The IPOC/Loeb Realty Partners decision gives the town the opportunity to retake control of their own destiny. The proposal by Loeb for a $400 million extravaganza of condos, hotels and a conference center was too much for a group of untrained community volunteers to assimilate so they just said ‘yes’ without considering the full extent of their folly.
The town manager has suggested that the town purchase the balance of the land that abuts the new Publix project. This would finally bring together the original thinking of Arvida and the town to make the entire area a town center with walkways, band boxes and more of the landscaping that has been done so effectively on the other side of the road in front of Town Hall — a true town center.
To keep Longboat Key a quality community requires the residents’ involvement. The town has been blessed with volunteers who have been hugely successful in their business life and who have offered their services gratis to help make the town what it is today.
Everyone remembers the old chestnut about a camel being designed by a committee, well from press reports it appears this was the method chosen by the new manager, Dave Bullock, to arrive at his decision on how to handle Monica Simpson, the now former head of the Planning and Zoning Department.
The day after it was announced that there was to be a candidate to oppose current Vice Mayor Dave Brenner, I received the following message: “Ray Rajewski is a neighbor in the bayou and friend of mine. We served together for five years on our board. Ray has good creds, e.g., he got the Bay Isles Master Association to reduce the assessment rate after pointing out that it was higher than the ad valorem taxes imposed by LBK! If he wins against Brenner
The Longboat Observer is conducting a straw ballot that is trying to throw light on how the citizens feel about the proposed cell tower adjacent to GMD on the property of the Longboat Island Chapel. These are legitimate questions but unfortunately straw votes are about the worst way you can go about getting the right answers. Straw balloting along with referendums is a lousy way to govern.
The tragedy involving the molestation of young children has hit my town and the university located here with the punch of Katrina. Not since the Kennedy assassination have I seen so many people so involved and so distressed. It has touched almost everyone living here.
The controversy over the placing of a cell tower on the key continues but the advocates are trying to take a shortcut and a rush to judgment by avoiding the normal process that requires a request for a variance based upon need. There is certainly a reasonable question concerning the reception on the island for cell phones and other Wi-Fi devices. You can ask some who will tell you they never can get or send a call, and there are others who will swear they have never had a single problem.
Marshall McLuhan said that the medium is the message. If that is the case, than the media on Longboat Key are pushing out what may be a very wrong message
Whatever the motivation for the injudicious haste that saw the Town Commission discard one manager and appoint another in a one-week period, it doesn’t now appear so important after seeing the chaos that it has induced
