is county property. Manatee County will surely take issue with their beach being ravaged as the result of two groins adjacent to the island and demand that the beaches not only be restored, but also maintained on a yearly basis. This will be extremely expensive for Longboat taxpayers, year after year. 

If you look at the various inlets you will notice that every single one has two jetties, one on either side of the inlet, and not a single inlet has groins. Does that make you wonder why it is that the town commission has decided to become pioneers in inlet management? 

Do you know that the commission is ready to spend $25 million dollars of your tax dollars on a scheme proposed by people who stand to make millions on the project, without asking for advice from a single outside independent qualified engineering company? Would you be so trusting?

Even though Florida created statutes to encourage investigation of alternative ways of maintaining our beaches, this commission has chosen to proceed in complete ignorance of  what is being done in other communities around the world.

Below are two pictures of the proposed groins at the north end. The second shows how the beach will fare if no groins are erected. There is not enough difference to merit spending tens of millions of tax dollars. Additionally, the town manager has repeatedly cautioned the commission that groins require more sand replenishment than leaving the beach in its natural state. 

Groins and erosion down-drift.

Looking at the Islander, it will

much more severe.

Natural beach with projected erosion

Because this commission refuses to ask for input from other communities that have successful inlet management programs, we taxpayers may end up spending much more money than we need to. Ignorance seldom produces good results. It is important to email the commissioners and demand that they act prudently and in our best interests.

The rational approach to managing our beaches adjacent to our two inlets would be to seek input from communities with successful programs. 

Then there is the issue of spending our money to maintain Beer-can Island which belongs to the county to which we send eighty percent of our Manatee county taxes. Why is this commission asking taxpayers to pay and pay and pay, when we should be demanding the county control their inlet that is responsible for gobbling up 86% of the sand lost off the north end beaches - 86%!

Here are images of every other inlet in Florida - notice NO GROINS.

Accountability and the Common Good

In 1975, while touring Asia with a popular band at the time, we experienced a two hour water outage in  the early afternoon at our hotel in the Ginza district of Tokyo. On the evening TV news he learned that the water commissioner for the Ginza district had committed harikari late that afternoon, for his failure to the Japanese people. I was horrified at the level of accountability expected by their culture at that time.

Today I read that a vice-president of Apple is being fired because he refused to sign a corporate letter to the American people, apologizing for the recent Apple Maps App failures. Once again I was taken back by the level of accountability within the Apple company. Perhaps being held responsible is a contributing factor  to the company's great success and superb quality in their products.

I look at the past three years of governance on Longboat Key. I see no one being held responsible for a dismal record of failed policies that have hobbled our real estate market, compared to likened communities such as Bird and Lido Keys. The property owners within the Islandside community have been denied full access to the real estate market, as a result of unlawful actions taken by the current town commission surrounding the now dead Key Club expansion application, that led to three legal actions, the last of which will be decided in late November. The first two judgments strongly rebuked the town government for violating their own laws and ordinances.

I do not see any of those responsible for the failed policies of the past three years willing to accept any responsibility for their actions.  Save for the unceremonious dismissal of the manager of the Key Club, no one else is taking responsibility for actions that have damaged the Longboat Key economy.

Then I wonder what would come to pass if the entire commission did commit political harikari. Are there any other residents willing to take their places?  The voting record of the current commission has been relatively monolithic when it comes to land use ordinances and changes to the town's Comprehensive Plan. This commission has devoted its energies almost exclusively to pro-development and pro-commercial tourism  legislation.

I know there is a great deal of concern and dissatisfaction with the present commission. People come up to me and express their apprehensions and their desire for a change in leadership. I always ask them if they are willing to serve as a town commissioner, or even willing to make the effort to write letters to the present commissioners. We all know their answers by the dearth of candidates and emails appearing in the News. 

I do not see how the current commission can justify their course of action over the past three years with anything but apologies to the residents for having bogged our community down in endless legal battles that so far have gone against the town government. Unfortunately these protracted litigation's have had a serious negative impact on the commerce of the island. 

