Letters to the Editor

+ I support commissioners
Dear Editor:
This communication is to offer support for the decisions made by the Longboat Key commissioners regarding the Longboat Key Club and Resort plan. I believe that the town code needed to be revised to reflect the Longboat Key of 2012.

I feel that the expansion of the Longboat Key Club’s business will help support tourism and property values on the key.
Ann Gove Zaltman
Longboat Key

+ To the commission
Dear Editor:
We believe the majority of Longboat Key residents are in support of the Town Commission and its efforts to enable the Longboat Key Club and Resort expansion, and that Longboat Key should not be held back from its true promise by a vocal, but nonetheless minority, of its residents. 

Accordingly, we support the Town Commission’s effort to bring our codes into the 21st century, and there is no reason to believe that the Key will in any way be diminished by having codes and ordinances that are consistent with 21st century values. The proposed changes will benefit all of Longboat Key.

We support the Town Commission and its willingness to research, study and make the necessary changes to our codes to help increase our property values and restore our Key to what it once was. I would like to see my property value increase and believe that town codes that are easy to understand and follow will facilitate that desire and will be beneficial to us and all Longboat Key property owners.

We also believe that these changes will help broaden the town’s tax base which will serve to provide town revenues that otherwise would be obtained by increasing taxes on residential real-estate tax.

We believe most Longboaters are tired of this vocal minority needlessly consuming town resources to prevent the Key Club from making much needed investments, if it is to avoid following in the footprints of the Colony.

If this misguided minority were allowed to prevail, sometime in the future it is highly likely that the town would be in the position of having to offer major incentives to obtain the very investment in our town that the Key Club is willing to do now with no incentives.

In this scenario, we see that instead of obtaining an increased tax base and increased tax revenue with corresponding relief to residential owners, we would be in the position of having to significantly increase residential real estate taxes to offset the loss from not expanding the tax base AND the cost of the incentives to attract this same investment in the future.

We believe the Town Commission is following its mission of working for the betterment of all of Longboat Key. We applaud your efforts and believe those that oppose your efforts need to get out of the way and let you do your job. We need these code changes not just for the modernization of the Key Club but also to allow the modernization of all of our aging stock of properties.

If these changes are not made, we risk seeing our real-estate values stagnate or potentially decline. That would be a sad situation for what has traditionally been an elite retirement community and certainly must be at variance with what the majority of LBK residents want for themselves.
David & Marcia Gutridge
Longboat Key

+ Learn how to park
Dear Editor:
As someone who vacations once or twice a year in the Bradenton-Sarasota area and enjoys my visits to St. Armands Circle to dine and to shop, I was appalled when I read your editorial about people being ticketed for minor parking offenses. “That’s no way to treat your customers,” I thought.

I was even more appalled, however, when, on my recent visit to St. Armands Circle, I saw how so many people made absolutely no effort to park properly. I could not count the number of cars, many of them SUVs, that were jutting out into traffic or crossing the parking lines, selfishly taking up more than one parking slot, forcing other people trying to park to wedge their cars into tight spaces.

As long as these selfish, lazy people make no effort to park properly, I applaud the Sarasota police for writing as many tickets as they can. Maybe if they started towing these poorly parked cars, it would get their attention.
Edmund Fountaine,
Oakdale, N.Y.

+ Let us vote
Dear Editor:
Various people who want the Key Club to expand claim the majority of people do desire it. I suggest that the registered homeowners of Longboat Key be given the opportunity to vote on this item. Ergo, once and for all, we will have our answer.
I. Bert Spiegel
Longboat Key

+ Is there no middle ground?
Dear Editor:
A combination of factors has led to our current troubles, not the least of which is the general economy. However, other areas of the country are growing. Texas did not have a major slow- down. 

Having owned on this beautiful island for more than 18 years, it saddens my family and me greatly to see the emptiness of our commercial spaces, especially on the north end.

My children used to love to walk across the street to the Buccaneer, where we kept our 36-foot sailboat (and upon which we slept, occasionally, if we were going fishing in the morning, and, sure, we miss the activity of all the visiting boats coming and going), or along the beach to the Holiday Inn game room. 

Not to mention the horrible dark gray sand that has replaced our sugar white sand. No, we don’t long for the good old days (except for the good sand that was promised but not delivered).

It is sad that the exorbitant property taxation, without representation, stimulated the sales for condo conversion. Now those and other places that had been active are virtually empty, year-round.

The no growth-ers have won. If they like no growth so much, I suggest they move to Detroit. Not that I am a developer, or am rabid for growth. But nothing ever stays the same. Surely Longboat Key was vastly different in 1994, when we bought, than it was in 1976. Just as it is different now. 

If we are not green and growing, are we ripe and rotting? Is there no middle ground?
Mitch Levin
Longboat Key

+ Let’s get on with it
Dear Editor:
Our sincere thanks to you and Mayor Jim Brown for your articulate arguments on the critical importance of the Longboat Key Club and Resort’s proposed upgrade investment of its property. This is, obviously, to the benefit of Longboat Key property values and to reverse our island’s downward economic trend. Unquestionably, a vast majority of Longboat residents are in favor of this project because we all have a financial and local business support interest in this world-class property improvement. So, let’s get on with it!
Bob and Shannon Gault
Longboat Key