HOLMES BEACH – Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the winner of the Holmes Beach mayor’s race between Dan Diggins and David Zaccagnino will be known at some point after 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 3.
Diggins and Zaccagnino both seek to succeed Judy Titsworth as Holmes Beach’s next mayor. Diggins is wrapping up his second two-year term as Holmes Beach commissioner. Zaccagnino served nine years as a Holmes Beach commissioner before leaving office in 2014 after losing the mayor’s race to Bob Johnson.
On Sept. 23, Diggins and Zaccagnino participated in a candidates forum hosted by The Sun. Here’s some of what was said during the forum.
CITY STAFF
The candidates were asked if they envision the city staff staying the same size, growing or shrinking.
Diggins said, “Those are decisions that have to be made as things unfold. You can’t arbitrarily just say we’re going to trim staff. Those are things that evolve over time. If we have a position that’s not necessary, then we’d have to cut that position, but I do not see any positions that are not necessary at this point.”
Zaccagnino said, “We have an HR (human resources) person, I don’t think we utilize that HR person. Department heads aren’t responsible enough to the commission. I’m not sure what they’re telling the mayor, because she’s not telling the commission what’s going on. I would talk to all the department heads and see how we can streamline the budget.”
THE BUDGET
When asked about the city’s 2026-27 fiscal year budget that lists $17.9 million in anticipated revenues and $16.7 million in anticipated expenses, Zaccagnino first focused on the use of the city’s reserve funds.
“The reserves are there for an emergency. They’re there for a reason. We had two category four storms in 11 days. If that’s not an emergency, I don’t know what it is. One of the commissioners said we should pat ourselves in the back because we got 99% of the money back from FEMA. I don’t care if we got 80% back. I wanted you guys to clean up my street. I wanted to get the rats and the maggots and the flies and the stench out of my house,” he said.
“I think the budget could be trimmed. I think the millage can go back to the rollback rate and cut our taxes. Every year, the property values here go up. We should do a zero-based budget. If we know we’re getting an 8% increase in property values, we should be going to the department head and say, ‘You’ve got an 8% increase. That’s it.’ There’s a lot of fat to be cut in this budget to lower your taxes, which have not been lowered,” Zaccagnino said.
Diggins said, “We have an $18 million budget. How much of that do you think is your property tax? $7 million.”
He noted the city’s remaining revenue sources include permit fees, grants, reimbursements and state and federal appropriations.
“It’s a big budget. It takes a lot of skill to manage something like that. And it takes somebody with the right temperament to manage something like that. You need a strong staff. Our city has 2,900 residents
PAID PARKING
When asked about possibly implementing paid parking in Holmes Beach, Diggins mentioned a book called “The High Cost of Free Parking.”
“There’s no such thing as free parking,” he said. “You folks have been paying for the parking for the beach folks. You pay for the upkeep, you pay for the trash collection, you pay for the beach control. Maybe the person driving the vehicle is not paying for it, but somebody’s paying for it. That’s what I learned from this book.”
He referenced the possibility of the county implementing paid parking at Manatee Beach in Holmes Beach and Coquina Beach in Bradenton Beach.
“If they implement paid parking at the two public beaches that have 1,600 parking spaces, then we have to seriously think about it too. We have 802 right-of-way parking spaces in Holmes Beach. Can you imagine the chaos – people trying to park for free on our streets while the county is charging whatever they’re charging. So, we’ll have to consider it at that point. And if we ever get to that, it would be a revenue source. But I think we’d only do it if the county did it.”
Zaccagnino mentioned the city of Anna Maria’s current efforts to implement a paid parking program.
“It’s going to happen on the north end. It’s going to happen at Coquina. It’s going to happen at the public beach,” he said.
“I live on the beach side. During the weekend, the public beach is already full and they’re already coming in our neighborhoods. Paid parking by the county at the public beach is not going to change the flow of traffic or people scrambling around. I’m against paid parking. It took downtown Sarasota about five years to figure it out. I don’t want to be a guinea pig. I would say no paid parking. Let the county do theirs, let the north end do theirs, see how that works first,” Zaccagnino said.
“This is one of the few places left in the state of Florida that doesn’t cost to go to the beach. I don’t want people to feel like they’re getting nickel-and-dimed to use the beach where they have relatives or friends out here, or they grew up out here,” he added.
SECOND AVENUE
The candidates were asked about the city commission discussion that occurred earlier this year about potentially altering the flow of traffic on Second Avenue to eliminate the traffic pattern often referred to as the “Gulf Drive cut-through.”
Diggins said, “I was open to whatever was proposed. I wanted to hear the proposal. The citizens spoke loudly. They came in and they were very spirited and they spoke. I’m totally against doing anything on Second Avenue. Maybe stop signs, something like that. But closing it, no. The citizens spoke.”
Zaccagnino said, “Again, knee jerk reactions. Dan initially voted yes to close it until everybody showed up. Gulf Drive, Holmes Boulevard, SR/789 – they’ve always been the most constrained roads, and they will always be the most constrained roads. There’s nothing you can do. And by closing Second Avenue, you’re just going to have all that traffic backup even more. I think it would be a silly thing to do to close Second Avenue.”
CLOSING STATEMENTS
During his closing statement, Zaccagnino said, “There’s a distinct difference here. Do we continue down the path that we have in the past eight years, with big budgets and higher taxes?”
Zaccagnino mentioned streamlining city operations to make them more efficient, lowering taxes, coming up with new ideas and improving communication.
Zaccagnino said he would use the mayor’s power to veto city commission decisions he doesn’t agree with.
“We haven’t had a veto in years. Veto means mayor says no,” he said, noting that it takes a supermajority vote of at least four commissioners to overturn a mayor’s veto.
“I’m not here for you to be your best friend, right? I’m not here for my own entertainment. I’m here because I know I can do a better job. I’m here for you. Don’t vote for me, vote for yourself.
“Don’t keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result,” Zaccagnino said.
In closing, Diggins said, “Holmes Beach is not the city it was 15 years ago. The workload for our staff has quadrupled. You see all the construction out here. These are big houses and they have to meet modern construction codes, and that takes a very talented staff to do that.”
He noted the code compliance department used to have one employee and it now has five.
“We’re doing proper oversight of the construction that goes on here,” he said.
He noted Holmes Beach now has more than 1,600 registered vacation rentals.
“They require constant oversight. People still try to rent nightly. People in 30-day rental areas try to rent weekly,” he said.
He noted the new public works director, Herb Raybourn, is a licensed stormwater engineer.
“We can do a lot of the engineering ourselves so we don’t have to farm it out. That saves us money. We can do some of the projects ourselves. That saves us money,” Diggins said.
“We have to manage the tourism and a large vacation rental program. We have to enforce more complex state and federal laws. We have to protect the city’s CRS rating. We will be at a level 5 here pretty soon, so you’re going to save another 25% in your flood insurance,” he said.
“The budget has grown, the city has grown and the cost of that has grown, just like your own budget has grown. Everything has grown. That’s why our budget is large,” Diggins said.
The Sept. 23 forum can be viewed in its entirety here.
