Longboat Key letters to the editor

Floridays delivers false propaganda

I write to add my objections to the misleading, incorrect propaganda being spewed out by the Floridays people under the guise of various political committees — the latest, most obscure, being the Leadership for Florida’s Future.

This group, established in 2014, had a grand total of zero contributions until two large ones appeared, one in September 2015 and the latest in July. Coincidence?

The postcard this committee recently sent out should draw the wrath of anyone familiar with the issue of utilization of the land at the north end of Longboat Key. Its photos imply that, without the hotel, we’ll get a tattoo parlor and a pawn shop or “low-rent” strip malls.

Why not go further? Why not imply the town will allow street peddlers of genuine gold watches, or carnival rides, or gambling?

Of course, such enterprises have never been considered for the site. This latest lie suggests that voters have only two choices: a hotel or squalor. I object to the underhanded tactics of the Floridays group.

If this is what we can expect of them, do we want them here on Longboat Key?

Meredith Ellsworth

Longboat Key

Hotel would not meet definition of progress

Picture this: My husband lived on Lido Key when St. Armands Circle had a little ball diamond in the center of it. He graduated from Sarasota High School in 1961.

I lived on the mainland and was in the second graduating class at Riverview High School. The SHS kids “owned” Lido Key; RHS students “owned” Siesta Key; and likewise Bradenton kiddos owned Anna Maria.

No one came to Longboat Key! It was not even on our radar.

After living elsewhere for more than 40 years, we came back. We purchased a condo at the north end of Longboat almost two years ago. The reasons: Traffic is unbearable on Siesta Key; parked cars line Ben Franklin Drive along the beach on Lido from the north end almost to the Ritz-Carlton; and Anna Maria is one long beach road of commercial shops and restaurants.

I guarantee none of the planners of those keys foresaw what was to become, and I’ll wager my condo that none of them would let the development occur as it did if they could do it again.

Sad fact: Once we start relaxing codes, rezoning without knowing the outcome and tinkering with density, it takes on a life of its own, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to stop the process. Forget about undoing the damage; that is impossible.

Hence, the following questions:

n Where would the hotel guests for the Floridays project access the beach? They would have a long walk to the public access at Broadway, even longer to North Shore. So would they drive to one of them? Where will they park their cars? Will we copy Lido and have parked cars lining GMD for a few miles?

n Would the guests bring their own chairs and lounges? Carry them from the hotel across GMD down the access road and to the beach? Along with their towels, coolers, etc.? Hotel guests don’t usually travel with their chaise lounges. So would the hotel provide them and take them over each morning and retrieve them each evening? They have to be removed each evening.

n Would the hotel personnel help clean up the beach each day? There is often a lot of trash left on the portion of the beach from the 6600 block to 7100 block of Gulf of Mexico Drive. Imagine a few hundred more people.

A first-class hotel at this location would need to provide: transportation to and from the beach; beach chairs/lounges and beach equipment; and daily beach patrol (trash pickup).

There are several definitions for “progress.” But it generally means movement toward a goal or to some higher state or stage. I don’t believe a hotel gets us there.

The people who now use the stretch of beach most affected are by and large home and condo owners in the area, long-term renters and local citizens from Sarasota and Bradenton. Most have a vested interest and a connection to the area. Most care about our beaches and about the future of the area.

Can we expect hotel guests to feel the same and leave this special place in the same condition they found it?

We meet a surprising number of Florida residents from the center and east coast of the state. We keep hearing them say: “We come over here because there isn’t any place else like it.”

I urge you to vote “no” on the rezoning referendum Aug. 30.

Donna Frederick

Longboat Key

Clarifications on ‘Decision Days’

Thank you for the informative article “Decision Days” on Floridays in the Aug. 11 edition. The following corrections and clarifications should be noted:

Your description of Keep Longboat Special as “a group of Longbeach Village residents” is inaccurate. Our goal has been to represent interests of residents from all parts of the island, which is reflected by our more than 800 members.

We have and will continue to argue that the proposed hotel project is a bad idea for the immediate neighborhoods and for the island as a whole.

Furthermore, siting this hotel in a concentration of unique residential neighborhoods on both sides of Gulf of Mexico Drive would adversely transform the character and quality of life of these residential properties and reduce their values.

We have recommended mixed-use residential for the properties with a small amount of commercial, which is the current plan for revitalizing the adjacent Whitney Beach Plaza. Many favor the town buying the property for a park, over an acre and a half of which is natural forest. What a beautiful northern gateway to Longboat Key.

As reported, we organized a political committee to comply with state election laws. Not reported is that Floridays also formed a political committee, with the name, “Protecting Longboat’s Future by Controlling Growth” and with Floridays partner James Brearley as its chairman. Also not mentioned is that Jensen Beach PAC has been working with “Protecting Longboat’s Future by Controlling Growth.”

We hope Longboat Key voters will understand these additional details and vote “no” Aug. 30.

Craig V. Walters

Chairman, Keep Longboat Special

Hotel would increase traffic

I want to address the sentiment held by a majority of the town commissioners, that Longboat Key needs an ever-expanding tourism presence, because these tourists will buy our houses. As far as I can see, this is the sole rational for approving projects such as the overly large and overly dense Hilton Inn expansion, and the proposed north end motor hotel, which will be twice as densely populated as the Hilton project.

Here are some thoughts to consider before approving more tourist units on our increasingly exclusive residential island.

