Our View A 'good buy'? We'll see

“I think we probably got a good buy.”
— Longboat Key Mayor Jim Brown

That is one of the mayor’s assessments of the Longboat Key Town Commission’s approving last week the spending of $452,500 for the 0.71-acre lot that separates Pattigeorge’s restaurant and the town’s Bayfront Park.

On paper, it does indeed look like “a good buy.” The Sarasota County property appraiser listed that bayfront property’s market value at $518,500.

And certainly, if you compared the purchase price to what the Sarasota property appraiser dubbed that property’s value at its peak in 2007 — $838,600, it looks like a great buy.

That price, of course, was artificial. Still, even if you go back, say, to 2003, just before the Fed-fueled run-up in real-estate values, that 0.71-acre parcel and its two rundown huts were valued at $486,000.

To pay $486,000 in today’s inflation-adjusted dollars — or, in today’s devalued dollars — you would have to pay about $599,000 for 2003 prices. In other words, the town did indeed get what Brown dubbed “a good buy.”

Really?

There is much more to the story than that, of course. This is only the beginning.

Now comes all the future costs, such as:

• Tearing down the two huts;
• Carting away the debris and paying for the dumping of it;
• Removing exotic shrubbery and trees;
• Paying for planners and architects to decide how the property will fit into a grand plan for Bayfront Park and how that future park will look;
• Paying for the construction of the new park (not to mention paying for what some hope will be a new, multimillion-dollar recreation/community center;
• And then paying for the ongoing maintenance of the park.

You have to ask about the opportunity cost, too. For starters, the town’s acquisition removes the property from the tax rolls and prevents a private owner from building anything that would have contributed more to the tax rolls than what exists now.

Likewise, if the town didn’t buy that property, how else could those tax dollars have been better spent?
Mayor Brown told former town Commissioner Gene Jaleski, who urged different uses for the $452,500, the funds could not have been used for other purposes; they were earmarked only for open-space.
Which begs the questions: Why does the town even need a land-acquisition fund? Why do Longboat taxpayers need to own more “open space”? Is there a shortage?

Mayor Brown’s answer to the question “why,” asked by Commissioner Lynn Larson, was revealing. He said previous studies of Bayfront Park showed the town “was short of land to do what the town wanted to do, and this is going to make it even more possible than the piece of land that the county purchased for our use three or four years ago.”

It’s difficult to believe Bayfront Park was short of land for the town’s plans, particularly when you see how little used the park is today and has been for the past five or more years. That gorgeous baseball field hasn’t had regular usage in years; the hard-surface tennis courts are sporadically used; the basketball court hasn’t had a slam dunk in years; and the dump site just north of the tennis courts is rarely used as well.

When Brown said the park was not large enough for the town’s previous plans, he must have been referring to previous efforts years ago when some residents backed plans to construct a $6.5 million community center, a project that residents ultimately felt was too rich and scrapped.

Please tell us the town is not going down that expensive path again, especially now that it owns another 0.71 acres.

But count on it. We see momentum building among some commissioners and previous proponents to construct a new community center at Bayfront Park. In fact, in case you missed it, the town’s vision subcommittee adopted recently 11 core values, the seventh of which says:

“The town will maintain and improve the quality and variety of island-based recreational and educational opportunities, including a high-quality community center … ”

We’ve acknowledged before the existing recreation center at Bayfront Park is inadequate and not befitting Longboat Key’s image. The town needs a new one.

But it should make taxpayers twitchy and nervous about what spending may be next when the Town Commission pays $452,500 of taxpayer funds for land for which there is no overwhelming, compelling reason to own … and when what the town has sits largely idle and underutilized.

On that point, Longboaters are still waiting to see what is to become of the 3.8 acres Sarasota County purchased four years ago to create a larger Bayfront Park. That one still stings. The county paid $7.8 million for that property. For what?

+ A plug for the lawn party
If you haven’t purchased your tickets already, here’s a pitch: Be sure to put the Longboat Key Gourmet Lawn Party (formerly the Longboat Key St. Jude Gourmet Luncheon) on your Saturday afternoon to-do list.

The Longboat Key Kiwanians, organizers of the event, moved out of their comfort zone this year, renaming the 30-year-old event and moving it to a new, bigger location — the Longboat Key Club and Resort’s Islandside driving range.

One thing that hasn’t changed: As always, it will feature great food from the area’s top restaurants and beer and wine purveyors.

You can get tickets at the Longboat Key, Lido Key, St. Armands Key Chamber of Commerce, 5570 Gulf of Mexico Drive; $25 in advance; $30 at the door. Raffle tickets for a new VW Jetta or $20,000 in cash are $100. See you there.

+ Term limits
It’s an interesting dilemma: Sarasota County voters decisively voted in 1998 to limit county commissioners to two four-year terms. A local circuit judge in 2005 declared the charter rule unconstitutional.

And ever since then, two commissioners — Nora Patterson and Jon Thaxton — have chalked up four and three terms, respectively. Thaxton wants to go for a fourth in 2012.

But last summer, an appeals court in Broward County said term limits for county commissioners are constitutional.

In response, the Sarasota County Commission wants to put a charter amendment on the ballot limiting themselves to three consecutive terms.

Let’s say the Supreme Court declares term limits valid. Would that invalidate everything Patterson and Thaxton have voted on past their two terms? We’ll bet some lawyers are licking their chops.

Great Publicity
A lot of “atta-boys” and “atta-girls” have been zipping into e-mail inboxes this week, gushing over the 48-page, colorful and classy promotional spreads for Sarasota’s cultural amenities featured in the November edition of US Airways magazine.

One of our favorites that started the viral back-patting came from Kerry Kirschner, executive director of the Argus Foundation, a Sarasota business advocacy group. He wrote to Virginia Haley, president of the Sarasota Convention & Visitors Bureau:

Virginia: I just returned from Hilton Head and my 16th Reformation weekend with 28 Georgetown classmates from around the United States.

I flew there on Delta and have not seen the USAir publication. Based upon the comments from my old classmates, you have a winner on your hands. Let me share some of the comments:

• “If Sarsaota is only 10% as good as described in the article, you live in a spectacular place”
• “We’ve been looking for a place for a winter home in Florida and had never thought about Sarasota. We will be down this winter to look around.”
• “I only thought that Sarasota had beaches and circus. Living in NYC we never thought about Florida before because we thought that there was not enough to do, and we would miss the amenities of Manhattan. Reading that article definitely has made me want to visit.”

For you it is a home run. For me a nightmare. Now I have to deal with all these knuckleheads more than once a year! Congratulations. Kerry

When the Longboat Key Club and Resort completes its expansion and the Colony Beach & Tennis Resort reopens, Longboat Key should make a similar pitch. To see the spread online: http://usairwaysmag.com/uploads/pdfs/features/1111/2011_11_sarasota.pdf