It is sadly ironic that a pro-business commission has been singularly unsuccessful in attracting any new businesses to Longboat Key. To the contrary, there has been a steady decline in the number of retail businesses on the island along with a steady decline in property values during the past three years. Personally I do not attribute this decline to anything the commissioners have done, because they have done nothing to actually promote commerce. We hear a lot of talk. We do not see things getting better. Where this commission has focused their efforts on gutting our protective land use codes, they should have been working with the real estate community to create coordinated effective national and international marketing efforts to advertise our wonderful town's lifestyle. 

The retail stores on  Longboat Key never played apart in our meteoric development as an exclusive seasonal retirement destination. Likewise the commercial segment of the island's economy will never become a major influence on property values. The types of businesses being promoted by this commission are unneeded by the residential community. The primary concerns of today's Longboat seasonal resident center around restaurants and domestic services including furniture, house painters, appliance repair, Publix and CVS.

If Longboat Key somehow  finds itself on an irreversible course towards commercial tourism becoming the dominant business on the island, there will also be a painful period of transition, taking perhaps a decade or more, where our well-to-do residents will flee the congestion and the constantly changing unfamiliar faces of tourists, for communities just like what exists on Longboat Key right now. If our property owners wanted  to live in Bradenton Beach they certainly have the financial wear-with-all to do so.

If the commercial tourism proposals that have been entertained, and encouraged, by the current commission, come to fruition, the number of tourists on Longboat Key will almost double in a short period of time from current levels - Key Club expansion, Colony rebuild, Hilton expansion, north end motel. This is a huge expansion of tourism in an otherwise bucolic residential community. 

It is the obligation of people holding offices of public trust to act for the common good of their community. This has not been the case for the past three years. Property owner's interests have been ignored while a mostly appointed commission has been devoted to passing ordinances, overlays and codes that are exclusively for the benefit of commercial developers.

If the community at-large does not express their views, then we will continue to have a mostly appointed town government, with a narrow agenda that does little to nothing to promote real estate values over commercial development.

I advocate that the town redirect its energies to clearing the glut of for-sale properties on Longboat Key through a concerted national and international marketing program to attract home buyers. I would much rather see the town pay for effective marketing than architects for yet another plan for a costly, and most likely unneeded, expansion at Bayfront Park. 

This commission has been playing a zero-sum-game with the island's economy.

When a tourist developer wins some residents lose.

Year-to-year Property Values - Aug. 2011-2012

Longboat Key$472,4002.8%

Whitfield$151,40017.7%

Cortez$140,6003.9%

Bradenton Beach$230,8000.4%

Sarasota$130,60011.6%

North Sarasota$74,7008.6%

Note how poorly Bradenton Beach has performed. 

Perhaps tourism is not such a great asset.

We need to do a better job marketing our beautiful community.

now, here, and nowhere...E.E. Cummings

The notion of “what is happening” and “what ELSE could be happening” brought to mind the recent history of Longboat Key and what might have been our history. Not that this sort of musing has any bearing on where we are right now as a community. Perhaps just thinking constructively about how we got here may improve our vision going forward. 

I am not sure there is really anything that needs changing by a small group of residents who have managed to concentrate power in a town government, that for the most part, is appointed rather than elected by the people. I feel this is the most unhealthy situation for any community. Behind the void of citizen participation in the community lies a resident base that inhabits seasonal houses as opposed to living in them as homes. Longboat Key is a town without any intrinsic energy. This is freezing our community between a vanishing past and an incalculable future. 

I predict that no one will challenge the current group of mostly appointed town officials this election cycle. This speaks volumes for the sort of community that has evolved on Longboat Key over the past five decades. The question in  my mind is, what does what we have become, say about our future as a town? If no one is interested in that happens, then someone will fill the vacuum and will ultimately determine future directions and town policies. Since almost no one is willing to participate in community affairs, the way is opened up for a sort of unintentional oligarchy. In essence that is what exists presently on Longboat Key. 

