HOLMES BEACH – The appeals of two Bradenton Beach businessmen frustrated by city permitting issues launched a discussion about home rule, consolidation and steps citizens can take when dissatisfied with local officials at Manatee County Commissioner George Kruse’s Feb. 19 town hall meeting.
Walter Loos, owner of Island Scoops, a Gulf Drive business that was hit hard by 2024 hurricanes, said permitting issues have slowed down the rebuilding of his shop.
“We’re at the point of not being able to rebuild effectively,” Loos said. “We still aren’t able to get to the point of rebuilding before the next storm season.”
Loos brought up the issue of home rule and county intervention in what he said was the absence of effective local leadership.
“I get home rule, but you can’t stand behind that. We need effective leadership, whatever that means. If we can’t do effective leadership for our general community, then maybe something does have to change,” he said.
“Here’s what I’ll say, when everybody didn’t want to be consolidated, everyone talked about wanting home rule, we want our individual cities to be able to control things and don’t let the county come and dictate our development codes, etc., but then when it’s not convenient, it’s, ‘When is my county coming and fixing this?’ ” Kruse said. “I’m a big proponent of home rule, that’s why I pushed back on the parking garage and the consolidation.”
“Right now, home rule is not working for us. I hate to say that, but it’s not. I’m not saying toss it, but there has to be other solutions,” Loos said. “I can’t put dinner on a plate, because I can’t find a way to open my businesses.”
Kruse said the county cannot supersede a city and has to respect the individual municipalities.
“I couldn’t go to Mayor Chappie and say “Open up this bridge.’ I don’t have the authority to do that,” he said.
Drift-In owner Derek Williams spoke about his permitting issues in Bradenton Beach. The Drift-in tiki hut permit was approved by the former city building official, but the city has pulled back that approval and is requiring a major development hearing for the structure.
“In my situation, I just want to share with you, I got a permit, I worked with the city, I worked with the city planner, I worked with code enforcement on a daily basis,” Williams said. “I’m trying to figure out the different rules and regulations and trying to trust government.”
Former Bradenton Beach Building Official Darin Cushing was suspended on Jan. 22 and was recently replaced by former county employee Bill Palmer.
“I’m not picking sides with the building official or anyone,” Williams said. “I’m saying there’s a government and those people have roles, and those roles are building official or floodplain administrator and they’re paid to make decisions. We were following those folks.”
Williams said he has reached out to Rep. Will Robinson, Sen. Jim Boyd, Sen. Vern Buchanan and Gov. Ron DeSantis for help.
“Who do we reach out to? The government is here to serve the people,” Williams said. “We can’t reach out to you? We have real people, real employees hurting and I just want to continue to pound the pavement on that.”
Williams said the Bradenton Beach city attorney threatened him about coercing commissioners.
“I’ve been fearful to talk to any commissioners,” he said. “That’s on record.”
“That’s a different story if she wants to say that,” Kruse said. “We’re in an interesting situation here. I have to respect each of your municipalities, but you’re also a resident of Manatee County. At no point in time are you also not my constituent. At no point in time can anyone ever admonish you for speaking to a county commissioner.”
Holmes Beach Mayor Judy Titsworth pointed out that city charters do not allow county overreach, but also said there are steps citizens can take if they’ve lost confidence in their city leaders.
“There’s charters in the cities that the county can’t really overstep certain things, but when you look at the charter of the city, it tells you the steps that the people can make if you lose confidence in your city leadership,” Titsworth said. “What you want to do is elect good people in office that have your back.”
She weighed in on Bradenton Beach’s permitting process.
“I feel horrible for what you all are going through, it’s terrible that they allowed that backlog in permitting,” she said. “It’s terrible who they had in those positions, they didn’t have enough people in the positions. You have to be prepared for those situations. Your staff has to have the support to be there when things go bad and Bradenton Beach didn’t have that, and I feel really bad for the citizens about how long they’re still waiting for permits.”
“It’s situations like this, and I don’t know every single fact, so I’m just going to make a blanket (statement), it’s situations like this that gets the state to come in here and threaten the consolidation,” Kruse said. It’s situations like this that get them to pass pre-emption laws against people of the state of Florida. If they perceive there’s a theoretical bad actor someplace, then it puts a black cloud over everybody. And if they say ‘Hey, wait a minute, businesses are being driven out, residents are being driven out, for reasons that are not on the up and up,’ then you risk them coming back in and saying let’s look at the OPAGGA study again, if there’s one rogue here we might as well just clean house. And they start passing pre-emption laws everywhere. They’ll pull permitting rights from the cities that are doing it right.”
