Our view

The continued thought and talk on Longboat Key about developing a town center east of the Publix and the Shoppes at Bay Isles certainly are titillating.

Wouldn’t it be great?

And you have to admit the accompanying rendering, pulled from the preliminary report from the Urban Land Institute study late last year, adds to the enchantment of the idea.

Reality, as we know, is another story. When you take a snapshot of Longboat Key today, it brings to mind that bromide “two steps forward, one step back.”

The “forward” is the momentum we’re seeing in new development. In the span of weeks, the town of Longboat Key approved Ocean Properties’ plans to redevelop and expand the Longboat Key Hilton Beachfront Resort and Ascentia Group’s plans to develop Aria, 16 luxury condos at Villa Am Meer.

Crossgate Partners simultaneously is pressing ahead to develop Infinity, an 11-unit, Gulf-front luxury project at mid-Key, and Shawn Kaleta of Holmes Beach unveiled his plans to develop nine homes on the Gulf side between Positano and Club Longboat.

All of this brings back memories of the Roaring mid-1990s.

But then we take that one step back. What a tragic pity to think the Colony saga has come to this: The town has scheduled a public hearing in early March at Temple Beth Israel to determine whether that storied resort should be declared a public nuisance and forced to be demolished.

What an indignity. We all know that horrible dispute has rendered the Colony’s buildings irreparable. But does the town really need to kick more dirt in the face in the final chapter of the Colony’s book?

While that slowly plays out, we read news that the town’s budget is headed toward a $1.4 million deficit largely because Longboat’s property owners — 70% of them part-timers — are using far less electricity and gas than the town projected. We hate to point it out, but that’s not a sign of strengthening health.

And that news comes amid the town’s ULI advisory subcommittee apparently still trying to figure out a meaningful purpose for itself. Its mission, as we’ve come to understand, is to help the Town Commission and Longboat residents decide what projects or recommendations in the ULI study the town should undertake and which should be shelved.

Oh my, surely we’re all smart enough to see where that’s likely to go. It’s a committee of commissioners, town staffers, Town Hall watchers and a couple of independent citizens. Did we say it’s a “committee?” Enough said.

In spite of this, last week there may have been a breakthrough. The group appeared to agree that it should focus on how to improve the looks of Gulf of Mexico Drive and Bayfront Park and Recreation Center.

This makes sense. The idea of a town center, while enticing, should be put on “low percolate” while other priorities occur.

Consider this: As we reviewed the ULI preliminary report, we stopped at one of its recommendations:

“Find opportunities for quick successes.”

And that brought to mind one of the truisms from author Jim Collins’ famous business book, “From Good to Great.”

Collins researched the performance and operations of more than 1,000 companies to determine what is required for a good company to become a great company. And one of his discoveries — although not a surprising revelation — was this: “There are no silver bullets.”

Cliche, yes. But true. And here’s the relevance to Longboat Key: Forget for the time being about focusing time, energy, money, consultants and resources on developing a town center. Other important changes must occur first to make a town center financially plausible.

It’s like building a newspaper: First you need compelling, relevant content. With that, you can attract readers. And when you have readers, you have a market for retailers and advertisers.

On Longboat Key, that means we need new and better content — updated amenities that appeal to potential homebuyers. And if there are candidates for “quick successes,” they are Bayfront Park and Gulf of Mexico Drive.

Indeed, it would seem sensible for the the Town Commission and town manager to bring the redeveloped Bayfront Park and Recreation Center to fruition. More than four years ago, the town pressured the Sarasota County Commission to send some of Longboat taxpayers’ millions of dollars back to the Key.

One of the results was the county’s acquisition of the property south of Bayfront Park. In addition, the county was to earmark funds to redevelop the entire park.

Alas, the recession hit. But now it’s time. Finish the park.

Then imagine the impression: Three completed new condos, an expanded and redeveloped Hilton and a new, public recreational amenity. Surely that would help attract more residents and more buyers. And once the critical mass of residents and visitors is rebuilt, the idea of a sustainable town center becomes more plausible.

That’s not to say efforts to move the town center forward should be shelved altogether. They, too, can percolate.

But if you look at the state of the Key today, it reminds us also of another of Collins’ findings in “Good to Great.” The great companies all had this characteristic: They were hedgehogs. They worked toward greatness over long periods. That’s what will be required of Longboat Key. No silver bullets. Grinding it out over many years. And now is the start.

INCOME INEQUALITY AND THE MINIMUM WAGE
Even going back to biblical times, various groups, leaders and movements have sought and promised the imagined nirvana of material equality.

In more modern times, we’ve seen this delusion in Marx and Hitler; the Soviet Union; the rise of the European Union; and, ever since FDR, in the Democratic Party here in the United States.

The method is always the same: bring down those who have risen above others. Punish achievement.
But in all of this time — more than 2,000 years — no one has ever achieved equality for all. Nor will they ever. Indeed, just the idea of redistributing material wealth is in itself a proposition of inequality — the self-anointed choosing one over another. And yet, people like Barack Obama persist.

As always, the “equalists” rail about increasing the minimum wage here in the United States. Obama says it should be $10 an hour.

But why stop there? Why not go all the way? Let’s really make everyone equal and, once and for all, eliminate poverty: Pay everyone $200 an hour!

No level of minimum wage will ever eliminate poverty or inequality. And even raising it a little is harmful. Milton Friedman once explained this vividly: What you give to one, you must take away from another. Give more to one group, you have less to give to another group (e.g. fewer jobs at the entry level, where they are needed most).

That’s the economic argument.

It’s also a matter of freedom.

What an employer pays an employee is no one’s business except theirs, and certainly it is none of the business of the government.

When an employer and employee agree on a wage, they have created a private contract between themselves. They have voluntarily and peacefully agreed that the wage to be paid is a fair trade for the work to be employed. That is free enterprise.

But what about exploitation? That’s why we must have government-prescribed minimum wages, say the do-gooders.

This is bogus.

To begin with, when an employee accepts a job and the pay, he is doing so voluntarily. No one is forcing him.

Likewise, if he feels exploited by an unacceptably low wage, he has the freedom to quit.

Now flip the coin: It’s in the employer’s self-interest to pay a fair wage that will allow the business to succeed and attract the right people he needs to succeed.

If he exploits, employees will quit, the employer’s reputation will suffer and he will fail.

If you want wage fairness, there is no better arbiter than the marketplace of two individuals practicing peaceful, voluntary, free trade — the act of a buyer (the employer) and a seller (the employee) agreeing on the value of the seller’s good or service.

That is freedom. Bring in the government, and the transaction becomes distorted coercion. Laissez-faire.