- January 3, 2025
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2024 was a difficult year for Longboat Key.
The active hurricane season brought Debby, Helene and Milton, and all three impacted the key. Helene was the real kicker, and its storm surge flooded many residents' homes and destroyed properties.
Throughout the latter months of the year, town staff worked with the community to rebuild Longboat Key. Some backup was also needed through the state, which sped up the debris removal.
After all this, the Longboat Key community could come together at events like Light Up Longboat and the LBK Strong Community Concert to regroup and start celebrating the holidays.
While the effects of Helene and Milton will probably linger for a while longer, a new year brings new opportunities and fresh perspectives.
The town staff and commission will continue with a full workload once the holiday break ends. Here are several projects that will either wrap up or make significant progress in 2025:
At the Longboat Key town commission's Dec. 2 meeting, commissioners passed the second vote to approve a taxing district for a canal maintenance project.
This ad valorem tax would be one part of the funding method for the project. The second, a non-ad valorem tax, still requires further discussion by staff and commissioners.
At the Dec. 2 meeting, residents showed up to share concerns about the taxing method and wanted the chance to be heard before the commission approves any tax.
“When or if the commission decides to move forward with the imposition of any tax assessment for canals by a special district or otherwise, there will be many opportunities for property owners to weigh in on such levies at public hearings like this,” Mayor Ken Schneier assured the public at the Dec. 2 meeting.
Town staff have documents dating back to 1996 of commissioners talking about a canal maintenance program.
In 2003, the canals were dredged, which was the last time the town's canals were maintained. A further maintenance program fell through due to the 2008 recession and other factors.
“I don’t think there’s anybody who says we shouldn’t have canals that are maintained, it’s just a question of how do we go about it,” Town Manager Howard Tipton said at the meeting.
The Dec. 2 meeting included a vote to approve the taxing district for the ad valorem tax — a tool that is in place and up to the commission to use.
“It does not require or commit a future board to use it. It’s just a tool that’s there if the board so wishes,” Tipton said.
Now that the district is approved, the commission could start using the tax for the November 2025 tax roll. The only dissenting vote for the taxing district was District 4 Commissioner Debra Williams.
Before that happens, though, staff plan to have several public workshops and opportunities to hear from the community after the March election, which will see the election of one new commissioner.
“There are reasons to do it as quickly as possible. It’s been delayed too long. There are some canals that are pretty well-silted up,” Schneier said.
How to split the remainder of the cost through a special assessment, or non-ad valorem tax, is still undecided.
“We’re not even close to the decision...a lot more has to be done,” Schneier said.
Construction for the dredge project won't begin as soon as the tax is collected, though.
Staff estimates it will take five years of taxing before the project can start. To collect the necessary $9.25 million, construction would likely not start until 2031.
With all that ahead, residents can expect public workshops in 2025 to learn more about the program and provide input.
The Broadway Roundabout project will probably make significant progress in 2025 now the state found funding to help pay for the increase in costs.
This roundabout will be constructed at the intersection of Broadway Street and Gulf of Mexico Drive on the island's north end to enhance pedestrian safety. The end of Broadway Street has one of the island's popular public beach access points.
In June 2023, the project was close to a fully-complete design when the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) said it would not approve the design because of concerns with the roadway banking, or curved slope of the road.
This forced the town to redesign the roundabout, which requires the banking to be fixed by lowering one side of GMD while raising the other side. Drainage on both sides of GMD in that area also needs to be redesigned.
Previously, the town had about $2.7 million in funding from its own budget, FDOT and Manatee County. But with the new design, costs are estimated around $5.4 million to $6 million, which left a shortfall of over $3 million.
Extra funding was scheduled to come from the Sarasota/Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) in 2030. Recently, the MPO told the town it may have funding as soon as fiscal year 2026 due to other projects that fell through.
Assistant Town Manager Isaac Brownman told town commissioners at the end of 2024 that the MPO confirmed that funding would be available when FY26 starts in July 2025. He also said the FDOT agreed to manage the project, which would expedite the permitting process since the project requires special certifications.
If the FDOT can work through permitting and other logistics, the project could see some early construction by the end of 2025.
Sarasota County still wants to build a public library on Longboat Key. Whether there will be an enhanced version is still undecided.
The library will be placed on the Town Center Green, the same area where the Karon Family Pavilion was unveiled in November 2023.
The core version of the library will be 8,780 square feet and cost around $11.1 million. After several public workshops early last year, residents suggested enhancements that would make the library more enjoyable for the community.
These enhancements included a $1.5 million terrace and expanding the community meeting space for $2 million. With the enhancements, the library would be about 11,230 square feet.
But to add those enhancements, the Longboat Key Foundation was tasked with fundraising that money over last summer.
Naming rights were a possibility, with a large donation that covered 25% of the total project cost, about $3.65 million.
After the initial deadline passed last summer, the Longboat Key Foundation and the town asked Sarasota County for an extension. The two reasoned that many residents were away for the summer, and it would be easier to run a fundraising campaign and reach out to people in the fall.
Then Helene and Milton happened. The town was thrown in disarray and the fundraising campaign stalled.
Tipton said the town might try to work with Sarasota County to work out another extension on the deadline to fundraise for the expanded version.
The design for the library won't be finalized until a definitive answer on the enhancements is reached. Then, construction can proceed.
In the previous workshops, Sarasota County said it anticipated opening the library sometime in 2026.
In March, the town commission will have three seats open.
Two are already spoken for, though. District 5 Commissioner Sarah Karon and At-Large Commissioner BJ Bishop are running unopposed to retain their seats.
But Vice Mayor Mike Haycock, who will reach his term limit and be ineligible to run again, currently holds the other at-large seat. This vacancy led to two applicants, and a rarity for the commission: A contested race.
