We are pleased that they saw the wisdom and necessity of saving the mangroves, the seagrass beds and the marine life, and denied the marina proposal.
But in approving the rezoning for Long Bar Pointe, Manatee County commissioners missed the people’s point.
Several thousand people showed up, tuned in, went online or signed petitions for the 13-hour commission meeting last Tuesday to voice pent-up frustrations about how life as we know it in our corner of Florida is vanishing.
Third Place
Editorial
2013
Long silenced by unspoken taboos against questioning exploding tourism and big development, voices cracked and tears were blinked back as people expressed hundreds of versions of “I love Old Florida. Stop wrecking it.”
Not much of Old Florida remains around here, other than in Cortez village, whose residents define the concept, and have the right to make the argument.
We are proud of them for fighting and winning against Carlos Beruff a second time (he tried to buy and redevelop – strike that – demolish the Cortez Trailer Park to build a marina complex in 2007).
Local tourism marketers continue to tout “Old Florida” as a fact – our latest tourism slogan is “Real. Authentic. Florida.”
But what they’re calling “old” really isn’t.
In Old Florida, there were no three-story, six-bedroom vacation rentals two feet apart from each other. No traffic jams backed up 10 miles from 26th Street to Anna Maria Island in March. No wall to wall umbrellas on the beach in August. No gang shootings. No battling crowds in Publix, on the beach, in restaurants. No exodus of 20 percent of the Island’s residents in the first decade of this century. No longtime friends calling to say, “I’m moving someplace more peaceful,” where sand blowers and chain saws and pile drivers don’t drown out the waves.
One of our old tourism slogans was “Paradise without an attitude.” But with New Florida elbowing everyone around to make room for itself, visitors are developing an attitude – one of entitlement.
Residents are developing an attitude, too, and they made it clear to commissioners last week.
Before developers submit their revised plan, commissioners should go back and listen to the 13-hour recording, without the pressure of having to make a decision just days after the developer filed a lawsuit over the project’s road.
Listen to the county attorney who advised denial of the project.
Listen to the people.
Residents do not want several thousand new homes and twice or three times as many new people in real authentic Florida, especially more vacation rentals, especially in a hurricane zone.
And most especially not another Seaside, a panhandle tourist destination that the developer cites as a model for Long Bar Pointe, and a fabrication of an Old Florida that existed only in the minds of its developers, not in the hearts and memories of Floridians.
Thanks to commissioners for saving our bay.
Now, please save what’s left of Old Florida.