The flap over the Colony is just one example where our current oligarchy has created a new land use zone, not enumerated in our Comprehensive Plan, that constitutes a government supported private entity, immune form existing codes and ordinances. The rational of the commission is that tourism is good for the island at any cost. How do they know this? If they are correct, why have so many pieces of tourist zoned land been converted to luxury condominium use? The answer is they don't know, and they are not giving the taxpayers a voice. See what happens when we as a community do not participate in our own political process?

Unfortunately the aspirations of a few individuals can have little impact on the future course of the island, unless they are part of the small group of people in power. Once a political system is entrenched in a community, it is usually fairly difficult to control politically. Especially in a community of snow-birds and foreign property owners who are not allowed to participate in local government.

I believe it is impossible to predict how the emerging global economy will affect Longboat Key. If there is a global economic contraction, then the market for 2nd homes will mostly likely not fully recover, and Longboat Key will drift towards being a relic of a lifestyle that has, in general, been abandoned by home buyers.  If that in fact does occur, then our community needs to find a way of transforming itself into a place where people live as their primary residence. 

The idea that is being promoted by the town commission that the Key Club will somehow transform the fortunes of the entire island is ludicrous. All that will happen is a few additional hotel rooms will dilute an already struggling tourism market, and yet more condominiums will be for sale that do not even offer beach access. Since the Key Club is a private non-equity enterprise, that most Longboat residents find not worth the yearly costs, life for all but those living at Islandside will not notice anything different. Perhaps longer waits to get off the island during the height of season. 

The commission might better expend their energy working with the airport to reduce aircraft noise pollution that currently adversely affects the northern half of the island. If we are to attract quality home buyers we need to improve our image as a community. The commercial signage along GMD is spotty and often unattractive and even shoddy. The town's signs at each end of the island are "plastic looking" and uninviting. We even have trailers being used as billboards on GMD. This is stuff one expects to see on Tamiami  Trail and downtown Bradenton. We can have all the gated hotels and condominiums we want and still present an unattractive facade to anyone driving onto our island. 

Previously I have proposed using the commercial property at the north end of the island to build a high quality private school. Where I grew up, and it is still the case, people move to and pay top dollar for the Westchester County schools. If we offer a superior educational facility, I believe high quality families will be attracted to Longboat Key both for its beauty and for the opportunities it offers their children. 

If we are unable to become more attractive as a place where people live, rather than inhabit seasonal dwellings, then it is hard to see how more retail business will survive. A small increase in tourism will likewise have little beneficial impact on either the island's quality of life or the few remaining retail businesses. If people are not concerned about the real estate market on the island, then we are doing fine just the way we are, as a place where people spend a few months in the winter.

Most everyone agrees that Longboat Key is a special place. We are not alone in confronting changing times and the new economics, whatever that is. It is possible to make things a lot worse by making bad decisions. The lack of dialog on our current homogeneous political body has accomplished nothing in the past three years but divisiveness and making several attorneys richer. I am going to out on a limb and say I believe the courts will nullify the most recent changes the town commission created to legalize the Key Club expansion. If Ordinances 2012-6 and 2012-8 are struck down by the courts, the people of Longboat Key need to find new leaders who do not further impede any hope of economic recovery on our island.

As the trend on Longboat Key towards further absentee property ownership progresses, more owners merely inhabit their dwellings during the cold month up north, the less likely we will see any change in appointed government. There are four commission seats up for election this year. So far, with about a month left to file, no new candidates have applied. Under Florida law, unopposed candidates to not appear on the ballot. This year voters may well be presented with a blank piece of paper when they go to vote. This will be a carte blanche for the current, mostly appointed, town commission. Forgive my sad double entendre.

Inlet Sand Back Pass Redux

According to the State of Florida, 86% of all sand loss from beaches ends up in coastal inlets and is jetted out of the local sand system, lost forever. The inlets are the culprits. Once again according to the State of Florida, dredging inlets only makes matters worse and accelerates sand loss.

