Development and the environment can be compatible. While I know that might seem like an antithetical statement, when greed and power don’t cloud the big picture, it becomes obvious that sustainable growth and a healthy ecosystem must co-exist. In coastal communities like Manatee County, wetlands have never been more important to the health and economy of the region. Rising sea levels, more powerful storms and mushrooming harmful algae blooms like red tide and lyngbya make the point. The time for quick action has never been more urgent and, if you’re not on the water like local anglers, the collapse of the Indian River Lagoon on the east coast and images of starving manatees serve as the proverbial “canary in the coal mine.” Unfortunately, at a time screaming for enlightened leadership, the Manatee County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) voted 6-1 to roll back wetland protection, with Commissioner George Kruse dissenting. The move is a not-so-veiled attempt at payback to developers that financed their campaigns. The BOCC members claim there is no science supporting buffers and state minimum standards will protect the local environment.
Suncoast Waterkeeper (SCWK), reacting to the attempt, convened a panel of experts to explain the detrimental effects on coastal water quality, drinking water quality, habitat and coastal resiliency within Manatee County. In a statement posted to their website, social media and mailed to local news outlets and members, they encourage citizens to get involved in an issue that is sure to impact the lives of countless generations of Manatee County citizens.
Join the discussion on Tuesday, Sept. 26 from 6-7:30 p.m. at the Bradenton Woman’s Club and learn the facts from scientists who study wetlands and water quality in our region. The BOCC claims insufficient science to support the language currently in the comprehensive plan, so SCWK is asking researchers who study these issues to give the public facts. Go to www.suncoastwaterkeeper.org/save_our_welands to learn how you can get involved and protect our vital coastal resources. You can also sign their petition and sign up to volunteer. Volunteers will be given scientific information presented by panelists to read into the record at the Oct. 5 county commission meeting. In the words of Abbey Tyrna, SCWK’s executive director, let’s flood them with facts!
This is in response to the Aug. 23 edition of the Anna Maria Island Sun, “Beach parking garage fight continues.”
I just want to add my voice in support of the comments made by Holmes Beach Police Chief Bill Tokajer. My family has been coming to Holmes Beach since the early 1980s when my in-laws lived across the street from Manatee Beach. Our three children have such great memories of being on the beach and “jumping in the waves.” We celebrated my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday at the Beach Café, where my wife’s parents danced together to the background music that always seemed to be playing at the Beach Café every night. Sunday mornings we’d take the kids over to have breakfast with The Pancake Kings. When we were back in Chicago, and then in Minnesota, I’d often see the AMI sticker on cars while out driving, and it’d make me wish I were there. Thousands upon thousands of people all over the country can probably tell you of the great times they’ve had at Manatee Beach and the Café.
It’s part of what Anna Maria Island is all about. It’s the City Pier, where the people responsible resisted putting up railings along it when it was recently rebuilt because railings weren’t in the original design. It’s going to the restaurants that seem to have been there forever, like Hurricane Hanks, Skinny’s and the Sandbar, and coming back to them year after year. But what attracted me right away to Anna Maria Island, and especially Holmes Beach, was that Holmes Beach has somehow managed to hold on to having the look and feel of being a town. It’s not what most of the other islands along the Sun Coast have become. That’s what draws people to come here and to want to live here. Manatee Beach, the Beach Café, the Pancake Kings, they’ve all been an integral part of the Island for as far back as most people can remember.
Take that away by putting in a three-story concrete structure right where people have been parking for years, well, it’s paving paradise to put up a parking lot. Once you lose paradise, you can’t get it back.
When the Manatee County Board of Commissioners voted 6-1 (Commissioner George Kruse voted no) to reduce wetland buffers in the county, the audience at the meeting reacted with an audible burst of anger. I was at that meeting and, after speaking in opposition to the measure and listening to a stream of three dozen citizens do the same, it was stunning and sad to experience the government overreach and lack of concern the commission displayed for the voters who elected them. It was clear that the passage of the ill-conceived building industry measure was a foregone conclusion as little to no discussion except Commissioner Kruse’s well-reasoned objection was held. It was apparent that the six commissioners were waiting for the public comment to end so they could advance the measure.
Coming in on the heels of the decision, Hurricane Idalia’s inundation of low-lying areas of the county and barrier islands highlights the importance of wetlands and buffers not only for water quality but also for storm protection. The EPA’s document, “Wetlands: Protecting Life and Property from Flooding,” makes it clear that our coastal areas are particularly prone to flooding and storm damage and are in need of buffers.
