Monday, December 6, 2021

Commissioners: Respect the Charter and the People

Board of Sarasota County Commissioners

Date: 12.6.21

To: Mike Moran, Al Maio, Ron Cutsinger, Nancy Detert, Christian Ziegler

cc: Matt Osterhoudt, Ron Turner

Commissioners of Sarasota County:

You're in a bind. You have consistently fostered pro-growth policies and approved super-sized developments, despite public hearings that bring hundreds of people to your chambers in hopes of persuading you to moderate, if not halt, egregious development plans.

Your largesse has increased over time; your regulatory authority is so little used in development approval hearings that the rules have become flaccid, feckless things. Instead of assiduously applying the laws that express the people's wishes for their community's future, you have handed interpretation of our Comprehensive Plan to the construction syndicate. 

Tens of thousands of dwelling units are already approved and on your books. The total is far more, as I understand it, than the most liberal projections for the county's housing needs predict.Yet you refuse to publicly discuss the planning overview, the total context that would give us the basis for deciding when too much is too much. Knowledge of the facts would bring a strong reaction from our residents.

Here's the point: You have disappointed and angered people in each of the five districts -- people who deeply care about what is happening to the place where they and their neighbors live, where their children go to school, and where they once were happy. 

Because you know this, you are doing everything you can to turn upside down the voting structure we the people put in place in 2018.You know that your pro-growth insensitivity has angered many people in your districts, and you wish to avoid your official accountability to them.

So here's the math: Each district is drawn to contain roughly 75,000 voters. Each of those voters has had the opportunity to experience the pain and hassle, the traffic and construction detours caused by your approvals of developments where they live.

The only way to kneecap those 75,000 angry voters before they enthusiastically retire you from office is to have 285,827 people from other districts bury the informed electoral power of your district voters under an avalanche of ignorance.

Add this to your gerrymandered redistricting and the extent of de-democratization in Sarasota County becomes clear. This is not about Dems versus Republicans. It's about undermining Democracy itself. 

When the voters tell you to refrain from placing Single Member District voting on a costly special election ballot, listen to them, Commissioners. Do not approve any special election without itemizing in complete detail how many of our tax dollars will be needed if this bureaucratic tantrum is exercised.

Very truly yours,

Tom Matrullo 

Citizen of Sarasota County

Saturday, November 27, 2021

Growth in Sarasota County and voter power

Growth in Sarasota 

County staff produced the information below to advise the Board about what large developments it has approved in North, Central, and South county. The document is not dated, and appears to be out of date. 

Some large housing projects the Board has approved in principle, such as Hi Hat Ranch, projecting 13,000 dwelling units, are not included. Then there's Wellen Park in South County, which projects 23,000 units totaling 60,000 residents. What other large developments, destined to be approved, are not included?

Add in Hi Hat and the total for North County alone is about 23,000 units. With Wellen, the county total comes to about 

79,000 dwelling units

What's not included are small developments, new developments, and developments yet to approach the Board for approval.

Most residents of the County never see this information, because it's not published for us, but maintained in-house for internal use.

Under Single Member District voting, you would be able to request this information for your district from your Commissioner, and ask him or her questions - such as, what will this do to our traffic? How much will the new services cost? What portion of these costs are paid for by the developers? 

And your Commissioner would have to provide you with real answers.

That's now how it is now. Under At-Large voting, you can ask all the questions you want of the 5 County Commissioners. They will just stare at you. They do not have to provide you with information, they often do not respond to emails from constituents, and rely on people to forget about the development issues in their district by the time the next election rolls around.

Single Member Districts count more than many imagine.

North County
Add Hi Hat Ranch: 13,000 units.

Central County


South County
                                    Add Wellen Park: 23,000 units


There's a way to slow this rampant growth. It's to make each Commissioner accountable to the voters of his or her district. In 2018, voters across all five districts approved Single Member District Voting. Now the Board is doing all it can to revoke the citizen Charter Amendment -- to avoid direct accountability to the people of their districts, whom they are supposed to represent.

