My View

The Urban Land Institute recommendation getting the most buzz is the proposal for a town center. A walking/biking friendly and pleasing area that draws people to amenities they now drive off island to find. Oh, for a local Starbucks! The town center is a fine vision and deserves the effort it is now getting from the ULI Implementation Advisory Committee.

The “Our View” column in the Jan. 8 edition of the Longboat Observer illustrates the difficulties in achieving a town center. They are multiple land owners and lack of capital. I would refer to this as cash and consensus. Cash is the funding needed to implement a selected plan. Consensus is agreement among property owners and residents on plan components. Cash and consensus are not entirely independent concepts; there is considerable overlap. Adequate funding would likely facilitate or even promote consensus. There’s nothing like spending money to bring people together. So let’s consider sources of cash.

Longboat Key published a revised Vision Plan in 2011, including specific goals and strategies to achieve the goals. The very first listed goal is “prevent Longboat Key from becoming unaffordable to current residents.” Strategies include “outreach to external taxing bodies to 1. reduce the tax burden they are placing on the Key and/or 2. provide more benefits to the Key.” So, how are we doing with that goal? Not so well, I think.

An earlier “Our View” column from October lists $61 million in property taxes from Longboat Key residents that go to Sarasota and Manatee counties, for benefits that are hard to quantify. Most remarkable is that $36 million in total goes to the county school systems.

The annual cost to educate a student in each county is roughly $10,000. But the annual cost to Longboat Key residents for each student that resides in the Sarasota County portion of the island approaches $1 million. That’s right, $1 million per child, per year! Manatee County costs per student may be less because there are more children, but it still runs to several hundred thousand dollars per year. We all support public education. At some point, however, a line is crossed from support to extortion. It’s an outrage.

Some hard bargaining with both counties is in order and long overdue. We could send every student from Longboat Key to a private school for less than $2 million per year, total. A separate Longboat Key county has been discussed in the past and the concept should be reviewed again. The majority of any savings from lower taxes should be rebated to Key residents currently being fleeced. If a few million dollars per year were allocated to the town, a lot of cash and consensus surrounding the town center could be achieved. There is some real money out there. Let’s go for it.

Andrew Aitken is an Emerald Harbor resident and a member of the Longboat Key Planning & Zoning Board.