“Wetlands in many locations play an important role in flood protection. Nowhere is this function more important than along coastal areas. Coastal areas are vulnerable to hurricanes and other powerful storms, and the flat coastal terrain means that land and property can be exposed to the full power of these storms,” the document says. “Preserving and reconstructing coastal marshes can help reduce storm damage. Coastal wetlands serve as storm surge protectors when hurricanes or tropical storms come ashore. In the Gulf Coast area, barrier islands, shoals, marshes, forested wetlands and other features of the coastal landscape can provide a significant and potentially sustainable buffer from wind wave action and storm surge generated by tropical storms and hurricanes.”
As the date for the final decision, Oct. 5, draws closer, a groundswell of resistance is coming from some expected and unexpected groups. In just the last three weeks, Suncoast Waterkeeper Executive Director Abbey Tyrna has reported requests for presentations to address these concerns from homeowners’ associations, civic groups and even religious organizations. The Save Our Wetlands petition has garnered over 2,000 signatures. The children’s group, Kids for Clean Water, has conducted Zoom meetings to find ways to effectively address what they rightly consider a taking of their future and are organizing to get that message out to the public. There are also moves underway to address this egregious overreach at the ballot box, so expect to see challenges to the commissioners, who take their orders from developers who financed their campaigns instead of the citizens they swore to represent.
What makes this move so deceitful is the fact that prominent developers, who were unable to reduce buffers in lawsuits brought against the county, financed commissioners who are now doing their bidding. While they might win this battle, I’m 100% sure they will lose the war. If the citizens of Manatee County don’t wake up to this threat, generations of Manatee County citizens will suffer the consequences.
Make sure you are part of the solution and not part of the problem. Write letters, call your commissioners, attend meetings and make sure you engage in enlightened self-interest at the ballot box.
Readers of this column have heard me recommend checking a politician’s voting record before casting a vote for them. Why? All too often they will tell you what you want to hear to get your vote but never follow through on that commitment. This past week that assessment rang all too true when Manatee County Commissioners Kevin Van Ostenbridge and James Satcher, along with four other commissioners (Mike Rahn, Jason Bearden, Amanda Ballard and Ray Turner), voted to gut Manatee County’s wetland protections. While all are culpable in betraying the public trust, Satcher, Van Ostenbridge and Ballard stand out in my mind since Van Ostenbridge and Satcher’s campaign flyers (mentioned during the meeting by Commissioner George Kruse, the lone dissenter) specifically mentioned protecting the environment.
In a meeting that Suncoast Waterkeeper Executive Director Abbey Tyrna and I had with Ballard soon after her election, she expressed concern with the welfare of children. When it came time to vote they all held the interests of the developers that funded their campaigns over that of the citizens and children of Manatee County.
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I spoke at the meeting and was present for five hours as citizen after citizen made eloquent speeches about why this was such a bad idea. Not one person spoke in favor of the amendment and almost no discussion of the matter was held, except for Kruse’s objections. And when the vote was taken, they voted 6-1 in favor of gutting wetland protections. In what appears to me to be the height of hypocrisy, Van Ostenbridge started the meeting with the pronouncement that he was concerned with government overreach and the taking of property before leading the commission to do just that. He’s participating in government overreach by not following his oath of office to the citizens of Manatee County and taking by reducing the filtering capacity of lands adjacent to water bodies that will directly affect the quality of life of current and future citizens.
Just recently the commission voted on a zoning change that will pave the way for a massive East Manatee County development by developer Carlos Beruff. Corbit Creek, a stream that feeds into nearby Lake Manatee Reservoir, runs through that property. Kruse was once again the lone dissenter. If this change is made by the commission, it could reduce the builder’s setback to a stream feeding directly into the county’s water supply, a water body that is currently suffering from an algae bloom that’s affecting the smell and taste of every Manatee County citizen’s water.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Rob Brown, the county’s recently retired environmental protection division manager with the natural resources department, reminded the commission that this change would also affect phosphate mining in Manatee County. Mosaic is the largest landowner in Manatee County and much of that land is wetlands. These changes could have a profoundly negative effect on lands disturbed by mining.
Once again, vet who you vote for. Don’t pay attention to what they promise if elected, check their voting records on issues that affect the public good, or we and future generations will suffer the consequences.
You can voice your concerns to the Manatee County commission online.
Finally, this isn’t (or shouldn’t be) a political issue. It’s not about Democrats or Republicans, it’s about our children’s future and that of generations of future Manatee County citizens.
It seems a little unfair that short-sighted decisions made by politicians in 2023 can have such a profound effect on the future of those who still have no voice in those choices. That’s why it’s important to give them a voice, and why Reel Time is donating space this week to 15-year-old Brice Claypoole.
