Siesta Key Association Annual Breakfast Meeting
Commissioner Nora Patterson Speech

March 24, 2007

I had the privilege last week of addressing people at the annual breakfast hosted by the Siesta Key Association. Afterwards I was asked for a transcript. Unfortunately, I do not have a written script, because I talk from a few notes. I will attempt below to put into written form, an approximation of what I said last Saturday.

Before I decided on what to say to you, I looked at my notes from last year. At that time I spoke of both challenges and opportunities. Many of the same challenges and opportunities remain.

Siesta Key continues to be a remarkably beautiful place. Each evening when I cross the bridge and return home, I feel as though I leave the world behind me. It is my privilege to live here.

Traffic on the key is still bad. Parking is still tough if you want to go to the beach, although we have now a chance to improve the situation. The county has purchased the RV lot just north of Turtle Beach, I thought to improve parking as well as other beach amenities, but there is a disagreement within my own commission as to how that lot should be used. Since it was expensive land, I personally would prefer to use it to allow more people to visit the beach. This would mean expanding the parking lot and banishing the RV lots, which in the past have been used by a handful of folks who often stayed for months. The majority of the commission favored retaining the camping but cutting the stays to 2 weeks at a time. Recently this was expanded to a month at a time by a 3 to 2 vote. We still have an opportunity to provide more parking through a compromise. We could certainly use more parking in the future, both for beach goers and those who want to launch boats. The channel to the boat launching facility is being dredged now which will make that a more usable and popular launch facility.

We are negotiating for a second piece of land for parking next to the beach access number 7 by Calle De La Siesta.

Stormwater is still an issue on the key, with some flooding on streets in heavy rain and pollution on the beach that has been attributed to the stormwater system. Little progress has been made, but ultimately when the main parking lot is revamped we will see stormwater improvements incorporated in the overall design.

Development has taken place on the key in areas where one cannot believe that more construction could fit. Unfortunately, when homes are bulldozed, it often opens up multiple platted lots and we can do little to prohibit additional homes. Many of the new homes are of grand size, partially because of the high value of land on Siesta Key. Also, FEMA laws that govern new construction force the ground floor of any new dwelling to be elevated which adds to the size of new structures.

And then there is the great duplex issue. Apparently, for years staff have interpreted codes regarding multifamily lots to mean that even on very small lots, a minimum of a duplex could be built on each. Even more surprisingly, partial lots were deemed also eligible for a duplex even if the size were such that they did not meet code requirements for zoning that dating back into the sixties and seventies. This practice was unknown to the county commission on which I serve. The discrepancy between the practice and the verbiage of the code was uncovered through the diligence of the Siesta Key Association's questions regarding new construction. Our county attorney's office told us the practice could not continue unless the code and the comprehensive plan were changed to permit an exception to the density delineated in the code. This change was originally agreed to by three of the five county commissioners. Commissioner Thaxton and I voted no.

The membership of the county commission changed with the election of a new commissioner, Joe Barbetta. Further, a better understanding of the issue was achieved by all. I am happy to say that the county commission most recently voted 5 to 0 to support Siesta Key!

We will likely create the ability for those who already own duplexes on undersized lots to replace them with new duplexes in the future, but with size limits. We will probably do so because it is very difficult to feel OK about telling people they cannot rebuild when the government allowed such construction in the first place. There will also be several new large structures built where owners got letters from county staff saying they could build duplexes on each of several specific undersized lots and even build them on lot lines. I find this unfortunate and did not support this nor did Commissioner Thaxton. This is, however a very hard vote for all.

On more positive subjects, the nourishment of Turtle Beach is complete, a project that costs 12.4 million dollars, 40% paid for by the state, a bit more than 40% by the county tourist development tax, and about 18 % by beach front residents. The beach is gorgeous. It was well worth the wait. There will be a party down at the public beach on Turtle Beach on April 30 from 4 to 6. Please come and celebrate with residents, our hard working staff and others who have worked hard to make this a reality!

Midnight Pass is in its fourth and hopefully last iteration of questions from the state DEP. They are asking for more information on sand movement, inlet management and mitigation of environmental impacts from the project. These questions are pertinent since nobody wants to see the pass, if opened, meander again and start taking out homes. We will not know much until somewhere between this summer and next spring. If we do get the permits we will have to think long and hard over where the money will come from both for the initial opening and the long-term maintenance. If the current conversation of drastically cutting our taxing ability turns into reality at the state it would be very difficult to fund the project.

Renovations to Glebe Park are underway, to the tune of about 1.5 million dollars. The park will have a new baseball and new soccer field, an unstructured grass field for pick up games, a basketball court, jogging path, picnic facilities, landscaping and buffers for the neighbors.

The commission voted approval of a 5.4 million dollar beautification project of Siesta Key's Village or downtown area. It should be beautiful and will encourage reinvestment by the commercial property owners. The project will stop and start over a two-year period, with the first phase being under-grounding of utilities. The project timing will avoid high season for obvious reasons.

We hoping to ask you, the voters for a renewal of a seventh cent of sales tax, not a new tax, but a ten year continuation that will include in it about 10 million dollars to redo the Crescent beach parking lot and general area as well to improve Turtle Beach.

At this point, I would like to change the subject to property taxes, the major topic of conversation right now in Tallahassee — now that they supposedly have solved the insurance issue. Taxes, of course, are always a concern to owners of highly valued property like yourselves.