I am writing this particular column in response to the recent admonitions of a commissioner that in essence stated that any ideas that I bring before the town will be rejected by the present commission because of their enmity towards me personally. My response is that if this is true, those commissioners are not fit to hold offices of public trust and are possibly doing a huge disservice to the community they swore to protect. Being in public office constrains one to serving all the people, not just the business community, or the country club crowd.

This past week I attended the commission workshop where the town manager delivered a lengthy assessment of viable beach alternatives at the north end of Longboat Key. One of the presented options was for the town to take no actions. The town manager noted that the principle consequence of no action would be salt water encroachment on the mangroves on Greer Island, which belongs to Manatee County. One could ask why Longboat Key taxpayers would be interested in spending upwards of $8 million dollars to maintain a county park which Manatee County taxpayers already support with their current taxes. Why does Manatee County spend millions on Coquina Park and not a penny on its park-lands on the northern tip of an adjacent island?

Questioning the list of actions available to the town will probably make little difference to the town's decision-making process. However, I would not feel that I had done my best for my community if I did not make one last effort to implore the town manager to take more time and bring in town officials from a few of the many Florida communities that have instituted inlet sand bypass and back pass projects. Until we have answered the question of why these communities chose to manage their inlets and recycle the sand back onto their beaches, one could argue, we have not done a thorough exploration of options available to our community for managing a chronic  sand loss problem, that went unaddressed by our beach consultants for decades.

Florida passed numerous statutes in 2012 mandating that communities look to inlet management and sand bypass as a means of stabilizing both inlets and adjoining beaches, as a means of reducing escalating costs and mediating diminishing borrow area resources. Unfortunately the town manager's report made no mention of a comprehensive inlet management alternative for Longboat Pass, with accompanying cost analysis.  Doesn't it make sense that we look into an alternative that works so well for other communities for far less money in the long run than we're now anticipating spending on constant sand replacement? Jetties and groins do not diminish sand loss so renourishment costs will not be reduced by multi-million dollar groins at the north end.

The public official who confided his and his fellow commissioner's dislike for my activities told me that it really irked him that I kept pressing issues, and felt there was an overly aggressive attitude when writing about the town government. In this instance of alternative beach maintenance opportunities examined by the town, the absence of any mention of inlet management and sand redistribution, could not be ignored. I am not talking about the lip-service inlet management bone being put forth by the dredging engineers, where a pit is dug inside the pass and that is all. I am afraid very little sand will be conserved that way. Only an aggressive, constant recycling of sand will yield a constant and effective beach profile at the lowest cost to the community.

Here is a link from a university study of beach maintenance alternatives that is fairly complete. Please read to the end and their assessment of the most effective method for maintaining inlets and affected beaches.

http://intraweb.stockton.edu/eyos/coastal/25yrConference/Beach-Stabilization.pdf

The commission needs to ask the town manager to consult with town officials and engineers involved in active inlet management programs to determine if  Longboat Pass is a viable site for a sand reclamation project that will end the need for periodic dredging on the north end.  The Olson Engineering study seems to indicate there is enough sand entering Longboat Pass both from the north and from the south to warrant further study and analysis.

Hillsboro Inlet installed inlet management and sand bypass operations in the mid 80's and has never had to renourish adjacent Deerfield Beach since that time. The average yearly cost to the taxpayers is less than $1 million annually to maintain both the inlet and the surrounding beaches.

There are dozens of communities that already have active inlet management and sand reclamation operations in place. That our town government is not even looking at sand recycling is perhaps less than an optimal approach to resolving a decades-old problem at both the north and south ends of the island.

Here are two citations of Florida Statues enacted in 2012 that mandate inlet management as a preferred approach to beach stabilization.

