A government for the people

This editorial appeared in Sarasota's Herald Tribune on July 7:

On the day before the 4th of July, traditionally one of the biggest beach days of the year here, the state Department of Health sent out an advisory warning that four of the state’s beaches posed health hazards for visitors due to high fecal levels. Three of those beaches, where the levels of bacteria ranked “poor,” were in Sarasota County.. . . 

      There seems to be a consistent disconnect between our high priority of promoting Sarasota Bay for recreation and our low priority of insuring its waters remain usable. Somehow, we can make a commitment to invest in a multi-million-dollar project like The Bay, but when it comes to an advanced water treatment plant or more septic conversions, the price tag is always too high.  Carrie Seidman - Swim at your own risk:

Carrie Seidman is describing the incongruence of marketing and reality in the city of Sarasota. The same discontinuity applies with more force to Sarasota County.

Take for example the handling of planning wizardry such as Comprehensive Plan Amendments and Special Exceptions.

According to our Section 124-43(b) of the Sarasota County Unified Development Code:

a. A special exception is a use that would not be appropriate generally or without restriction throughout a zoning division or district but which, if controlled as to number, area, location or relation to the neighborhood, would promote the public health, safety, welfare, morals, order, comfort, convenience, appearance, prosperity or the general welfare.

Gabbert

Developers regularly ask for Special Exceptions when the code stands in the way of their plans. James Gabbert was granted an exception to build and operate a waste transfer station on thin, failing roads next to public lands at the Celery Fields, in full view of the highway.*

The area's largest local developer and local campaign contributor wished to build 1,100 homes on a cul de sac where the land use rules allowed 258. Pat Neal asked to amend the county's 2050 Comp Plan, which requires plans defined as "Villages" to have contiguous commerce enhance walkability and reduce traffic. Neal thought his Grand Lake "Village" could do without the contiguity rule, and the Board was pleased to grant his amendment. "The County thinks this is a good product," said one County planner. Neighbors sued to no avail.

Such "investments" in our publicly planned space never seem to cover the costs they impose on taxpayers -- a fact documented nearly two decades ago by the Tischler report. (See also Jon Thaxton on balanced growth).

Last month, an East Sarasota County advocate proposed a public comprehensive plan amendment at the Planning Commission. Anticipating a proposal for large-scale housing project in East County, Old Miakka neighborhood leader Becky Ayech cited the rural heritage designation of the area, whose character, history and rural land uses date back decades. 

The Sarasota County Planning Commission

Ayech isn't asking the County to deny the developer's proposal. Instead she and a substantial number of other voters want County Planning to look at the long-range viability of a rural sector of East County. Such a Comp Plan Amendment from a resident was a first for the county, which is used to seeing and approving amendments from developers seeking to increase density and intensity. ***

Becky Ayech

According to land use experts, the development pattern of five and ten-acre parcels that Ayech’s proposal would protect is one of the few land use patterns that generate surplus tax revenue to the County’s General Fund. That is, these properties pay more in taxes than they consume in services. 

In June, the Planning Commission unanimously recommended denial of Ayech's initiative. They saw no reason to allow residents to consider changes to our comprehensive plan that might help avert massive urban sprawl or other degrading impacts on their property. In September, the Board of Sarasota County Commissioners (BCC) will decide whether to allow Ayech's amendment process to go forward. 

The Planning Commission is an advisory board, made up largely of Realtors, builders, marketers and insurers appointed by the BCC. There is no citizen advocate seat on the Commission. Recently Jon Thaxton, a former County Commissioner who probably knows more about development regulation than anyone else in Sarasota, was denied a seat on the Planning Commission.

The Planning Commission is also the sacred ladder leading from hoi polloi to the County Commission. Their every move is scrutinized by developers, attorneys, builders and business leaders. Anyone who speaks out of tune with the Official Growth Doctrine of the Builders and Contractors industry groups, Matt Walsh, the Argus Foundation. etc., can expect his/her upward path to power and glory go up in smoke.

The pattern of providing concierge service to high-powered developers such as Benderson, Neal, Carlos Beruff and others within this tight governing coterie is unmistakable -- click here for several examples.

Developers ignore public goods - open space, road safety, environmental health -- because their business models see no profit in them. Their petitions come with no plans or funding to improve road capacity – so traffic issues will multiply exponentially.

While our officials grant new building permits, amendments and special exceptions, the costs on the other side of the ledger -- the expense to taxpayers -- is huge.

These expenses of indifference and neglect include:

• diminution of quality of life; 
• higher costs of living; 
• reduced market values for existing housing; 
• reduced public services and staff; 
• higher costs for roads, fire, police, and sanitation; 
• unhealthy waters; 
• reduced attention to parks, emergency shelters and evacuation routes.

These privations amount to a "tax" upon all voters who put these officials in office. Residents who have no voice on the Boards that oversee the policy and needs of the people.

Mike Moran (l.) and Al Maio

The other day, the Board ignored a host of complex planning issues and approved a controversial cluster home development next to a venerable development on Boleyn, a rural canopy road.

While our public wastewater infrastructure has been crumbling, developers are going full speed ahead with vast new developments in East County: LT Ranch (Turner family), Waterside (Rex Jensen of Lakewood Ranch), Grand Lake (Pat Neal). Giant Hi Hat Ranch (Turner family) is now speeding toward approval, and if Ayech's effort fails, Rod Krebs and Don Neu will be building thousands of homes in Old Miakka.

The consistent pattern of our elected officials' decisions raises some important questions:

• Where was their attention when county data showed eight years of rising nitrogen levels of our bays and waterways? 

• Were they acting as custodians of our environment when they allowed an aging, overflowing wastewater treatment facility to erode to the point that millions of gallons of high-nitrate wastewater entered our waters? 

• How did they fail to discern major policy and environmental concerns looming on the public horizon while granting plan amendments and special exceptions to one developer after another? 

• How do those special exceptions square with the UDC criteria: public health, safety, welfare, morals, order, comfort, convenience, appearance, prosperity or the general welfare?

• Should officials in receipt of more than $10,000 in campaign contributions from developers recuse themselves from voting on large developments or Comprehensive Plan amendments from developers?

Information Bubble

It's the county's job to watch out for us. Do they? In fact, the county has already approved more than 250% of the housing units that state standards call for.

When a government is so subservient to wealth and business interests, it is no longer for the people. Sarasota's elected officials -- from the same tiny ideological gene pool for the last 50 years -- appear little more than a shadow private sector pretending to be the public sector.

Note: This is not about party. The problem is not which party is in power for 50 years, it's that 50 years of any small entrenched group is bound to create a self-serving bubble. Its spectrum of ideas contracts, outreach to diverse elements of the commonweal ceases.

Perspectives outside a narrow, self-serving spectrum simply do not exist. Ideas such as:

• using public lands for public benefit, rather than selling them to private developers; or,
• doing the actual job of government to maintain aging infrastructure, rather than risking public health and damage to our tourism market; or,
• encouraging a diversity of views, values and expertise on our advisory boards.

Unlike Mr. Neal, Sarasota's voters will receive no special exceptions. We'll pay, and pay, and pay to fix what's wrong.

But we can redistribute the power.

In 2020, we have single member district voting. We have the power to bring back open, accountable, fair government to Sarasota County.

Sarasota 2020: Government for the People 

______

Notes:

*For details on how the County Commission changed the Comp Plan to enable Gabbert to build a giant open air waste plant, see this timeline.

**Ayech and her neighbors have assembled a great deal of information regarding their proposal. It can be found here.

***See this planning memo in which Ayech's key statements receive thoughtful comments from a respected county planner: