Whittall's Longboat lesson

Surely would-be Colony Beach & Tennis Resort developer Chuck Whittall knew for many weeks the outcome of Tuesday’s Longboat Key election would turn out as it did.

He learned a lot, at a stiff price, to be sure.

He now faces another tough choice: Come back with a scaled-down proposal, or sell his interests and move on.

That must be a tough call, especially now that he knows what it takes to develop on Longboat Key. You know the saying: Capital flows where it is welcome. Surely Whittall is debating: Go where development is welcome, or fight the expensive battles in Longboat. 

Presumably, he has learned this reality about Longboat Key: You think you own your property, and you may hold the deed to your property, but you don’t really own your property. Your neighbors and the town own your property. They control what you think you own.

It’s a perverse property-rights arrangement, especially in a town where most of the property owners are passionate lovers of liberty, free enterprise, low taxes and limited government. 

Except when it comes to their neighborhood and Gulf of Mexico Drive.

Property rights? Truth be told, individuals have few, if any, property rights on Longboat Key.

Think about recent referendums on Longboat: Voters rejected four requests from property owners to allow them to use their properties in what the owners believed to be rational uses. If Longboat residents would be honest with themselves, all of the proposals — including the Colony — would have enhanced the value of everyone’s property.

But here’s the perversity of property ownership on Longboat Key: For 60 years, Longboat Key property owners have been more concerned with limiting their neighbors’ ability to create aesthetic annoyances than maintaining their own property rights and to have the freedom to do as they wish.

When Longboat voters adopted in 1984 a referendum requiring voter approval to increase residential density, they reallocated, and to an extent confiscated, an individual’s property rights to the group, some might say the mob.

What a paradox. 

IS HE FOR REAL?

You know the truism: Actions speak louder than words. But words can be powerful, too, and inspire action.

If you read the excerpts from Florida  Speaker Richard Corcoran’s opening day speech to the members of the House of Representatives, you surely will get the sense he’s not much for singing “Kumbaya” around his backyard fire pit. He’s ready to rumble and bloody a few noses — on behalf of you, Florida taxpayers.

Is Corcoran for real — not your typical “all I really care about is getting re-elected” politician? 

Going down his list of actions at the beginning of his speech certainly gives the impression he’s not just all talk, no action. 

But we’ll see. The Lutz Republican is  leading his first of two sessions of the House. And we all know institutions like Congress and the Legislature are bigger than one person.

Likewise, rare is the Florida speaker that Floridians remember for making a big difference. Who, for instance, was Corcoran’s most recent predecessor? And who was it before that? Indeed, do you even remember that “little” Marco Rubio served as speaker?

You have to like Corcoran’s agenda and calls to action. Let’s hope he breaks the mold and his actions truly equal his words.