161.143 Inlet management; planning, prioritizing, funding, approving, and implementing projects.—

(1) Studies, projects, and activities for the purpose of mitigating the erosive effects of inlets and balancing the sediment budget of the inlet and adjacent beaches must be supported by separately approved inlet management plans or inlet components of the statewide comprehensive beach management plan. Such plans in support of individual inlet projects or activities must, pursuant to s. 161.161(1)(b), evaluate each inlet to determine the extent of the inlet’s erosive effect on adjacent beaches and, if significant, make recommendations to mitigate such ongoing erosive effects and provide estimated costs for such mitigation.

(2) The department shall establish annual funding priorities for studies, activities, or other projects concerning inlet management. Such inlet management projects include, but are not limited to, inlet sand bypassing, modifications to channel dredging, jetty redesign, jetty repair, disposal of spoil material, and the development, revision, adoption, or implementation of an inlet management plan. The funding priorities established by the department must be consistent with the requirements and legislative declaration in ss. 161.101(14), 161.142, and 161.161(1)(b). In establishing funding priorities under this subsection and before transmitting the annual inlet project list to the Legislature under subsection (5), the department shall seek formal input from local coastal governments, beach and general government associations and other coastal interest groups, and university experts concerning annual funding priorities for inlet management projects. In order to maximize the benefits of efforts to address the inlet-caused beach erosion problems of this state, the ranking criteria used by the department to establish funding priorities for studies, activities, or other projects concerning inlet management must include consideration of:

(a) An estimate of the annual quantity of beach-quality sand reaching the updrift boundary of the improved jetty or inlet channel.

(b) The severity of the erosion to the adjacent beaches caused by the inlet and the extent to which the proposed project mitigates the erosive effects of the inlet.

(c) The overall significance and anticipated success of the proposed project in balancing the sediment budget of the inlet and adjacent beaches and addressing the sand deficit along the inlet-affected shorelines.

(d) The extent to which existing bypassing activities at an inlet would benefit from modest, cost-effective improvements when considering the volumetric increases from the proposed project, the availability of beach-quality sand currently not being bypassed to adjacent eroding beaches, and the ease with which such beach-quality sand may be obtained.

(e) The interest and commitment of local governments as demonstrated by their willingness to coordinate the planning, design, construction, and maintenance of an inlet management project and their financial plan for funding the local cost-share for initial construction, ongoing sand bypassing, channel dredging, and maintenance.

(f) The previous completion or approval of a state-sponsored inlet management plan or local-government-sponsored inlet study concerning the inlet addressed by the proposed project, the ease of updating and revising any such plan or study, and the adequacy and specificity of the plan’s or study’s recommendations concerning the mitigation of an inlet’s erosive effects on adjacent beaches.

(g) The degree to which the proposed project will enhance the performance and longevity of proximate beach nourishment projects, thereby reducing the frequency of such periodic nourishment projects.

(h) The project-ranking criteria in s. 161.101(14) to the extent such criteria are applicable to inlet management studies, projects, and activities.

(3) The department may, pursuant to s. 161.101 and notwithstanding s.161.101(15), pay from legislative appropriations provided for these purposes 75 percent of the total costs, or, if applicable, the nonfederal costs, of a study, activity, or other project concerning the management of an inlet. The balance must be paid by the local governments or special districts having jurisdiction over the property where the inlet is located.

(4) Using the legislative appropriation to the statewide beach-management-support category of the department’s fixed capital outlay funding request, the department may employ university-based or other contractual sources and pay 100 percent of the costs of studies that are consistent with the legislative declaration in s. 161.142and that:

(a) Determine, calculate, refine, and achieve general consensus regarding net annual sediment transport volumes to be used for the purpose of planning and prioritizing inlet management projects; and

(b) Appropriate, assign, and apportion responsibilities between inlet beneficiaries for the erosion caused by a particular inlet on adjacent beaches.

(5) The department shall annually provide an inlet management project list, in priority order, to the Legislature as part of the department’s budget request. The list must include studies, projects, or other activities that address the management of at least 10 separate inlets and that are ranked according to the criteria established under subsection (2).

(a) The department shall make available at least 10 percent of the total amount that the Legislature appropriates in each fiscal year for statewide beach management for the three highest-ranked projects on the current year’s inlet management project list.