1) The Federal Department of Transportation (FDOT) estimates that retired people make 5.4 trips away from their homes per week.

2) The FDOT estimates that tourists make 3.2 trips, by car, per day away from their hotel rooms, or 22.4 trips per week, which is four times the traffic load of residents.

3) The American Hotel Association estimates that the average tourist stay is 2.2 days. Since a tourist car checks in on Longboat on the same day that a tourist car checks out, on changeover days the tourist traffic load increases.

4) Examining town business license numbers for rental properties, along with the total number of units advertised on Airbnb and Vacation Rental by Owner (VBRO), Longboat Key can currently accommodate between 8,000 and 11,000 tourists.

How many tourists does our community need to assure a healthy real estate market? Is 8,000-plus tourists at any one time enough? I believe it is more than enough. If the average stay is two days, then perhaps many hundreds of thousands of tourists already visit our community annually.

I have talked to several real estate people who believe that traffic congestion on our island is already dissuading perspective buyers from buying.

The proposed north-end motor hotel will add the equivalent traffic density of 480 residences.

The north end, not on the water, economy motor hotel will attract the lower end of the tourist market. Having kitchens in the small rooms will attract price conscious travelers with ice chests and four in a room. This type of tourist is less likely to patronize our local restaurants and will further congest checkout lines at Publix. They are also highly unlikely to ever buy our homes.

The majority of the commission has expressed a need for adding more than 700 tourist units on Longboat, including the Colony and Key Club expansions. The resulting increase in traffic congestion will be equivalent to adding 2,800 residential units, as tourist traffic is four times as dense as residential loading. Additionally, the added 700 tourist units will change over every two days, intensifying congestion even more.

On Aug. 30, voters will have to weigh the value of additional tourism capacity, to the already existing 8,000 to 11,000 tourist capacity, against the resulting large increase in the number of cars on GMD.

Note: Hotel rooms accommodate two-plus visitors and houses/condominiums accommodate four to six-plus visitors. It is people, not units that create lines at Publix, take up seats at local restaurants and crowd our beaches and GMD. The effective fourfold increase in traffic caused by tourists, as opposed to residential traffic, should be a major consideration when voters enter the polling booth on Aug. 30.

Gene Jaleski

Longboat Key

Town has been too accommodating 

Mr. Bullock, you and your cohorts are siding with an unwanted developer who wants to build a grandiose hotel on the north end of the Key, the largest building on the north end of the Key in one of the smallest communities on the very north end where LBK began as a small fishing village.

Your constituents have let you know that this type of construction would be totally out of touch in this quaint village and that we are not in favor of this ridiculous, inconceivable development, which would degrade and destroy the quality of life in this village — all for the sake of filling your pockets.

This would have an unfavorable impact on the entire island and also the other islands to the north, generating further unprecedented traffic concerns and inevitable strain on beaches from short-term rentals sure to follow.

This developer has not given any concrete information as to what he intends to do.

This developer will certainly stake out every benefit possible for himself.

What makes you willing to conform to his desires, Mr. Bullock?

B.J. Simmons

Longboat Key

Nation’s inequality is unjust, unsustainable

Regarding your comments Aug. 18 about Democratic Party candidates and our use of the words “liberty” and “freedom” …

Liberty and equality are both fundamental values to our nation. Neither is absolute, and finding a just balance between the two is fundamental to our society and to our representative democracy.

One of the best formulations of the inherent tensions between these two values is, I believe, found in “Reflections of a Radical Moderate,” (1996) by Elliot Richardson. He was a Republican, a dedicated public servant and a superb human being (whom I was proud and pleased to work with, support and call a friend).

We cherish both values — equality and liberty. Shifting constellations of political power and policies sometimes, however, result in pronounced shifts and excessive compromises regarding one or the other.

Many of us believe that the middle class is vanishing, and the inequality gap is becoming cavernous. Those in the peak 0.1% own as much wealth as the bottom 90%, and those in the top 1% receive about 20% of all income and hold one-third to one-half of the wealth.

We believe this situation is unjust and unsustainable for our society and our form of government. Measures are needed to restore essential balances.

Treating inherently relative values as absolute contributes, unfortunately, to the dysfunctional political polarization in our country. Purportedly dismissing all Democrats as similarly absolutist exacerbates the problem.

Jan Schneider

Democratic candidate

U.S. House – District 16

Zucker’s vote cost taxpayers millions

I shall not vote for Caroline Zucker in the Aug. 30 school board election.

Last April, Zucker voted to approve a contract with Willis Smith Construction Co. to build the Sun Coast Technical College in North Port at a cost of $18 million.

Another contractor, A.D. Morgan, ranked first in a competitive bidding process by a nonpartisan committee, was the low bidder and would have saved the district $4.5 million. Apparently, this saving does not matter to Caroline Zucker.

Her reason for awarding the contract to Willis Smith was unpersuasive: She liked what the company had done in the past. Anyone involved in construction knows that one works with an architect to draft specific plans, and the construction company completes the work according to the detailed plans. The bid should have gone to the lowest bidder meeting the standards, thus, saving $4.5 million of Sarasota taxpayers’ money.

Judge J. Bruce Culpepper said that although the school board did not violate any laws, the process gave “the appearance of and opportunity for favoritism.”

As a taxpayer, I find Zucker’s vote to be wasteful and ill-considered. Those wasted millions could have been spent on students, teachers, supplies and other much needed items.

Paul Schafer

Sarasota