Don't Let the Board Dumb Down Your Vote!

Retain Single Member Districts


Monday, November 22, 2021

Board Dead Set on Repealing Citizen Initiative

On December 7, the Board of Sarasota County Commissioners will designate a special election to repeal Single Member District voting.


They're back . . . Sarasota’s highest elected officials intend to undo a Charter Amendment that the electorate approved just three years ago.


What’s going on? Why does the Board want us to re-vote on an amendment we approved by 60 percent across all five districts in 2018?


Fueled by hollow rhetoric, reasons offered by the Commissioners have been shifting:


We the People were “confused” when we voted for Single Member Districts, according to Commissioner Al Maio.


After the public explained -- in person on three occasions and through a professional County poll -- that it was not confused, Commissioner Mike Moran offered another story: “Sly Democrat operatives” have fooled a gullible electorate into voting for Single Member Districts, he said.


When the non-partisan Citizens for District Power noted that the 2018 vote passed by a strong majority in all five Republican districts, Moran switched to “sly political operatives,” or just “sly operatives.”


Instead of describing voters as confused or hoodwinked, Commissioner Nancy Detert said, "I've never liked Single Member Districts, but I'm getting tired of trying to save people from themselves.”


Board of Sarasota County


Why are our elected Commissioners bound and determined to reverse this citizens’ amendment to Sarasota County’s Home Rule Charter?


In a word, fear.

The Board has a critical task: to evaluate and approve large-scale developer plans for housing projects, commercial centers, apartments and roads. What can happen to their political careers if each Commissioner had to answer to citizens impacted by their rapid-fire blanket developer approvals in his or her district?


Take for example the highly controversial “mega-hotels” recently approved on Siesta Key.

Scale of proposed Siesta Key hotel

Residents from some 70 Siesta Key HOAs hired lawyers and professional planners, and came out in force, presenting strong, cogent arguments why these hotels would be disastrous to the local character of the barrier island. To no avail -- the Board approved both hotels that have come before it (two more are in the pipeline). Under Single Member Districts, the Board members would be answerable to their district voters on Siesta Key. In a re-election, they’d face intense public scrutiny of their voting record.

When these same politicians are elected by all the voters of the County, they can avoid addressing issues of concern in their District. They’ll drown the mailboxes of North Port, Northeast Sarasota or Englewood with their mailers, knowing full well that many voters in other districts neither know about nor care what the Board allows developers to do to Siesta Key.


In the current economic environment, Countywide voting allows candidates to ignore everything that urgently matters to residents of their district. In recent years, incumbents have refused to participate in public forums or debates, to hold town hall meetings, even to be interviewed by the press.


That allows politicians running for our Board, which dedicates a great deal of time to growth issues in an overheated developer frenzy, to evade the people who want to preserve our Siesta Key and oppose mega hotels, or who fight the transformation of vast ranchlands into suburban gated communities, or who worry about an intersection that can’t handle oversized developments -- like Siesta Promenade at Stickney Point and US 41.


Single Member District voting requires each Commissioner to face the people who feel their neighborhoods, roads and environment are imperiled by their Board votes. And SMD candidates can reach their district voters without needing developer dollars or Dark Money, while Countywide campaigns cost at least $100,000.


Over time, special interests have made it clear that to even hope for their support, you have to publicly demonstrate your pro-growth credentials -- by serving on the Planning Commission, for example. Planning “commissioners” are not elected, but are appointed by County Commissioners -- Maio, Moran and District 5 Commissioner Ron Cutsinger all are alumni of that self-fulfilling loop.


Sarasotans worked hard to adopt Single Member Districts from a shared sense that growth here has gotten out of hand. Those who remember Sarasota as a place of taste, charm, and intelligence do not need to be saved from themselves. Rather, they need a level of political accountability that could save Sarasota from its at-large-elected officials.


Come to the Board Hearing on December 7 to speak, or simply to pack the room. The latest Hearing information will be posted to the home page of the Citizens for District Power site.