(b) The department shall make available at least 50 percent of the funds appropriated for the feasibility and design category in the department’s fixed capital outlay funding request for projects on the current year’s inlet management project list which involve the study for, or design or development of, an inlet management project.

(c) The department shall make available all statewide beach management funds that remain unencumbered or are allocated to non-project-specific activities for projects on legislatively approved inlet management project lists. Funding for local-government-specific projects on annual project lists approved by the Legislature must remain available for such purposes for a period of 18 months pursuant to s.216.301(2)(a). Based on an assessment and the department’s determination that a project will not be ready to proceed during this 18-month period, such funds shall be used for inlet management projects on legislatively approved lists.

(d) The Legislature shall designate one of the three highest projects on the inlet management project list in any year as the Inlet of the Year. The department shall annually report to the Legislature concerning the extent to which each inlet project designated by the Legislature as Inlet of the Year has succeeded in balancing the sediment budget of the inlet and adjacent beaches, mitigating the inlet’s erosive effects on adjacent beaches, and transferring or otherwise placing beach-quality sand on adjacent eroding beaches.

(6) The department shall adopt rules under ss. 120.536(1) and 120.54 to administer this section.

I do not feel that the town has met the above requirements of Section (1).

Florida Statute 161.161 contains the following language that has not been adequately addressed by  the current town beach plan for the north end.

(j) Identify alternative management responses to preserve undeveloped beach and dune systems, to restore damaged beach and dune systems, and to prevent inappropriate development and redevelopment on migrating beaches, and consider beach restoration and nourishment, armoring, relocation and abandonment, dune and vegetation restoration, and acquisition.

(k) Establish criteria, including costs and specific implementation actions, for alternative management techniques.

http://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2012/161.142

Perhaps we might enlist a non-local, non-dredging oriented engineering company to advise the town about the latest Florida statutes that save us time and money. Here are excerpts from 161.142

(3) Construction waterward of the coastal construction control line on downdrift coastal areas, on islands substantially created by the deposit of spoil, located within 1 mile of the centerline of navigation channels or inlets, providing access to ports listed in s. 403.021(9)(b), which suffers or has suffered erosion caused by such navigation channel maintenance or construction shall be exempt from the permitting requirements and prohibitions of s. 161.053(4) or (5); however, such construction shall comply with the applicable Florida Building Code adopted pursuant to s. 553.73. The timing and sequence of any construction activities associated with inlet management projects shall provide protection to nesting sea turtles and their hatchlings and habitats, to nesting shorebirds, and to native salt-resistant vegetation and endangered plant communities. Beach-quality sand placed on the beach as part of an inlet management project must be suitable for marine turtle nesting.

Getting outdated and inaccurate information from our current engineers may be impeding rather than assisting the town's efforts.

Born into a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Family

 

First, let's get one thing straight - I do not believe that any politician has my best interests at heart.

 

Second, I was born into an upper-middle class professional, Protestant, north-east Ivy League liberal non-politically aligned family. I was GIVEN the very best of what privilege bestows in the more fortunate in our society. I did not "deserve" my free ride. 

 

I do not particularly like our current President. But then that is true about how I feel about most politicians.

 

It should be clear to everyone by now that Congress dances to its own form of musical chairs. About half those strutting around the Capitol rotunda want the current president to remain President, while the rest of the time-wasters think they will get re-elected if "that man" is thrown out of office. The latter group - spelled GOP - is hoping there are still enough energised white Anglo-Saxon Caucasians to elect a candidate no one seems to like all that much. It is difficult enough to have a presidential slate devoid of true WASPS. A Mormon and a Catholic on the GOP slate and a black man, with his family and friends occupying the White House. What is America coming to?

 

Has the time when WASPs ruled America come to an end? The US census bureau sets 2042 as the year that whites become a minority in America. American politics have always been based on pressure groups to speak for the little-man. I suspect that will continue. What will the new pressure groups look like. What will they represent and what sorts of coalitions will form to shape American society in the next decade?