I am 15 years old and live in Manatee County. More than anything, I enjoy exploring our local environment, our land and waters. I love to watch ospreys dive for fish and spoonbills squabble in mangrove swamps.
Sometimes, when I talk with long-time residents of our area, they tell me that I should have seen Manatee County 50 years ago. Back then, there were bountiful fish, few toxic algal blooms, expansive wetlands and an overall healthier landscape. Reckless and greedy developers have since torn out many of our wildlands, resulting in loss of biodiversity, increased storm damage and polluted waters. Our seagrass has declined hugely, our mangroves have all but disappeared, and red tide tortures our communities for unprecedented lengths of time.
To perpetuate this sad situation where corporate profits are valued over community well-being, developers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars slandering smart-growth politicians and promoting their own candidates. Every one of Manatee’s current county commissioners has strong ties to the development industry. Determined to refill their campaign coffers before the next election, the Board of County Commissioners (BCC) has opened the floodgates to uncontrolled development and environmental destruction. They have approved countless ruinous developments, weakened our comprehensive plan and overridden the decisions of local governments. But their latest scheme promises to be one of the most disastrous yet. It’s a systemic change that threatens to allow the unregulated destruction of Manatee’s remaining natural lands.
15-year-old Brice Claypoole wants your attention. – Submitted
Manatee County’s Land Development Code (LDC) and Comprehensive Plan are responsible for laying out regulations and procedures for land use. The goal of the LDC and comp plan is to plan land use and protect communities and resources. The county commission will soon vote on changes to the LDC and comp plan that were requested by the Manatee-Sarasota Building Industry Association (BIA).
Emails reveal that BIA president Jon Mast, multiple county employees, Commissioner Amanda Ballard’s husband and then-county administrator Scott Hopes met in January to discuss changes the BIA wanted to the LDC and comp plan. The meeting and changes were kept secret. The proposed changes, targeted mainly at gutting environmental protections, were written by local land use attorney Scott Rudacille. Rudacille is connected to local builders, including political power broker Carlos Beruff, who has contributed thousands of dollars to the campaigns of county commissioners. Before the redlined (proposed) LDC was leaked, the county intended to present changes as if their staff – not the industry which would benefit – had initiated them.
The content of the redlined documents is disturbing – protections for wetlands, our most valuable natural resources, have been removed. Along with deleting the comp plan’s policy 3.3.1.1., which prohibits the destruction of wetlands, county staff slashed much of policy 3.3.1.3. This means developers would be allowed to destroy wetlands without taking any action to mitigate the devastation.
Staff also removed the county’s requirements for wetland buffers of up to 50 feet, stripping protections down to the state’s bare minimum of a 25-foot average. Larger, more functional wetland buffers would no longer be required between developments and outstanding Florida waters or aquatic preserves. Studies show this would lead to increased water pollution and degrade Manatee residents’ quality of life. The buffers currently required by the LDC are already inadequate to safeguard natural resources and avert declining water quality. Buffers must be at least 100 feet to be fully functional. The state’s minimum 25-foot average does nothing to safeguard resources.
Denying this unjustified gutting of our LDC and comp plan should be an easy decision. However, the BCC has a massive conflict of interest in this matter, one that appears strong enough to make this Faustian board disregard their constituents’ wellbeing. Commissioner Mike Rahn is the former president of the BIA. BIA Treasurer Raymond Turner was just appointed to fill a vacant seat on the board. Commissioner Ballard’s husband worked for BIA. Floridians United for a Sustainable Economy PAC, which is funded by the BIA, has donated to the campaigns of all the commissioners. The BIA’s members include developers Patrick Neal and Carlos Beruff, who have poured thousands of dollars into the campaigns of our BCC. Convincing the commissioners to do the right thing won’t be easy.
As red tide and gumbo algae make life miserable for local communities, as starving manatees and poisoned sea turtles wash up on our beaches, we are experiencing the effects of bad governance. Now developers are demanding we turn bad governance into no governance and allow them to trade our future for profit.
In 10 years, what will life be like in Manatee County? How much worse will our lives be as seagrass dies, fisheries collapse, our tourism industry fades away, manatee and dolphin populations go extinct, and severe red tides become a year-round phenomenon?
It sounds like Rachel Carson’s dystopian essay, “A Fable for Tomorrow,” in which she imagined the demise of both nature and humanity at the hands of pesticide corporations. That threat has so far been averted, in no small part due to Carson herself, but the threat of overdevelopment now takes its place. The only thing that made a difference, the only thing that stopped the slow poisoning of the Earth by DDT, was a public outcry.
