Our View

Here we go again. The Villagers are astir.

And the root of their angst and irritation? Hmm, you’ll never guess:

“Moore-Vista” — the two restaurants that have been part of the Village from, oh, say, the beginning of time?

They’re attracting as many patrons and as many cars as they always have. And, well, the cars are increasingly a pain.

They’re parked on the street too close to driveways all hours of the night. They’re blocking residents from parking in front of their own homes. They’re parked on both sides of the side streets, making the two-way streets one way. And they’re parked on both sides of Broadway, making the broad way narrow.

So when a group of Villagers appeared before the Longboat Key Town Commission to voice their displeasure at these conditions, you could sense their underlying wish is that these two Longboat Key institutions would just go “poof!” and be gone.

You can be sure there have been times when Alan Moore and Ed Chiles, proprietors of Moore’s Stone Crab and Mar Vista Dockside Restaurant and Bar, respectively, would like to be gone, too. But it’s just not that easy. They’re not going to shutter their doors and walk away.

So now it falls to the Town Commission and town administration to figure out how to mollify the Villagers while still respecting the restaurants’ rights to operate.

The challenge is to figure out where to put all of the cars when, in fact, the only reason they are parked on the streets is a shortage of parking to begin with. And if the town restricts parking on the (“public”) streets, that will merely exacerbate the shortage — creating even fewer spaces, pushing restaurant patrons to park farther away or discouraging them from coming to the restaurants at all.

The latter effect just may be the ultimate strategy anyway: Crimp the parking to the point the restaurants are no longer economically viable. Which is not exactly an outcome that would benefit Longboat Key’s image and unique sense of place.

As with most neighborhood disputes, however, compromises exist.

On the narrow side streets, sure, parking only on one side is a likely way to start; you can argue that on the basis of safety.

Broadway, however, is called Broadway for a reason; it can accommodate parking on both sides and still have room for two-way traffic. Don’t mess with Broadway.

Another option exists across the street from the Mar Vista, at 771 Broadway. As the red rectangular area in the map above shows, it’s a vacant lot whose owner happens to be the Mar Vista.

Chiles says he would love to use the lot for parking. Likewise, there is another vacant lot kitty-cornered to Mar Vista on the northwest corner of Broadway and Lois. That, too, could be purchased and used for parking.

But to no surprise, town zoning codes forbid such a use.

Surely, this could be remedied.

Of course, it’s never easy on Longboat Key. You can predict if the Town Commission took steps to rezone those lots for parking, inevitably neighboring Villagers would protest. After all, what homeowner wants a parking lot next to his $800,000 home?

But as economist-philosopher Thomas Sowell once said, “There are no solutions, only choices.”

If the overflow of Mar Vista patrons parking on the streets so distresses nearby Village residents, it seems that confining the overflow to designated lots could be an acceptable compromise.

+ Thank you, Dr. Letts
Longboat Key is losing an important person and important asset at the end of this week. Dr. Pamela Letts, Longboat Key’s primary-care physician for the past dozen years, is closing her practice.

This is a loss, to be sure. Dr. Letts filled a vital need on the Key, showing remarkable perseverance and loyalty in a community whose seasonality adds strains beyond the usual challenges of operating a medical practice.

Not only did Dr. Letts faithfully serve her patients, she was involved in the community. Letts served many years as a director of the Longboat Key Chamber of Commerce and was always a ready volunteer at chamber and community events.

Thank you, Dr. Letts, for your care and compassion. We wish you the same.

+ What would Founders say?
When our government starts stockpiling ammunition for law-enforcement purposes; when our government punishes law-abiding citizens for political purposes; when our government snoops our every move; and when the executive branch blatantly ignores the constitutional rule of law, citizens worry.

This worry is neither Republican nor Democrat. And it is growing. A fascinating expression of this worry — albeit raw in places — came to us last week via email. We have excerpted a portion of it below. It’s going “viral” because it expresses how millions of Americans feel about the direction of their country. We encourage you to read it in its entirety.

FINAL PUSH FOR FOOD
Don’t forget the Campaign Against Summer Hunger. Take your non-perishable food and cash donations for All Faiths Food Bank to the Longboat Key and St. Armands Key fire stations. Deadline: May 10.

A Taxi Driver's Lament: What Would the Founders Think?
Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from “The Pig Trap,” a blog by a Florida taxicab driver. To read the entire article, go to: taxicabdepressions.com/?p=1193.

So in the context of the early 1770s, what would the Founders think about the government secretly and illegally trafficking thousands of military-grade arms to criminals, brigands, and pirates, knowing full well that those criminals will kill thousands of innocent people with said arms, as a ploy to disarm their own citizenry …and when caught red-handed in this criminal and despicable act, the governmental appointee responsible for executing this disgraceful policy lies, dissembles and stonewalls and suffers no sanction or penalty?

What would they think of the government reading, and oftentimes copying and warehousing, every single letter of their correspondence, their diaries, their conversations, their most private and intimate of communications?

What would they think of government agents standing on rooftops and street corners, monitoring and documenting the comings and goings of every citizen every day of his life, whom they speak with and associate with, and what they purchase and from whom?

What would they think about their government spying on journalists, town criers, and pamphleteers and swearing out false oaths to judges to have them surveilled?

What would they think about government tax agents given specific orders to harass, intimidate, penalize and obstruct any person who speaks for peaceful, legislative reform of the government or is critical of the government, even demanding that they document the content of their prayers?

What would they think about a government that routinely ignores laws already on the books solely for material and political gain, a government that creates punitive laws through specious methods, and then exempts themselves from being subject to those laws, and when their agents, officials and appointees are caught in serious crimes and malfeasance, they are simply reassigned and protected by the government, never to face trial or pay any penalty for their acts or the harm they inflict on ordinary citizens?

I’ll tell you what I believe … I believe the shooting would have already started.

It’s not that I want something terrible to happen, it’s that I am positively astonished that something terrible hasn’t already happened.

The Founders set out to create a limited government. They did not create a Constitution that spelled out what the government may not do, they created a Constitution that detailed exactly and precisely what the federal government MAY do, and nothing more. This far, and no further.

All other powers were specifically and deliberately left to the individual states, and to the people themselves. The Bill of Rights was added at the insistence of several of the Founders to protect the individual citizen from future tyranny and avaricious government.

Yet today, our government has no compunctions about monitoring all my communications, tracking my movements, deterring my business success with punitive taxes and onerous regulations, accessing my banking records, compelling my participation in an ill-conceived healthcare system that will most assuredly give me substandard care and higher prices and may violate my personal wants and perhaps even my religious beliefs, and regulating almost every aspect of my day-to-day life, right down to the type of the car that I may drive, the lightbulbs I am allowed to buy, and the kind of toilet I am permitted to [blank] in …

So tell me again … just what are the limits of my so-called limited government?

— Taxi Hack