Our View

One of the bigger, better ideas — albeit not a new one — to emerge from the visit by the Urban Land Institute panel members was a recommendation to create a walkable town center.

We have one — in the land surrounded by and lining Bay Isles Drive and Bay Isles Parkway (see photo).

It’s just not set up for today or making the best use of the land.

To that end, longtime Longboat Key resident David Novak, better known as the Key’s swan keeper, submitted to the ULI panel his vision for the town center. It’s a great starting point and road map and makes a lot of sense. Below is what Novak wrote and envisions:

“The Town Center exists today, but it is disjointed, unplanned and does not attract development. The area encompassed by and bordered on Bay Isles Road and Bay Isles Parkway is the Town Center. But from a planning perspective, it is, well, unplanned.

“There are a number of problems with the roads:

“a) Bay Isles Parkway is a privately owned (Its owners just spent $80,000 on paving) straight line thoroughfare with priority to the gates at Harbourside Drive.

“b) If you turn a hard left before the gates, you later encounter a yield because Bay Isles Road gives priority to autos going onto private property at the Temple Beth Israel and All Angels by the Sea, traffic that is only present a tiny percentage of the week.

“c) From that intersection, you traverse a divided road with center turning obstructions, eventually stopping at Gulf of Mexico Drive, where turning south is a white-knuckle experience and turning north means merging with cars speeding from the traffic light — all while you’re dodging bicycles and pedestrians.

“Would it not be better to make this a ‘smooth loop’ with two synchronized traffic lights (roundabouts?) at Gulf of Mexico Drive? If the town of Longboat Key could do one thing for development without being a developer, it would be to provide easily flowing and navigable roads.

“Sarasota does streetscapes and the parking and lets the attractiveness of the environment spur development. Longboat Key can do the same.

“There are problems as well with many properties; with these the town can help:

“a) The Post Office occupies an abundance of land and is a cruel joke as to ease of access and disabilities compliance. In today’s e-world, the post office is a shopping center storefront combined with an off-premises warehouse building. Raze the building!

“b) The Library today is a small room in many private communities. It could be public parking for the town center. Raze the building!

“c) The Tennis Center’s north court parking is rarely used, while the south court’s parking is designed more for trees and puddles than parking cars. The four north courts would be better placed toward the interior of the south courts. Move the courts!

“d) The three bank buildings are land hogs and need to be put to better use. Like the Post Office, what is left of walk-up or drive-up banking, now that the Internet is king, can be accommodated in a centralized area of commerce within the Town Center. Re-develop the bank buildings!

“e) The vacant space at the corner of Gulf of Mexico Drive and Bay Isles Road is prime for development, but only if the traffic flow is remedied. But how about also moving Bicentennial Park as well, perhaps making it a key part of the interior of the loop? This opens up two highly visible corner lots for development. Fix the traffic, fill the corners!

“Sale of the town lands can fund moving the courts and just may pay for the roadwork. Development both inside the loop and along its perimeter will do more for the Key than anything outside of keeping sand on the beaches.”

These are smart, logical recommendations. Perhaps the mayor can take them to the next step. At least keep the dialogue going.

+ Scott-Crist: Freedom-State
Charlie Crist just can’t hold a job.

Morgan & Morgan? It was the perfect place for him. It’s “for the people.”

But it’s work. It’s not the thrill of being the center of attention in a crowd and rambling off the populist platitudes of the day to cheering throngs.

No, Charlie Crist is born to run.

Unfortunately, we are all going to suffer.

For the next 12 months, Floridians will be inundated with incessant TV and radio commercials of Democrats slamming incumbent Gov. Rick Scott and Republicans slamming Crist. By the time the two parties have spent their hundreds of millions, we’ll all be defeated — beaten to a political pulp, sick to death of the character assassinations.

Would that it would be thus: That voters would measure the candidates on their records, judging them on the basis of which one most pursued the policies that fought to preserve and expand your freedom (individual and economic) versus the policies that fought to contract your freedom and expand the role of the State.

In that contest, it’s no contest.

+ Democrat dilemma
We have to believe Florida’s Democratic Party graybeards and wise owls are pining for the good, old days.

Charlie Crist’s announcement to run for governor as a Democrat brings to mind 1989 and 1990.

The Democrats didn’t have a strong front-runner to oppose then-Republican Gov. Bob Martinez. In stepped Congressman Bill Nelson, another career politician who had served in the Legislature and Congress from 1972 to 1990.

But Nelson was so widely viewed in his own party as an empty suit — devoid of substance and full of populism (sound familiar?) — that newly retired U.S. Sen. Lawton Chiles came out of retirement and ran for the Democratic nomination to save the party.

Chiles crushed Martinez, by 13 percentage points.

It makes you wonder: Is candidate Crist — Republican turned Independent turned Democrat — enough to spur the party loyalists that try to bring such Democratic icons as retired U.S. Sen. Bob Graham (turning 77 on Nov. 9) or former Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth (now 71) out of retirement?

+ Extreme? Extremely wrong
Once again, the Tea Party is maligned as being extreme.

In Associated Press political reporter Brendan Farrington’s story this week on the gubernatorial contest between Florida Gov. Rick Scott and former Gov. Charlie Crist, near the end of the story Farrington states (without attribution, mind you):

“He (Crist) will cast Scott as an extremist with a Tea Party mentality.”

Help us understand. What is extreme about this? If you’ve paid attention to Scott’s governorship, you would know he has focused on four things: making Florida’s business climate more attractive to employers; using that better climate to help spur job creation; reducing regulations and the cost of state government; and making public education more affordable and with more choices.
Extreme?

Now look at the missions of two highly visible “Tea Party” organizations — FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots.

Here’s for what FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe says it stands:

“Our members all share two common traits: A desire for less government, lower taxes and more economic freedom. A personal commitment to get involved and active in changing public policy.”

Tea Party Patriots, meanwhile, an organization that formed in 2009 in response to the federal government’s “stimulus spending, bailouts and takeovers of private industry,” describes its mission as supporting “the millions of Americans seeking to improve our great nation through renewed support for fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free-market economic policies.”
Extreme?

To the contrary, those organizations and Gov. Scott stand for what used to be, and we hope still are, bedrock, mainstream American values.

If anyone is extreme, it’s the mainstream media. Its unabashed and incorrect narrative that standing for freedom is somehow extreme and radical is extremely and radically wrong.

SEND US YOUR COMMENTS
Tell us what you think of resident David Novak’s ideas for a town center. Email your comments to Managing Editor Kurt Schultheis, [email protected].