The two candidates who qualified for the race are Steve Branham and Deborah Murphy.
Murphy was formerly a District 5 commissioner who resigned from her seat in November 2023. The main reason for her resignation was her discomfort with the state's new Form 6 requirement, which increased the financial disclosure requirements for elected officials.
In June, a federal judge blocked the Form 6 requirement after many elected officials spoke against the requirement as a violation of the First Amendment.
After the commission seats are solidified, the commissioners will also have to choose a new mayor and vice mayor among themselves.
Also on the ballot in March will be a referendum for the town to pursue a loan through the State Revolving Fund program. The referendum would allow the town to take a loan for up to $33 million to assist in paying for necessary big-ticket projects like the subaqueous force main replacement and Country Club Shores asbestos cement pipe replacement.
Hopefully, this will be the last year the underground utilities project appears.
The town embarked on the undergrounding project in 2019, and now there appears to be an end in sight.
Before Helene and Milton, Florida Power & Light (FPL) committed to finishing underground conversions by the end of October 2024 and to have all the overhead poles removed by the end of 2024.
However, the hurricanes caused damage across the state, and FPL had to divert resources to help other areas in need. This temporarily shifted FPL's priority away from the town's project.
When FPL and the main contractor Wilco Electrical could get back on the scene, debris around the town created more obstacles, and the crews often had to work around the piles.
At one of the commission's last meetings of the year, Assistant Town Manager Isaac Brownman said the timeline was uncertain. He said staff would continue to press FPL to give Longboat's project priority to switching conversions, which was granted before the storms.
On Dec. 2, Brownman said he hoped that FPL would have all underground switching done in about six to nine weeks, which would put that around the end of January.
Then, it would take about two months following that to remove all the overhead poles. This would put the total project completion somewhere around the end of March.
Fingers crossed that there aren't any more obstacles, and the town can cut a metaphoric ribbon on this project early this year.
After about eight years of discussion and design, the left-turn lane project along Gulf of Mexico Drive adjacent to Country Club Shores will begin construction in February 2025.
This project's main purpose is to provide safer turns in the Country Club Shores communities.
Originally, the town wanted to simply widen a 1-mile stretch of GMD and stripe a longer left turn lane. In 2017, the initial design for the project cost about $200,000.
But after the FDOT raised concerns, the project was transformed into a more advanced project with several individual lanes including raised medians and widened bike lanes.
In fall 2024, project bids came in at $2.6 million from Superior Asphault Inc. This bid was higher than FDOT's original $1.4 million reimbursement agreement.
After further conversations with the FDOT, town staff negotiated a full reimbursement from FDOT for construction, which will move the project along to construction in February.
This project — along with others like the Broadway Roundabout — will eventually be a part of the town's larger vision of a GMD complete streets corridor.
The complete streets project would include more multimodal enhancements to GMD and town commissioners and staff requested from the MPO and FDOT a study for the project.
Another project that has been in the works for several years, the subaqueous force main replacement project will break underwater ground in 2025 as long as the residents approve the referendum in March.
A fracture in the mainland portion of the pipe in 2020 led to the need to replace the entire force main, which transports Longboat Key's wastewater to the mainland in Manatee County.
The town replaced the mainland portion of the pipe in May 2023 through a slip-line rehabilitation that cost around $2.72 million.
But now comes the more costly portion of the project: replacing the pipe that runs under Sarasota Bay.
This project will install a new pipe about 50 feet away from the old one, a measure taken to decrease the chance of accidental fracture during construction.
After the project is finished, the town must follow through with seagrass mitigation necessary after disturbing the bottom of the bay.
The March 2025 referendum allows town voters to say "yes" or "no" to the town's pursuit of a loan through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (SRF) Loan Program.
The loan would be for up to $33 million and come at a 2.89% interest rate for a 20-year term. Annual payments of $1.9 million would largely come from the town's utility rates. Throughout the loan, the total payment would be around $37.6 million.
Town staff proposed a cost of $31.4 million for final design, easement acquisition and construction for the project. This will begin in fall 2025 as long as the referendum passes.
If the referendum fails, the town can pursue revenue bonds that don't require a referendum but come at a higher interest rate of 5-5.5%.
Early this year, the town will probably increase public outreach and education about the referendum before it appears on the March ballot.
Then, construction on the underwater pipe could start in fall 2025.
The Country Club Shores water pipes were as old as the subdivisions themselves.
Installed in the late 1960s and early 70s, the pipes were made of asbestos cement, an outdated material. The ones in Country Club Shores aged beyond useful life and became more fragile, which was the main reason behind replacing the pipes.
After this replacement project, about 90% of the outdated pipes in Longboat Key will be replaced.
New polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipes will replace the asbestos cement pipes in Country Club Shores.
The project split Country Club Shores into four phases. Phases 1 and 2 include the subdivisions of Country Club Shores 4 and 5. Then, Phases 3 and 4 take care of Country Club Shores 1, 2 and 3.
The first two phases cost around $5.5 million to replace 15,000 linear feet of pipe and install new meter boxes, fire hydrants, mill and overlay asphalt after the underground work finishes.
Phase 1 and 2 began in October 2023 and were expected to be completed near the end of 2024 or early 2025.
The final two phases of the project were on target to go out to bid after the FY25 budget was adopted, and town staff estimated the cost to be around $3 million to $3.5 million.
Phase 3 and 4 will involve less-intrusive, and less-expensive, work through a method called pipe-bursting. This was not an option in the first two phases due to the complexity of those pipe systems.
To help pay for the remainder of the project, the town intends to use part of the SRF Loan to cover the costs.
As stated previously, the SRF Loan requires approval from a voter referendum in March.