Public outcry. That is how we make a difference in this world.
I asked former 22-year Manatee County Commissioner Joe McClash what could convince the BCC not to cater to the BIA’s demands. McClash, a smart-growth proponent who lost his seat on the commission after a large-scale, developer-funded smear campaign, answered without hesitation. “The public needs to get out and tell the commission that this isn’t supported by science, that it isn’t supported by the community,” he said.
Our nature, our waters, and our communities cannot withstand this abuse. Without the LDC and comp plan regulations, our natural resources will collapse.
Will you tolerate our quality of life being sold to developers? Contact the commissioners (https://www.mymanatee.org/government/board_of_county_commissioners) and tell them that you won’t put up with this destruction.
Sign Suncoast Waterkeeper’s petition against BIA’s demands.
Attend the first commission hearing on the LDC and comp plan changes on Thursday, Aug. 10 at 9 a.m.
MANATEE COUNTY – Gov. Ron DeSantis has appointed Ray Turner to replace Vanessa Baugh on the Manatee County Commission.
The governor’s appointment was to take effect Aug. 1. Turner takes over for embattled District Five Commissioner Vanessa Baugh, who recently announced her resignation effective at the end of July.
Turner
“I’m honored to be appointed by Governor DeSantis,” Turner said in the press release the county issued on July 27. “I will do the very best job I can to serve the people of Manatee County. I look forward to hitting the ground running.”
According to the press release, Turner has been a Manatee County resident for more than 20 years and was a member of the Manatee County Planning Commission at the time of his appointment. Turner, the secretary of the Manatee Sarasota Building Industry Association, began his real estate career in 1991 selling custom homes and later transitioned into real estate finance, international marketing and executive management.
Turner was scheduled to be sworn into office at an Aug. 1 workshop.
Baugh departs
In June, Baugh announced her resignation effective at the end of July, citing family as her reason for resigning. She participated in her final county commission meeting on July 25 and then vacated effective Aug. 1 the remainder of her current four-year term.
During her abbreviated final term, Baugh, a Lakewood Ranch resident, faced intense media scrutiny and was the subject of an ethics complaint and a Florida Commission on Ethics investigation for her role in organizing a pop-up COVID-19 vaccine clinic in early 2021.
Baugh
The pop-up clinic Baugh helped organize provided vaccines for a small number of people on her own personal shortlist and for residents living in two specific Lakewood Ranch zip codes.
In January, the ethics commission investigation led to Baugh agreeing to an $8,000 settlement as a penalty for her role in organizing the clinic. When reaching the settlement in January, Baugh admitted she used her position as an elected official to the benefit or privilege of herself or others.
As a descendant of the Holmes family who built Holmes Beach, Mayor Judy Holmes Titsworth exudes the same passion and love for this city as her father, mother and grandparents. Her family’s aim was to offer a true paradise for every resident and visitor, evidenced by all streets ending with public access to our city’s treasured sandy beaches. Mayor Titsworth is currently working diligently to ensure that her family’s vision is carried on, respecting the delicate balance between residents’ quality of life and our visitors’ recreational pleasure.
Sadly, Manatee County commissioners, especially those strongly tied to developers, are fighting Mayor Titsworth at every perceived opportunity. In deference to developers, county commissioners proposed the construction of a multi-level garage in our city, hoping to lure in as many visitors as possible. Knowing our city’s infrastructure limits as well as our city charter code, the idea was denied unanimously by the entire Holmes Beach city commission. This set off a petty stalemate by county commissioners to shun or refuse this city’s requests at every opportunity. Funds and grants are now denied by the county, and the necessary collaboration between city and county commissioners (such as the emergency actions taken during the recent hurricane) is misreported by county commissioners to imply poor city leadership. There is nothing further from the truth; such behavior by the county commissioners is sheer destructive pettiness.
Our mayor, Judy Titsworth, dedicates over 60 hours of her weekly life analyzing how our city optimally operates and implements programs to ensure that it does. She has a dedicated interest in our environment, its land, waters and wildlife, and is currently focused on restoring our island’s pristine water quality. And, as an enormous bonus to all of us, she just happens to be a kind, honest person and a genuine good soul. Our heartfelt thanks to Mayor Titsworth for caring so deeply for our island, its residents, and its tourists. Aided by the united support and cooperation among our city commissioners and our police force, Holmes Beach is very fortunate to have an entire group of dedicated, good people directing our city. Thank you, Mayor, city commissioners, and our entire police and code enforcement team. We very much appreciate all you do for our little paradise.
Please, Manatee County commissioners, start giving our city your support and assistance, not your back.
