Our View

Enjoy the peace and tranquility on Longboat Key while you can.

So far, it has been a quiet Season on Longboat Key. The Longboat Key Club and Resort hearings and drama are a year-old memory, and although a Town Commission election always generates great copy for us, it was kind of nice not to have to report about petty election-sign violations or feel the undercurrents of divisiveness that often accompanies commission campaigns.

In fact, things seem to be eerily peaceful at the moment. And that can only mean the proverbial calm before the storm.

Indeed, to that end, newly elected Vice Mayor David Brenner last week in his monthly online “Brenner Banner” gave constituents a sneak preview of what’s ahead in the coming months. We won’t need any hurricanes this summer. There’ll be enough big issues on the town agenda to keep the winds blowing pretty hard.

Three issues Brenner cited:

• Next year’s budget
Wrote Brenner: “We’ve begun departmental reviews, and the most compelling estimate is a probable decline in property tax revenue of 7% or about $600,000. To hold the line on taxes and maintain level of service, there are critical expense cuts to be made.”

We’ve been there before, and it’s always painful. It appears, however, a strong majority of commissioners have recognized there is one primary driver to to the town’s budget — payroll. And that means pensions, as in see the next item.

• Compensation
Wrote Brenner: “We need to overhaul all aspects of our compensation arrangements so that our taxpayers are no longer overwhelmed with a commitment they cannot afford. The results of the current state legislative session will probably have a significant impact on what we do. This battle will be long and messy.”

You are now forewarned. The current slate of town commissioners appears ready to confront the town employees’ pension benefits, which we all know are unsustainable in their present form.
We already have had a foreshadowing of what’s to come with the firefighters’ pension board. But it’s going to become especially difficult for the commissioners and town manager.

This really could be a long, hot summer.

• Community center
It’s back. For the third time in 15 years. Brenner noted commissioners will restart discussions on this topic at their April workshop.

Judging from the two previous experiences, the subject of a community center can rile the emotions of Longboat Key residents.

About a decade ago, Longboat voters rejected a proposal for construction of a community center at Joan M. Durante Park. And not long after that, voters again rejected spending $6 million on what many believed to be a lavish, publicly funded community center at Bayfront Park.

It’s a conundrum.

Longboat residents all know the Key lacks a centrally located gathering place for large town affairs and events. The Town Commission Chambers are too small and inadequate for events. So is the elevated recreation center at Bayfront Park. As a structure, that building — God bless it — is also obsolete for just about every activity. (Aerobic Grandma Molly Schechter can give you an impassioned book on that.)
We do have the beautifully remodeled Longboat Key Center for the Arts, with its large gallery room and community room. But let’s be honest, unfortunately, the Center for the Arts still has difficulty convincing Longboat residents on the south end of the Key that the earth doesn’t end at Pattigeorge’s, Euphemia Haye or Harry’s Continental Kitchens. The Arts Center’s location works against it.

Still, the Arts Center is so perfectly adequate in terms of nice, usable space that it makes it difficult to justify spending $3 million to build a new taxpayer-funded community center.

For one, a new community center certainly would not bode well for the future for the Arts Center. Jane Buckman, executive director of the center, wants more events there and doesn’t need to be competing with a publicly funded facility.

Second, and more important, the Arts Center is one of the few standing historic landmarks on the Key. It (along with the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort) is one of the last physical links to Longboat’s heritage. It would be tragic to see it become displaced by a stucco-sided, government-looking community center.
Third, do we really need a multimillion-dollar building to hold a few weekly exercise classes, a few weekly bridge matches and an annual debate between Town Commission candidates? All of those activities can be accommodated elsewhere now.

What’s more, we all know what happens when we build government buildings. We make work to fill them up and expand government; bureaucracy and expenses grow.

But of course, there’s the other side of the coin: What, pray tell, should the town do with the existing recreation center, which some allege is being held up only because the termites are standing leg locked to leg?

We like the idea of Sarasota County sending more of Longboat taxpayers’ tax dollars back to the Key for a change. That’s how the remodeling of Bayfront Park and the property to the south of it are being financed.

But nothing is simple. Rarely, if ever, is it simple on Longboat Key.

If you stick around this summer, you can bet it’s going to be hot and steamy.

U.S. BUDGET DEBATE IN CONTEXT
Up until this week, those so-called tough-on-spending Republicans in Congress have been trying to cut about $60 billion from the federal budget.

It sounds like a lot. But it’s only 4.2% of the total $1.4 trillion in spending.
Let’s put this in perspective.

Take the median family income for Manatee County, and let’s show what household spending would look like if it mirrored the federal government’s attitude toward spending.

In the accompanying table, family “income” represents this year’s federal budget revenues; “spending” represents federal expenditures; “credit-card” debt represents the federal debt; and the “proposed cuts” are the tiny reductions Republicans are desperately trying to pass. The “new spending” level is what the ever-so-slightly improved mess would look like if Republicans prevail.

The result? If a Manatee family making $38,673 spent like Congress, it would spend $57,700 this year while carrying $232,038 in credit-card debt. Further, the more responsible spouse among the two — which is not saying much in our example — is trying to cut a measly $975, so the family is only spending $56,725. But the other spouse is fighting that cut as unaffordable.

This is what is going on in Congress.

That $60 billion the Republicans are trying to cut equates to that $975 for our family. And yet, the Democrats and President Obama are fighting it at every step. They are only up for a paltry $10 billion in cuts, which equates to $163 in our family budget. This is the context in which to listen to the Democrats calling proposed budget cuts “extreme.”

This is why there is no credibility there. 

WORLD CHAMPION
Lou Gorman, a seasonal resident at Casa del Mar on Longboat Key for the past 14 years, was an undisputed baseball legend — especially to those who worked with him and knew him. (See his obituary on page 5A.)

The longtime general manager of the Boston Red Sox, Seattle Mariners and Kansas City Royals, Gorman influenced the course of so many players and the history of the game far beyond what the record books show.

But more than anything, in spite of his celebrity, Gorman was a decent, caring man, the antithesis of pretentious. He loved people and loved to chat, no matter who you were.

Those who had the privilege of spending an hour or more with Gorman while he made his annual spring training trek to Longboat Key will tell you he had enough fascinating stories about baseball, its characters, players and historic moments to fill all of Cooperstown’s Hall of Fame. And what a story-teller he was. Members of the St. Mary Star of the Sea Men’s Club always packed the church hall when Gorman was the club’s guest speaker. His talks and stories were priceless.

Equally amusing was how his wife, Mary Lou, was such a trouper. For more than four decades she tolerated Gorman’s love of baseball, even though she openly admitted she had no interest in the sport.

Baseball writers often remember Gorman for being one ground ball away from winning the World Series in 1986 while general manager of the Red Sox. That was the famous Bill Buckner flub at first base.

But Gorman eventually won “the ring” — a World Series ring — when the Red Sox beat the St. Louis Cardinals in 2004, when he was a vice president and executive consultant for the team.

Gorman was proud of that ring. He never hesitated to take it off and let his dinner mates or audience members hold it, touch it or put it on.

Gorman deserved that ring. He was, without a doubt, a World Champion of a man.