Postscript: The other side of the Celery Fields recycling story

Former state Sen. Nancy Detert, now Sarasota County Commissioner Detert, recently remarked to one of her former Senate colleagues that one of the differences between being a state senator and a county commissioner is “it’s a lot more personal” being on the County Commission.

As Detert has found out: Propose a zoning change to a property, and the neighbors come out in floods, emotions brewing. 

Detert, her commission colleagues and members of the Sarasota Planning Commission saw that up-close-and-personal side over the past three months in their deliberations over whether to rezone 16 acres near the county’s Celery Fields to allow a construction-debris recycling plant. 

The County Commission ultimately rejected 3-2 the application from Sarasota recycling entrepreneur Jim Gabbert and his TST Ventures.

But that vote came after 10 hours of public comments before the commission and six-and-a-half hours before the Sarasota County Planning Commission, which also voted against Gabbert’s application.

Lost in the reporting of the two commission votes and the 16.5 hours of public comments opposing the recycling plant was the other side of the story. 

While the local media — we, included — reported the facts of the outcome, none devoted space or time to Gabbert and what commissioners said about him and his proposed recycling plant. They are worth knowing.

Gabbert is known in Sarasota County Republican Party circles as a consistent campaign donor. He also was elected in 2016 to the Sarasota County Charter Review Board.

But lesser known about Gabbert is he is a third-generation Sarasota native, educated in Sarasota County public schools. He started working in the Sarasota construction industry in 1980, operating a trucking company with his brother and later as a site and demolition contractor. 

In 1995, Gabbert and his partner, then Meyer & Gabbert Excavating became the winning bidders to open a construction-debris recycling center for the county at the Bee Ridge landfill. By 2004, Meyer & Gabbert had five recycling plants in Sarasota and Manatee counties. Gabbert’s firm became recognized as one of the most technologically advanced recycling companies in the state. In 2005, Gabbert and his partner sold their business to WCA Waste of Florida.

For the Celery Fields plant, Gabbert proposed another technology-driven plant to control noise and pollution. Planning Commission members lauded Gabbert’s plans. Before voting to deny his company’s rezoning petition, Commissioner Laura Benson said:

“I love your plan … I think absolutely everybody in this room here tonight, if you were to say, ‘Should we recycle our construction and demolition debris?’, and you would get a unanimous, yes. If you were to ask people that if you did a good job at what you do and how you do it, I believe you would get a unanimous, yes.”

Alas, both commissions rejected Gabbert’s proposal, largely because of the traffic issues it would generate. Planning Commissioner Kevin Cooper, who voted no, cited this irony:

“I have a hard time [with the county] selling its own land, benefiting from the sale, and making worse a [traffic] situation” that “is an existing deficiency.”