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B.J. Bishop, Longboat Key Planning and Zoning Board member and former chairwoman and former mayor of Leesburg, Va., asked perhaps the most relevant question at the Longboat Observer’s Town Commission candidate forum nearly three weeks ago.

Posed to all four candidates, she asked them to show what civic involvement they have had that demonstrates their ability to work effectively on a board or in a group.

Most of the audience members at the forum — many of them acute Town Hall watchers — knew exactly what Bishop was trying to point out without naming names. As she noted, working collegially and professionally is a requisite skill of all of the commissioners.

And if you line up the positions of the four candidates on all of the issues and the experiences that qualify them for the Town Commission, the clearest way to differentiate which two of the four candidates are best suited to be elected is to answer Bishop’s question.

The contrast is unequivocal.

District 4
In the District 4 race, which covers the area just south of Twin Shores, in the 3700 block of Gulf of Mexico Drive, north to the 5600 block, the two candidates are Jack Daly and Larry Grossman. One of them will replace Mayor Jim Brown, who has reached his six-year term limit.

A former city planner for 30 years in Alexandria, Va., Grossman has run for the commission once before unsuccessfully. But give him credit. He can be described positively as a citizen activist who believes Longboat Key can be better than what it is.

Grossman can be seen at just about every Town Commission and planning board meeting, often not just as a spectator, but as a citizen who speaks his mind, mostly on planning and development issues.

He participated in the town’s visioning process; he was a member of the ULI Implementation Committee, until he resigned out of frustration over the makeup of the panel; and he was a member of the Longboat Key Revitalization Task Force, until his objectives conflicted irrevocably with the task force, causing him to leave the group.

Daly, a full-time Longboat Key resident since 1994, has been involved on Longboat Key mostly out of the limelight. He served 20 years on the board — 10 of them successfully as president — of the Club Longboat homeowners association. That’s a feat of patience and perseverance in itself. He also has been serving four years on the town Planning and Zoning Board, currently as vice chairman.

But in his 36-year professional life, Daly’s breadth of experience is a picture of competence. Educated as a civil engineer and later a lawyer, Daly spent his career in the legal, corporate and federal lobbying offices of Columbia Gas, negotiating agreements with major suppliers and customers. He became CEO of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, where he mediated and lobbied federal regulators over the production and distribution of natural gas.

Given their backgrounds, you can create a picture that their experiences were largely on two different levels. When you talk to Grossman, you hear a passionate planning technocrat who has spent much of his career at the “doer” level, in the trenches of project development. Daly, in contrast, worked at the strategic level.

The relevance here is the role of a commissioner. He is the equivalent of a corporate board director, overseeing the strategy and policies of the enterprise, not involved in its day-to-day operations.

At-large seat
The other Town Commission race pits at-large Commissioner Phill Younger against former Commissioner and longtime Longboat Key activist Gene Jaleski.

They are vying for one of the two at-large seats on the commission. (All Longboat registered voters will vote in both races.)

Younger is running for his final term; Jaleski is running for the fourth time.

The contrast between Younger and Jaleski is similar to that of Daly and Grossman, albeit magnified.
Younger is much like Daly, introspective, analytical, strategic. He, too, was educated as an engineer and lawyer. While he can be prone to making direct, blunt comments, he maintains his low-key composure and is the antithesis of bombastic. His strength on the commission is analysis.

In a strong sense, Younger and Jaleski are alike in that regard. Jaleski has spent much of his 30 years of activism on Longboat Key analyzing and criticizing the town’s beach maintenance practices and its budget, particularly as town spending relates to paying consultants.

But the big difference is how they go about conveying their positions and working with colleagues. It’s difficult to pinpoint what it is with Jaleski. Although he means well and has the citizens’ fiscal interest and welfare at heart, Jaleski was unable to win the favor and respect of his fellow commissioners. Frustrated, and after unleashing a disparaging email about the Public Interest Committee and a former mayor, Jaleski resigned from the commission in 2010, a year after his election. He later apologized, but he also said then: “Town government is not the right place for me. I come from a business community, where things happen.”

Give him this: He doesn’t give up in his convictions that there are better, less expensive and more effective ways for the town to operate. And he’s probably right.

Yet, true to form, in the past two weeks, Jaleski appeared before the town’s Zoning Board of Adjustment to complain that the public wasn’t properly noticed over the past 20 years on zoning decisions affecting the Mar Vista Dockside Restaurant and Pub. Jaleski also recently sent a letter of protest to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contesting the town’s request for permits to dredge Longboat Pass. His protest has the potential to delay relocating the dredged sand to hot spots along north Longboat Key’s beaches. Said Longboat Key Public Works Director Juan Florensa: “These passes have been dredged. We’re not asking for anything hasn’t been done before.”

There’s a saying on Madison Avenue in New York, the epicenter of the advertising world: It’s all in the presentation.

To be sure, there is much more to being a town commissioner than “the presentation.” It matters where the candidates stand on taxes; the role of government; private-property rights; the environment versus development; traffic; public-employee compensation and other local, municipal issues.

But as is often the case with Longboat Key elections, all of this year’s candidates have a strong desire to make sure Longboat Key remains the premier residential resort community that it is — and also to help the town continue to progress and improve. The candidates are largely in sync on taxes and spending — fiscal hawks — and proponents of controlled growth (Jaleski more so than the others). And three of the four — Jaleski the exception — basically line up on beach maintenance.

The biggest differences are in temperament, experience and the ability and skill to move the town forward within the confines of collaborating with other commissioners.

Grossman and Jaleski have their strengths. They are good town watchdogs. Every community needs citizen activists to keep government on notice and challenge the status quo.

But Younger and Daly have demonstrated more than Grossman and Jaleski throughout their careers and public service they have the breadth of intelligence and people skills to be effective representatives of taxpayers, strategic thinkers, analysts and, most important, leaders.

We recommend: Daly and Younger.

Early voting schedules
LONGBOAT KEY ELECTION DAY: Tuesday, March 10
RACES: District 4, At-Large
WHO VOTES: Both races are open to all registered voters.

SARASOTA COUNTY:
Monday, March 2, through Saturday, March 7, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Longboat Key Town Hall, 501 Bay Isles Road; or Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Office, 101 S. Washington Blvd., Sarasota

MANATEE COUNTY:
Monday, March 2, through Saturday, March 7 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

Longboat Key Town Hall, 501 Bay Isles Road

Note: Bring a valid and current photo and signature ID.