- December 21, 2024
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So many thoughts come to mind when you ask a Longboat Key resident to comment on the library.
It’s the topic on Longboat.
What size public library — paid for with Sarasota County tax dollars (uh, Longboat tax dollars) — should be built on the Town Center Green? Should it be an 8,000-square-foot structure the county proposed? Half that size? A McDonald’s hamburger ordering kiosk? Or even a library branch at all?
Ask 100 people, and you’ll get 100 varied opinions.
But here is the one opinion we have heard frequently since the town’s charette two weeks ago:
Longboaters definitely do not want an 8,000-square-foot library.
Instead, here’s what is needed, in order:
A community center that can accommodate 300 people in a room. A dedicated-space education center. And, if need be, a modest, modest library that makes sense for the 21st century’s digital era and the Key’s demographics.
Why, even in multiple public meetings, a majority of town commissioners have put the words “community center” and “education center” ahead of a library.
But whenever you watch the commissioners converse on this subject, you get the sense that even though they see the need for a community center, they are fixated on a library — driven that way because that is what Sarasota County will fund and, as a county commissioner said, “That ship has sailed.”
That’s what came out of discussions among town and county commissioners and their administrators in 2021 and 2022 — much to the surprise in 2024 of Longboat residents.
But alas, who could ever be against a library?
Actually, it’s complicated.
Longtime Longboaters know the history of this long-sought facility. We’re not going to rehash every last detail of what has occurred over the past quarter-century to bring about a community center and a home for the Longboat Key Education Center. But context is important.
Longboat taxpayers rejected what became a built-by-committee, overly expensive monstrosity (complete with swimming pool) in the early 2000s.
Through the years, there also have been attempts to raze the Bayfront Recreation Center for a real community center.
The now-gone Longboat Key Center for the Arts in the Village limped for years as a quasi-community center.
And then, as many remember, the partnership with Ringling College of Art and Design for an Arts, Cultural and Education Center with a black-box theater fizzled.
Here’s the point: Not once in any of these efforts did any of the leaders of these efforts or residents say the word “library.”
The need is for a community center. To wit:
Before the Longboat Key Public Tennis Center came to life, a developer proposed constructing an assisted-living complex on that site. Residents went bananas. The Town Commission needed a place to accommodate outraged citizens at public hearings, so it jammed everyone in the All Angels by the Sea Parish Hall, with dozens of residents standing around the perimeter of the hall, spilling outside the entrance.
Later, in 2010, when the Longboat Key Club and Resort proposed a $400 million expansion, Longboaters became riled again. Expecting large public turnout at public hearings, the Town Commission moved to Temple Beth Israel. Day after day, Longboaters took over nearly every pew.
More recently, when developer Chuck Whittall proposed the St. Regis, the Town Commission scheduled public hearings at the John Ringling Ballroom at the Resort at Longboat Key Club. There was standing room only for more than 200 people.
The need is for a community center that accommodate 300 people in a room for public meetings, lectures, art shows and the like.
The need is for dedicated space for the Longboat Key Education Center, now the Education Center at Temple Beth Israel. This 40-year-old, not-for-profit institution has 3,000 to 5,000 life-long registrants a year. It’s our version of the famous Chautauqua Institution in New York.
Town commissioners should ask longtime Education Center Executive Director Susan Goldfarb about its needs and the center’s effects on Longboat’s quality of life.
There were days before COVID, when the Education Center’s 12 daily programs would almost fill the parking lot at the Centre Shops. This week, the center will have more than 250 people attending the 15th annual performance of the West Coast Black Theatre Troupe. Last month, more than 250 people attended a Neil Diamond program. Jazz nights attract 80 to 150 people.
Think how that will work — sharing and scheduling community center and education center space; or the WCBTT rocking to the Temptations, while Longboaters in the adjacent library are trying to read “War and Peace.”
The education center is crucial to Longboat Key’s resort-retiree, high net worth demographics. Goldfarb told us last week of a woman who moved to the Key and knew no one. She started going to the Education Center almost daily — a regular now for 15 years.
“I told her she should be given a Ph.D. for all the classes she took,” Goldfarb said. “She told me she made friends and felt less lonely.”
The education center is more than education. It’s a social center that helps make Longboat the community it is.
And there is this: It reduces traffic going to the mainland.
A group of Longboat women told a town commissioner how excited they are about not having to drive to Selby Library in downtown Sarasota. North Longboat moms with preschool-age kids told the commissioner it would be a place to take the children for activities.
We know of one resident who told a commissioner he more than likely would not use a library.
Another resident said there is no need for a brick-and-mortar library on Longboat; if Amazon can deliver books in two days, why can’t the Sarasota library have one-day service to the Key?
To be sure, a healthy public library is a symbol of its residents’ commitment to their city’s quality of life. Sarasota County is testament to that. It prides itself on the strength of its library system.