The property tax system in Florida right now is broken. We all know that. In about 1994, we, the voters who own our homes, put into the state constitution a special deal for ourselves that we can never take back. Our property assessments if we are homesteaded cannot go up by more than Cost of Living or 3% whichever is less. Over the years, those of us that have lived a long time in our homes have seen a great benefit and a shift of the tax burden to other properties. Right now 40% of the property tax base in Sarasota County is picking up 60% of the bill for running the county. To make things more fair, the county governments in Florida have come together with carefully crafted solutions to try to balance the system even while cutting our own revenues in a targeted way. We are looking for balancing benefits to owners of NON-homesteaded properties as well as ways to allow homeowners to take some of their advantage with them if they move.

The discussion at the state level on this issue, however, has not been carefully thought through, and is getting a bit scary for those of us involved in service delivery. It is true that we have collected a lot more in taxes as property values shot through the roof in the last few years. Many counties and cities, including us, however, have cut your tax rates to try to make up for this.

If you are homesteaded, please check your property tax bill this year. You will see that it went down from last year, even including sharp increases from the hospital and some other taxing entities. You will also see if you still have the bills, that the overall bill went down last year from the year before.

Even though we are not the major part of your actual tax bill, I have put together information about your property taxes that deals with the increase in property taxes collected by Sarasota County over the last five years. I do so because of the state conversation that somehow counties are at fault for high property taxes. I believe that SKA has made the handout information available so you can follow with me.

The first page shows you the difference in property taxes collected in the 2007 budget of Sarasota County versus the 2002 budget. The difference is 124 million dollars. The major expenditures are listed on this page. The biggest, the general fund, 77 million dollars, should be put aside for a moment and will be explained in the second and third sheet. The next number, about 31 million dollars, is the ambulance service part of our fire department. In 2003, we were forced by the state Supreme Court to switch from a modest user fee for emergency medical services to property taxes. This added 24% in one fell swoop to the property tax line. The overall funding did not change, but the source switched from a modest fee to property taxes determined by the value of the property.

Also predetermined is the escalation in the voted tax of the Environmentally Sensitive Lands and parkland program of about 8 million, and about a 5 million dollar increase from a millage dedicated to social service and jail diversionary programs. A third dedicated portion of property tax is for roads and represents an increase of about 3 million. The other items are small.

The second page of the sheets deals with the 77 million increase to the county General Fund. Also added is the much smaller increase in the rest of the funding that makes up the General Fund. Some of those sources have decreased, some increased, but the total has increased far less rapidly than property tax. All told, the county general fund has increased by about 92 million dollars.

The third sheet of my handout shows where almost all of those additional 92 million dollars went. The largest increment goes to the sheriff, about 23 million dollars. The next largest increase results from an investment in public transit. This represents an increment of about 15 million. Rider-ship numbers have gone up as the bus system has improved. This has taken cars off the road and improved the lives of working folks who cannot afford a car for every family member. Libraries, parks, medical insurance and general employee raises all make up a large part of the increase. About 7 million additional dollars are obligated for the Tax Increment Financing districts dedicated years ago to downtown Sarasota and Englewood's historic downtown. Several million dollars are reserved for future planning efforts, and additional money was put into one-time capital projects like the Rails to Trails program, a reserve for building repairs, and other such items. We also put 2 million this year into waterfront acquisitions that will help pay for the new beach accesses I mentioned earlier.

Shown but not formally included is the 62 million dollars we have pumped into our reserves over the last 5 years, a decision we will not regret if we are ever hit by a major storm.

The last sheet in the handout demonstrates that the full time employees of the county per 1000 people actually decreased in the last five years rather than the reverse.

The point of this dull exercise is to show where the money has gone. We have cut your tax rate by about 20% over the last few years, and are prepared to absorb some income reduction, especially if, as is likely, assessments go down next year. We would like the legislature to make the system fairer and to do so without crippling the governments that deliver daily services.

The current discussion however is worrisome. The most recent plan of the house, if completed with its sales tax substitution for homestead, would cut our budget by 73 million, and not the 37 million reported in the paper a few days ago. That would make it impossible to deliver quality services, although we would do the best we can. I gave out sheets of information for you to e-mail or write your representatives in Tallahassee and let them know how you feel. If you think huge tax cuts are in order, it is a democracy and you should say so. If, however, you value the quality of the services you receive and want merely to see a more fair system, please let them know, and tell them to take their time, be deliberative, and make sure they do no harm to the services you value.

It seems a depressing time in government altogether. We read of PACS and Political committees collecting huge sums of money from lobbyists and special interests to buy political races and influence. I sometimes worry that we have lost our sense of community in a search of self-interest.

Then I come here and I know that the people who came this morning are interested in their community. Yesterday I went to the opening of a little park located behind the Landings. This is a pocket park on a scrap of county land improved with funding from many sources: Bob Morris and his son Rob Morris, developers of the Landings and Pelican Cove, Ed Kalin, owner of Kanes Furniture, the owner of the restaurant Geckos whose name I don't remember, residents of the Landings, and a thimbleful of public money through the county Neighborhoods Grants program.

Everyone came together to make that little park happen. As we celebrated, the park was full of little children swinging and playing. I am reassured that people do still care about community and I look at all of you and I can say that you are actually what makes this community great, because you ARE people who care, about Siesta Key, and about Sarasota. Thank you for coming. Nora

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For more information, please contact us
phone 941/364-4880
email info@siestakeyassociation.com