Town Commission candidates gear up for contested 2025 election

Longboat Key residents filled the Temple Beth Israel social hall on Feb. 9 for an election forum hosted by the Miracle on the Key group and Men’s Club of Temple Beth Israel. 

At the event, residents heard from Town Manager Howard Tipton about charter amendments and a referendum that will be on the March ballot before the two at-large seat candidates had the opportunity to talk about themselves, reasons behind running for commission and perspectives on town issues. 

After Tipton explained the charter amendments and referendum, President of the Longboat Key Democratic Club Lucie Lapovsky introduced the two commission candidates: Steve Branham and Debbie Murphy.

Branham and Murphy are vying for an at-large commission seat, which will be vacant in March after Vice Mayor Mike Haycock reaches his term limit. 

This will be the first contested commission election for Longboat Key since 2018. 

Murphy held the District 5 commission seat from March 2023 to December 2023 but resigned due to the state’s intent to change the financial disclosure from Form 1 to Form 6, requiring candidates to disclose more information about sources of income. 

At the time, Murphy said she felt that amount of detail was unnecessary for a volunteer board position and was hesitant to disclose that information due to personal reasons. 

Now, the Form 6 requirement has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge's ruling, and Murphy is running for the at-large seat. 

This time, her platform is centered around her desire to bring another Manatee County voice to the commission. 

Out of the seven current commissioners, two are a part of Manatee County, Murphy said in her introduction.

With many upcoming projects and issues set in Manatee County — including the Broadway Roundabout, Longboat Pass Bridge and resiliency projects — Murphy believes having another commissioner from Manatee County would be a beneficial addition. 

Branham served with the U.S. Coast Guard for 37 years before coming to Longboat Key, where he currently serves on the Consolidated Retirement System Board of Trustees and was involved in organizations like the Kiwanis Club and Longboat Key Garden Club.  

Growing up, Branham said his family values taught him to be a servant leader and serve others, leaving things better than he found it. That’s why he wants to become a commissioner and serve the town in the same way. 

Lapovsky took questions from the audience about the candidate’s perspectives on town issues and future projects for the remainder of the forum. Here are some of the questions: 

Meeting space is a problem. How do you see solving the meeting space problem on the island?

Branham: I think there’s some work to be done, particularly on the north end that suffered a setback up there with the hurricane taking the space. The question now is, how do you overcome that? The library project on the south end and the community center for the Town Center Green area would be a great thing to fix the meeting space problem.  

Murphy: I’m a cheerleader for the (north-end) community center that’s sitting vacant now at Whitney Plaza. A lot of condo associations that are mid-key and up suffer from the fact that we do not have dedicated meeting space for board meetings, community meetings. (The community center) would solve that problem on the north end. I’m pleased to hear, even though we’re still a while out, that the library that’s being built here on Longboat Key is going to be offering space. I think between those two venues that may help to solve some of the problem.

How do you acquire and understand the views of the community?

Branham: Well, you go out and communicate…to go out and gather information, to meet with various groups — and there are many on this island, as you know — and talk to them, to see what’s on their mind and develop a list of those things that are most important. 

Murphy: It does not matter if I am your representative from District 5 or I’m an at-large commissioner, I represent everyone here on the island. The difference…instead of hearing directly from my neighbors about issues that they would like me to raise with the commission, I am now privy to questions from all of my neighbors, whether it’s the south end of Longboat Key or the north end of Longboat Key. 

How would you pay to fix aging infrastructure?

Branham: I see infrastructure in a couple of different categories, one is private and one is public. With respect to public infrastructure, it needs to be resilient, and it also needs to be funded properly. I think we’re going to face some challenges as we move forward and develop our tax base because there have been a number of properties on the key that have been eliminated. The other part is private…we have to make it easier for our citizens to be able to make their property more resilient. 

Murphy: There is a very detailed section on infrastructure (in the strategic plan)...I think whether you’re a single-family homeowner or condo owner, many of these buildings were built 40–50 years ago, maybe longer. That is a huge issue. The environmental resiliency issues that we now see from what happened after the two hurricanes…I think that, when we look at our budget going forward, we have to be prepared to understand that we are going to be investing quite a bit more into infrastructure projects. 

	Deborah Murphy	Steve Branham
Background	Retired from family construction business	Retired Admiral and CFO of Coast Guard
County	Manatee	Sarasota
Previous LBK experience	Currently serves on the Zoning Board of Adjustment	Currently serves on the Consolidated Retirement System Board of Trustees

Correction: The article has been updated to reflect that the Form 6 disclosure requirement for local elected officials is temporarily blocked due to a federal judge’s ruling.