Our View

It’s good to see the Longboat Key Planning and Zoning Board discussing once again how the town might be able to encourage redevelopment of the Key’s primary commercial centers — Avenue of the Flowers and Whitney Beach Plaza highest on the list.

This has been an issue for more than a decade. We all have watched it unfold. Indeed, as has been reported in these columns many times, Longboat Key has a surplus of property zoned for commercial use.
And with the FEMA rules and town and state zoning regulations as they are, commercial property owners have found little to no financial incentive to redevelop. For one, these regulations typically result in an owner being able to use less of his property to generate income.

And then it’s a vicious circle. Commercial users are reluctant to come to Longboat Key because of its seasonality and especially reluctant to pay the rental rates that property owners must charge to recoup the costs of redevelopment. If the commercial developers can’t charge the rents, they have no incentive to reinvest.

Planning board members, however, heard from Nancy Stroud, a special town counsel, that they can create some flexibility in the town’s comprehensive plan.

Although that’s a good strategy to pursue, we can imagine how many years that might take.

Perhaps there is another approach, one that former Longboat Key businessman Arthur Falls suggested years ago:

Encourage commercial property owners to submit ideas for how they would like to redevelop their properties. In the process, give them some relief from the town’s costly application process — an exchange for spending the money on new designs.

Figure out how to exempt them from submitting plans that conform to every letter of the code. Let them create, and then have the town planning board and commission vote the projects up or down — based on the merits of the projects.

This would avoid huge up-front costs and spur speedier, better redevelopment.

+ High-speed fiasco
None of this has been a surprise.

We’re referring to all of the backlash Gov. Rick Scott has taken since last week over his rejection of $2.4 billion in federal funds to build a high-speed rail line from Tampa to Orlando.

Two contrasts:

If you searched through the editorials at the pro-Socialist, liberal, statist dailies in Florida, they went apoplectic over Scott’s announcement. They called him “clueless” (Orlando Sentinel). The St. Petersburg Times headlined its lead editorial on the subject: “Train wreck of a governor.” The Miami Herald said he did it to please his Tea Party base. And, of course, our altruistic friends across the bay entitled their editorial, “Scott goes off the rails.”

Now contrast that with the reaction Thursday night at the Sarasota Republican Club monthly dinner.
When the club’s speaker mentioned Scott’s rejection of the rail, the room of 90 broke into applause and cheers.

The people get it.

This is what is so mystifying about the statist leftists: From where do they think that $2.4 billion is coming? From under a rock?

For the foreseeable future, the U.S. government is expected to continue borrowing more than $1 trillion a year more than it takes in from taxes.

Read our lips: There … is … no … money … to … pay … for … this.

What’s more, the statists cannot seem to comprehend this other economic fact: That $2.4 billion may be spent to create 14,000 jobs in Florida, but that $2.4 billion, which is taken from others (in the form of taxation), will kill 14,000 jobs elsewhere.

This is the broken-window rule. If a rock thrower breaks the bakery owner’s picture window, the bakery owner must spend money to repair his window. That money certainly will create jobs and income for the window maker. But it means the money the bakery owner was going to spend to buy a new suit or shoes will not be there. The suit maker loses out. There is no net gain.

This is especially so with taxation. When you give to one group (train makers), you make another group poorer (taxpayers).

The statists and politicians cannot see the unseen, however. They only think of what they will see — the high-speed rail jobs in Florida that will make them look like heroes while they are in office.

They pant: “We should take the money. If we don’t, California will.” As if that makes it right — for Floridians to take money this country does not have in the first place.

+ Scott’s unreported letter
No surprise on this one, either: As far as we could tell, none of the mainstream press in its coverage last week of Gov. Scott’s high-speed rail rejection bothered to report the the rest of the story.

In Gov. Scott’s letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Scott made explicit suggestions on better investments in Florida’s economy than the high-speed rail. Here are excerpts from that letter outlining Scott’s preferences:

“I believe that the dollars being made available for proposed high-speed rail projects are better invested in higher yield projects, like those we have discussed in the past few weeks and that are listed below.

• “Dredging improvements to the Jacksonville Port Authority
• “Intermodal container transfer facility at Port Everglades
• “Dredging improvements at the Port of Miami
• “I-295/SR 9A interchange at Heckscher Drive in Duvl County
• “Improvements to U.S. 331, including new bridge east of the existing bridge over Choctawhatchee Bay
• “Widening I-95 in Martin, St. Lucie, Brevard and Volusia counties
• “Widening I-4 in Orange County
• “Improvements to I-395 in Miami-Dade County
• “Widening I-275 in Hillsborough County

“The long-term job creation opportunities from these projects are greater, the private investment stronger and the economic yield more permanent …

“The high-speed rail project … would likely not pay for itself. Conventional wisdom suggests that this line, like the vast majority of passenger rail lines, will not be economically sustainable … ”

+ Bennett signs the letter?
When 25 state senators (15 Republicans, 10 Democrats) signed a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood last week, they asked for more time “to work with the enterprise” before sending the rail money to another state.

Among the letter signers was our own Sen. Pro-Tem Mike Bennett, R-Manatee.

Huh? We thought he was one of the good guys.

Asked about his signature, Bennett said he spoke to the governor and assured Scott he opposes the project. Nonetheless, Bennett said he “believes in the legislative process” and that he told Scott the governor overstepped his legislative authority.

Bennett says he will continue to work against the project.

Footnote: The last sentence in the letter from the 25 senators said, “Politics should have no place in the future of Florida’s transportation, as evidenced by this letter of bipartisan support.”

Get real. The letter and the jockeying since has made it totally political.

+ Help keep the library free — from the town
Say it isn’t so.

Leaders of the not-for-profit Longboat Library Inc. have asked the Town Commission for a subsidy. Not a big one, mind you.

It would like its building, which it leases from the town for $10 a year, to be added to the town’s property and casualty insurance policy. That currently costs the library about $6,000 a year. And it would like the Longboat Key Public Works Department to handle the groundskeeping, another $2,000 a year.

The library is struggling. It always struggles — to keep its membership steady and growing; to raise funds; to bring in new books; to stay up with the changing world. But throughout its proud history the Little Library That Could has never been a burden to Longboat Key taxpayers.

We would hate to see that happen. We would hate to see it let the town’s nose get in the door.

Although the $8,000 a year is not much — especially in the scheme of the town’s overall expenses — and although we’re inclined to encourage the commissioners to take on these expenses (while cutting others), perhaps the library board can strategize about other options to secure its long-term future and maintain its fiscal independence.

If there’s a candidate on the Key for a good annual fund-raiser, the library is it. We also have suggested this before: What is the efficacy of combining the library and the Longboat Key Historical Society under one roof? Two heads are better than one — certainly, they can be.

Or what about seeking money-raising ideas from the library members and patrons or even the citizens of Longboat Key?

The Longboat Library has enjoyed its independence since its incorporation 50 years ago. And its members have always been proud they have never become a financial burden to taxpayers — a feat deserving of great admiration, especially in this age of public entitlement.

So if the library needs a short-term subsidy, so be it. Meantime, we urge the library board and others to strategize. We’ll certainly pitch in however we can to help the library maintain its proud legacy as a self-supporting private library.