 

I suspect that the current election may be the Last Hurrah for the WASPs in America. Unfortunately the best candidates money could buy for the GOP are not all that appealing to an over-worked, under-payed, endebted and embittered working class, struggling in an economic war that is unfairly manipulated by the federal and state governments, which are controlled by the monied-class who are the economic enemies of everyone else.

 

This election may be a wake-up call for the WASPs that they have lost power. Soon coalitions will form to combat the corruption of money in the political system and the WASPs will become a relic of the past. This may happen faster that the political pundits predict.

 

The GOP candidates are dancing a thankless jig where the monied class is shooting at their feet and no one in the audience is clapping. The Mormon and the Catholic are stuck between being vague and losing the working class vote. They want less government in the boardroom and more government in the bedroom. All the while the working folks can see the economic strings controlling the moves of all the candidates from both parties. Its enough to turn one's stomach and make a good WASP's skin crawl.

 

The America of the WASPs is broken and dying. All the rich men's bankers will not be able to resurrect a now bankrupt and corrupted system, that no longer makes sense in the modern world.

 

The American voter is faced with casting a vote, perhaps one last last time, for classism and racism or voting to accept the new world and embrace change. The change will happen. The former assures four more years of stagnation both at federal and state levels of government. If this happens we will lose more ground against the rest of the globe and our economy will suffer the consequences. We will soon see if the American WASP voter will try to get "that man" out of the White House.

 



Fool Me Once

 

Today a 3-judge appeals tribunal handed the Longboat Key commission a stunning defeat. The town lawyer's land use litigation losing streak remains intact. The town might finally look elsewhere for legal advice. The primary duty of a municipal attorney is to keep that municipality out of expensive court proceedings; especially if the municipality will lose. 

 

The latest appeals court loss may expose the town to law suits and costly litigation from property owners who have been denied unfettered access to the real estate markets due the the town's ill-advised legal gambits against its own residents.

 

Judge Roberts, and now the Florida appeals court, have ruled that the LBK commissioners broke the law when they zealously advanced the interests of the Key Club. Bob White and the members of IPOC are to be congratulated for their unflinching conviction that the town commission had violated the property owner's legal rights.

 

Those on the commission and the town's previous planning director, who opposed the Key Club expansion as being inappropriate and needlessly dense, have been vindicated. It has been stated before, I was always in favor of improvements at the Key Club, but not at the expense of surrounding property owners.

 

While on the commission, I requested that the commissioners retain an outside, disinterested land use attorney to advise the commission concerning the Key Club proposal. I had lost faith in the two lawyers retained by the town. At that time I expressed my doubts that the town was on firm legal footing if they approved the KC expansion. Unfortunately, there was no support for this proposal, most especially from the town lawyer. If the commission had insisted that the Key Club proposal be adjusted to the point where the surrounding community was comfortable, the Key Club expansion would already be in its 3rd year and close to being completed. Instead we have had a paralysed real estate market on the south end. Who in their right mind would not be cautious about investing while there was a lawsuit pending on the property.

 

Unfortunately for our residents, this commission will try to get around this resounding slam by the Florida courts by shamelessly gutting our comprehensive plan and those building codes specifically needing change to specifically address the Key Club expansion. If the commissioners once again look to the town lawyer's advice, they should also look at his win/loss record in land use litigation he has managed on behalf of our community.

 

If the new Key Club owners really want to add value for themselves and for our community, they should work with the affected property owners and the commission to create a win-win design that is more appropriate for Longboat Key, keeps the process out of the courts, and hastens the completion of the entire process.

 

The town could now retain an expert land use attorney to advise the town how to avoid another court defeat that could be even more destructive to our property owners than the most recent rout. There is that old saying - Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.

 

This commission, and sadly Longboat Key, will now be immortalized in the law journals and legal precedents citations as a Goat Rodeo. We can do better than that. We need some changes and we need them before more damage is done.