The Board discussion described above took place on Nov. 16, 2021, beginning at the 2 hour, 50-minute mark.

Thursday, November 11, 2021

Council of Neighborhood Associations tells Board: Alternative 1-A is the least bad of a bad lot

After reviewing the analysis that follows by CCNA, the Sarasota City Coalition of Neighborhood Associations, of the proposed maps by which redistricting of the county would be established during the special meeting of November 15, 2021 at 1:30 p.m. under agenda item 1, 


For the Board to approve one of the three motions below:


  1. Adopt a resolution approving Goodrich 1 Map as the new Sarasota County District Boundaries map; or
  2. Adopt a resolution approving Goodrich 2 Map as the new Sarasota County District Boundaries map; or
  3. Adopt a resolution approving Alternative Map 1-A as the new Sarasota County District Boundaries map

if the commission is unwilling to have less discriminatory maps drafted — which still is feasible and is our preference rather than choosing from among the options listed — then, Alternative Map 1-A is the least objectionable choice as the new Sarasota County District Boundaries map

Therefore, if additional options are not drafted,
CONA supports only the adoption of Alternative Map 1-A. 

Please enter this message in its entirety, including its referenced charts and table, into the official record of the meeting as our public input and consider our suggestion for having less objectionable maps drawn before making a decision regarding the selection of a new map.

Sincerely, 

Kafi Benz

CCNA analysis of proposed maps:






City_of_Sarasota_Redistricting_Impacts20211107a


Exhibit 2: The map on the right illustrates the disenfranchisement of 20% of the city's black population under the "Goodrich 2" proposal.
Click here or the image for a larger view.
goodrich2BlackDisenfranchised20211102

Exhibit 3: The map on the right illustrates the disenfranchisement of 57,000 county residents under the "Goodrich 2" proposal.
Click here or the image for a larger view.
Goodrich_2_Total_Disenfranchised_20211107



See the table below for a list of all impacted neighborhoods under the "Goodrich 2" map.


Exhibit 4: Even the "Goodrich 1" proposal compromises the ability of 20,000 county residents ability to vote for their commissioner.
Click here or the image for a larger view.
Goodrich_1_Total_Disenfranchised_20211107

Exhibit 5: Of the three proposals under consideration "Alternative 1-A" impacts the fewest residents at 1,437. 
Click here or the image for a larger view.
Alt-1-A_Total_Disenfrachised_20211107
"Alternative 1-A" disenfranchises the fewest number of voters.
Each of the "Goodrich 2" and "Goodrich 1" proposals respectively
disenfranchises 57,000 and 20,000 residents.

Table:
City neighborhoods that will be disenfranchised - again - with the "Goodrich 2" map


Alta Vista Neighborhood Association, Inc.
Arlington Park Neighborhood Association
Avondale Residents Association, Inc.
Bay Point Park Neighborhood Association, Inc.
Bayou Oaks Neighborhood Association
Bird Key Improvement Association, Inc.
Broadway Promenade Condominium Association, Inc.
Central Cocoanut Neighborhood Association, Inc.
Cherokee Park Homeowners Association, Inc.
Downtown Sarasota Condo Association
Gillespie Park Neighborhood Association, Inc.
Golden Gate Point Association, Inc.
Granada Neighborhood Association, Inc.
Harbor Acres Community Association, Incorporated
Hudson Bayou Neighborhood Association, Inc.
Indian Beach-Sapphire Shores Neighborhood Association, Inc.
John Ringling Blvd. Association
Laurel Park, Inc.
Lido Key Residents Association, Inc.
Lido Shores Property Owners Association, Inc.
McClellan Park Homeowners Association, Inc.
Park East Community Association (partial)
Rosemary District Association
San Remo Estates Association, Inc.
Sarasota Housing Authority Residents Council (partial)
Shoreland Woods Neighborhood Association
South Poinsettia Park Neighborhood Association, Inc.
St. Armands Residents Association
Tahiti Park Neighborhood Association, Inc.