So the argument goes: It doesn’t make sense that Longboat Key should be the only municipality in the county that does not have a library branch.
The case for all three venues is compelling. But space is limited.
So weigh the value. Prioritize their contribution to the needs of the Key’s residents and quality of life.
But who should do that — the county, town commissioners or Longboat Key taxpayers and property owners? A referendum?
The money.
As the story goes, after the dissolution of efforts to develop a $17 million arts, cultural and education center with Ringling College, to their credit, a few Longboat commissioners considered turning to Sarasota County and the Sarasota County Public Schools system as potential sources of capital.
The idea had merit.
Former Sarasota County Commission Chairman Al Maio became an advocate for the county to fund a library branch. What’s more, that funding would include county taxpayers paying for annual operating costs and staff salaries.
Longboat commissioners, including current Mayor Ken Schneier and former Town Manager Tom Harmer (a former Sarasota County administrator) all liked the idea.
The discussions evolved in 2021 and 2022. The county would fund the library, and Longboat Key would fund anything extra — e.g. community center and/or education center.
Remembering Longboat Key taxpayers’ rejection of a bond issue and an increase in property taxes 20 years ago, Longboat commissioners accepted the idea of Longboat philanthropists funding the extras.
An equitable deal?
It’s not. Longboat deserves better — and more. Here’s why:
Longboat taxpayers are a magnificent annuity for Sarasota County and the county’s public schools.
In fiscal 2024, the Longboat taxpayers on the Sarasota County side of the Key will send $25,890,230 to Sarasota County. That amount covers the county’s property tax, general debt service and debt service on the Legacy Trail. (The state and county also will collect another $3.7 million in tourism bed taxes from the Sarasota portion of Longboat.)
For the school system, the Longboat-Sarasota County taxpayers will send $18,549,726 as the local tax portion and another $16,745,011 to cover the state portion of school taxes. Altogether: $35,294,737.
The total for Sarasota County and schools: $61,184,967.
All that from just one-half of a tiny barrier island, whose Sarasota County portion of the permanent population is 4,775.
That begs the question: What do Longboat Key taxpayers and property owners receive in return that directly benefits the island?
Little.
So far, Sarasota County allocated $1 million out of its library budget for the design of a Longboat library branch. County budget documents show no other funding.
The county’s five-year library capital spending plan totals $48 million, but there is no mention of an earmark for Longboat.
If, say, the county is to appropriate funds for a library, a defendable and reasonable amount for Longboat would start at a minimum of $10 million. That would be the equivalent in today’s dollars of what the county spent to build 25,000-square-foot libraries in Newtown and the Fruitville library east of the interstate in the 2000s.
But Longboaters don’t want a $10 million library.
The thinking of town and county commissioners needs to shift to the possible. Whatever is appropriated doesn’t need to come from the county’s library capital plan. It can be earmarked from somewhere else — say, an infrastructure fund.
What’s more, be creative: Appropriate it to the town, giving the town, not the county, the responsibility for the project’s completion and accountability to the county.
That would not be an unreasonable ask.
Nor would this: $15 million.
County commissioners would likely choke. But the truth is that $15 million would hardly be noticed.
The Sarasota County 2023-24 budget is $2 billion — $1.44 billion for operations, $570 million in capital outlays. What’s more, the county has been gushing with new cash (up 33% from 2023 to 2024 ).
You could also make the case that a $15 million appropriation would be a wise investment for the county. It will enhance the value of Longboat Key as a destination for high-net-worth retirees, who will continue to drive up real estate values and property taxes, feeding ever more money to the county.
Politically, such an appropriation would help endear the county to Longboat taxpayers and voters. Longboaters would be forever grateful and friendly to future endeavors with the county. And … Longboat-Sarasota voters at election time would remember which commissioners supported the town.
You could expect county commissioners’ initial reactions to a request for $15 million to be this: “How can we possibly justify that to all of our constituents outside of Longboat Key?”
The answer is simple: A one-time contribution of $15 million in exchange for more than $60 million a year in perpetuity. Amazing ROI.
Town commissioners and others have expressed frustration and dismay that this development has taken as long as it has and lament that further delays are either unnecessary or jeopardizing progress.
That’s what happens when no one individual or private entity owns the property or when government committees are involved.
But another perspective is this: Whatever is developed is likely to stand for 50, 60, 70 years. Which brings to mind the famous, simple admonition of the late W. Edwards Deming, father of what became the Japanese manufacturing miracle of post-World War II:
Do it right the first time.
What do you want at Town Center Green: A library? A community center? An education center? All of the above?
How big of a library?
Should there be a two-story building on the site?
Who should pay for the facilities — Sarasota County? Longboat taxpayers? Private philanthropists?
The town of Longboat Key and officials from Sarasota County will conduct their second public meeting on the proposed library at 1 p.m. Monday, March 18, at Town Hall.
