Fair and equitable

The Longboat Key Town Hall parking lot was full. So was the lot behind the Longboat Library. Cars filled the Bank of America, SunTrust and Secur-All Insurance parking spaces. They lined both sides of Bay Isles Road in front of Town Hall. Town staff prepared Temple Beth Israel to accommodate 400 people. When the Town Commission meeting began, 160 taxpayers showed up, 80 of them spilling into the commission’s ante-chambers and Town Hall foyer. 

Monday night’s Town Commission meeting was historic — not just because it was the longest on record, but because of its importance on the future of the Key. About 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, after five hours in session, commissioners voted 5-2 to place on the March town ballot a question whether to issue $23.5 million in bonds to fund underground utility lines in the Key’s neighborhoods.

That vote — albeit not the final decision on the matter — likely will be the most consequential and most difficult dilemma commissioners will have faced in their tenures. It was a crucial step toward determining whether Longboat Key will be tired and stuck in time or progressive and forward-looking for the next generation.

No matter on which side of converting to underground utility lines you stand, it needs to be said at the outset that Longboat Key taxpayers and residents should commend Town Commission members, town staff, Town Manager David Bullock and each of the members of the town’s utility and bond advisers for all of their months-long efforts to organize and present this complicated issue to the voters. All of them went above the call of duty to do the right thing, the right way, for the right reasons.

What is most unfortunate is that, in spite of every effort, this is an issue that is impossible to please everyone and destined to displease many.

Who should pay?

Overall, the idea is an apple-pie concept: to eliminate the town’s unsightly network of electrical poles and utility lines in favor of underground lines.

But with that great idea comes this extraordinary challenge: finding an equitable way to pay for the conversion. Indeed, who should pay — everyone? How much? Should everyone’s investment be equal? Should it be based on cost, or on benefit? Should one subsidize another?

Complicating those questions is the fact 70% of the island’s electric customers already have paid for underground utility lines. If the Key were a blank slate, with no one having underground utility lines, it would be easy to say everyone should pay the same. 

A further complication: The matter became two votes, one in November in favor of issuing $25 million in bonds to convert the lines along Gulf of Mexico Drive and a second vote to pay for the neighborhood conversions. This made sense. The arguments were all Longboaters would benefit from removing the above-ground lines on Gulf of Mexico Drive and therefore all taxpayers should pay. But the neighborhoods were different, especially when it came to whether residents whose neighborhoods already have underground lines should contribute to the cost of converting neighborhoods without underground lines.

The Town Commission, rightfully and logically, decided one of the principles of this process should be no subsidies, or at least a tight limit on subsidizing one neighbor over another.

When the town’s advisers employed what they researched to be a rational, fair and legally acceptable approach and stuck to avoiding subsidizing neighborhoods, the results brought sticker shock. Commissioners then opted to try to reduce the shock by creating a split similar to the 80%-20% beach renourishment plan — 72% of the cost of the neighborhood underground lines would be borne by 23% of the town’s taxpayers (those without underground lines); and 18% would be borne by 67% of the town’s taxpayers (those with underground lines).

Tyranny of the majority?

Predictably, many of the 23% showed up Monday night. They weren’t happy. A sampling:

• Allan Luke, longtime Village resident: “We don’t want it. We didn’t ask for it. I’ve lived with wires all my life. Give us the ability to opt out … $11,000 is way, way too much.”
• Karen Feeney, Village homeowner, said it would be “irresponsible” for the commission to approve a bond referendum. “All users should share in the cost on an equitable basis,” she said.
• John Summers, Emerald Harbor: “It seems the people on Gulf of Mexico Drive are deriving a lot more benefit from the GMD project than everyone else. It seems to me there are dramatic inequities in this system.”  
• Former Commissioner Gene Jaleski compared the funding methodology to “tyranny by the majority.” “This is very, very unfair,” he said.
• Ken Watkins, Village resident: “People who are going to pay the most should be able to decide.”
• Margaret Watkins, Village resident: “Let’s let (each neighborhood) decide for itself.”

The overriding theme was “fair and equitable.” One observer said he interpreted that to mean: “They want everyone to pay equally.” Or close to the same amounts. 

Former Mayor George Spoll’s Revitalization Task Force proposed a plan by which everyone would pay $143 a year. But Commissioner Phill Younger said that those with underground lines would fund 55% instead of 18% of the neighborhood cost. His implication: That wouldn’t fly.

What is fair and equitable? Those two words are synonyms; they mean just, even-handed, unbiased, neutral. On those terms, commissioners told the audience the town’s advisers were as equitable as they could be given the parameters of trying to avoid subsidies and present a legally defensible neighborhood payment methodology.

“I don’t think there’s an equitable way no matter what,” said Mayor Jack Duncan, an allusion to the difficulty of this dilemma: No matter what choice is made, someone will see it as unfair. 

“Our job,” Duncan added, “is to find quality for the community.”

Bingo. He said the word that comes to the crux of Monday’s debate: community versus the individual.

Group above the individual

When commissioners opted for a town referendum to fund underground lines for neighborhoods, in effect, they put the group above the individual. They made the individual subservient to the majority. The democratic way.

The fairest system, however, would be to let individual property owners decide yes or no on underground lines. Let each neighborhood or street’s residents decide whether to form a taxing district. That would be a messy, time-consuming, complicated process. But no one could argue “tyranny of the majority.”

That approach is still an option — if the neighborhood referendum fails. 

But that, too, has its pitfalls and challenges. In all likelihood, it would cost individual residents more than the current proposal — especially if their neighborhoods delayed and did not pair their projects with the Gulf of Mexico Drive conversion.

To be sure, Monday was a long, arduous night at Town Hall. Audience members pleaded and pressured commissioners to study more, to delay, to consider other options. But after five hours, Vice Mayor Terry Gans and Commissioner Lynn Larson said at some point you must make a decision. 

“Let the voters decide,” Larson said. 

She’s right. Commissioners made the right decision to put the question on the ballot. Now it’s time for Longboat voters to weigh the choices and tradeoffs, to decide what’s equitable and decide what is best for themselves and the future of Longboat Key. 

It’s a difficult dilemma. Worthwhile accomplishments are never easy.