A SCAT Bus Named Desire

STEVE REID
Editor & Publisher
sreid@lbknews.com

Commissioner Jack Duncan said it best the other week: “I have discovered Longboat Key is full of type-A personalities and everyone of them has an opinion on what needs to be done.”

That should be a disclaimer at the island entrances — not Wayfinding signs. We need a sign that says “Boisterous packs of opinionated males ahead. Keep your thoughts contained— proceed with caution.”

And about a decade and half ago, in what feels like another lifetime, I worked at the Longboat Observer and they were everywhere — the claustrophobic thinkers – the people wherein you knew what they were going to say before they opened their mouths. They were in Town Hall, on boards, and as columnists in the paper.

I thought as time went on, “I want to start a paper with open-minded thinkers who will write as strongly and intelligently from various points of views. I do not want to foist narrow politics on Longboaters. They are too smart and savvy to need condescension or a soapbox.”

What I thought and still believe is that model best serves the community — the strongest voices from all sides of the issues.

But just as youth and debauchery hopefully give way to discipline as life proceeds, the open-minded thinkers of one era become the claustrophobic thinkers of the next cycle. And this paper, Longboat Key News, which I predicate on its writing, needs a refresher just as the Town.

I realized after reading our columnists including myself that our work is only just beginning. I feel we have gotten half way there. We present strong opinion and debate. We have smart writers.

But that counterpoint — that dynamic from both sides — still lacks.

Somehow the alienated and disposed have found a home in our pages. And I mean that. And yet there is still a problem that needs to be addressed.

Those currently running the Town feel very empowered because they have been on the same side of most issues — the Key Club, redevelopment and the budget. That leads to a let’s-get-things-done bullish mentality.

But it is also exacerbating the outside group — the Bob Whites, The IPOC folks, the keep-the-community-small, residential and tightly-controlled contingent.

And this group sees slipping away something that they know and fear can never ever be replaced — that is the exclusive beauty and strict controls of Longboat key.

And while they see their Key and their hopes of preserving the Key slip further away, they are amping up their criticism. They are saying the current group is destroying the Key. They are saying that the current group wants to turn the Key into Atlantic City.

And these angry exhortations only make the pack — the ones in power — to view the complainers as fearful, as out of touch and lacking in any facts, etc.

But it all goes back to the type-A personality issue. Some are better at business, some are more socially adapted and some are more charismatic, forceful or beautiful. But that does not mean the less articulate, or panicky or worried voices of those who insist on keeping Longboat a pastoral environment should go away or be silenced.

Take Gene Jaleski. He found himself and his voice not effective on the Commission. And that is in part his problem and his style. But to lose his thoughts and input, to take all the ideas this man has given us and delete them from the record and erase him is not something that feels right in a small town.

But neither is it right if these same columnists who are sensitive to Longboat Key’s delicate beauty are not sensitive and use their columns to desecrate the pack or the pro development folks.

So we have an eternal dilemma. As Tennessee Williams said, life is struggle between the sensitive and insensitive — between the Blanche Dubois and the Stanley Kowalski’s of the world.

And yet while the inner businessman in me likes the bullish push of Dave Brenner and the attitude of let’s create something and build something today, in my heart and soul I am the product of Sag Harbor, New York.

And in Sag Harbor, the history of the community and the very soul of the community protects it from passing any rules that would ever junk up what is also one of the loveliest towns in America.

When the economy suffers in Sag Harbor, residents buy a car one year less often, eat out a tad less and talk about how lucky they are to be in Sag Harbor and not New Jersey or some Nassau County Hell hole as they stress over home devaluations.

And still, the development pressure is everywhere in Sag Harbor. Every year a chain grocer or hotelier or restaurant will talk about the benefits, the tax impacts, the economic boon their efforts will bring.

And yet the refusal, the great ‘no’ attitude ironically works in Sag Harbor the same way it works in dating. You can’t give away the milk for free. Or in other words, if you say “yes” to most every proposition that comes along, you sure cannot call yourself exclusive.

And that is the real message that can easily get lost. Let’s keep Longboat Key exclusive. Let’s keep the zoning controls tight and let’s not set the stage for our local version of “A Scat Bus Named Desire.”