The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing
which stands in the way… William Blake
Before our elected officials voted on a motion from Nancy Detert to sell out Old Miakka's rural corner of east Sarasota, Bill Zoller penned an eloquent letter reminding us that what was at stake is our connection to the past.
Nothing clearer than the difference between Bill's view and that of Jim Gabbert and other developers who came to the Old Miakka hearing to say that what matters is not a community's integrity: Not the 170-year-old way of life of Old Miakka, but his investment (video).
Becky Ayech led the effort to protect rural heritage lands. After the hearing she said:
"There are many ways to skin a cat and one is to VOTE!"
While our "mainstream" media choose to offer no debates or forums, private organizations including the League of Women Voters, Tiger Bay, Control Growth Now, and WSLR are doing what they can You'll find links to upcoming forums here, and recorded recent forums here.
In Sarasota County, your investment capital is safe. Your community, not so much. Just ask the people of Old Miakka after developers like Jim Gabbert got through threatening Sarasota at today's hearing.
James Gabbert
James Gabbert was one of several developers who own land in East County to come out to the September 23 Board hearing on Old Miakka's effort to preserve its rural way of life.
Gabbert demonstrated that all that matters to him is money. As the purest form of Capitalist, land is not a place to him - not the site of memories and tradition, quiet evenings and a million stars, not the scene of family, friendship, hard work and good times.
As with the Celery Fields, Mr. Gabbert proved that land = money. And if turning that land into money destroys the way of life of a 170-year-old community, ah well. If putting a Demolition Dump on it takes the priceless quality of the Celery Fields, too bad.
Land is money, Gabbert is a Developer/Investor/Capitalist - pure and simple. As he explains here:
The Board agreed with Gabbert, William Merrill III, amid a bevy of landowners who said they intended to develop their land, but hadn't done a thing about it so far. Still, waving the Bert Harris Act,* they threatened to sue the County for millions "lost," which they woulda-coulda-shoulda been investing before now.
Detert made the motion, Maio, Ziegler and Hines voted for it, Mike Moran was absent. They protected the developers' investment -- to the eventual destruction of Old Miakka.
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*David G. Guest, a land use consultant and former regional manager of Earthjustice, Inc., testified to the absence of relevance of the Bert Harris Act at the hearing. He said in part:
. . . the Bert Harris Act allows claims for losses of reasonable nonspeculative future uses, which then can be the subject of reasonable investments that create expectations. The land at issue has no Hamlets on it and has never had a single proposal to rezone it for a Hamlet Development Master Plan. His full statement is here.
Are you ready to step up? You can file to be a Precinct Captain in your neighborhood.You need to file this FORM with the Supervisor of Elections by NOON on June 12th to qualify.
Remember, there is still time to qualify to run for local office.
Charter Review Board - Free Running Seats
The Charter Review Board (CRB) is an elected body of 10 members, two members from each of the five county commission districts, who serve staggered terms of four years.The Charter Review Board reviews and proposes changes to the Sarasota County Charter which are submitted to referendum in accordance with the provisions of Article VI of the Charter. They serve without compensation.
The CRB meets two or three times a year. Here's the agenda for that meeting. The main business is a proposed change to citizen amendments to the Charter, requiring citizens to come before the CRB before it goes to the County. This proposal has been under the management of CRB member James Gabbert. Below is their last meeting from Jan. 15, 2020.
There is no fee to file to run for this seat. You can learn more here:
Hospital Board $25 filing fee
There are 10 seats on the Hospital Board and they are all held by Republicans. There are 4 positions up for election on the Sarasota County Hospital Board. Hospital districts are different than County Commission Districts. See map of districts here.
Learn more about the Hospital Board here. If you have a business background, experience managing large budgets, or health care experience, please consider running for the Hospital Board. There is a $25 filing fee for this seat.
You can request a candidate packet from the Supervisor of Elections office if you are interested in learning more - 941-861-8600.
Below is a Jan. 13, 2020 citizen's letter sent to Sarasota County Commissioners in advance of Board reappointing a powerful building industry lobbyist to the Board of Zoning Appeals. Letter below sent 12:30 pm, Jan. 13. An HT story "Construction advocate on Sarasota County regulatory board is criticized" ran Jan. 13 evening.
TIME SENSITIVE
To: The Board of Sarasota County Commissioners
RE: Reappointment of Jon Mast to the BZA scheduled for Jan. 14, 2020.
Commissioners:
Your agenda for Tuesday, January 14, 2020 calls for you to consider the reappointment of Jon Mast to the Board of Zoning Appeals. Mr. Mast nominated himself July 11, 2017, and was appointed by the Board without Commissioner input. This letter asks that you consider the potential appearance of conflict of interest presented by this BZAmember.
Sarasota County Board of Zoning Appeals 11.18.19
The Board of Zoning Appeals is not a mere advisory board. It exercises quasi-judicial authority with power to approve, amend, or deny modifications to approved binding site plans.
Because of this power to rule on the legitimacy of land uses, this Board’s appointments warrant an extra level of conscientious oversight. The appearance of conflict of interest could jeopardize credibility for a judicial Board. In a document entitled BZASection 23, the County states:
“no person shall be appointed with private or personal interests likely to conflict with the general public interest.” (2.3.2)
Most decisions of the Board of Zoning Appeals are regarded as quasi-judicial decisions. When they are reviewed by a court, they will be assessed for three criteria (1) whether procedural due process was accorded, (2) whether the essential requirements of law were observed, and (3) whether the findings and decision are supported by competent substantial evidence. Education Development Center, Inc. v. City of West Palm Beach Board of Zoning Appeals, 541 So. 2d 106 (Fla. 1989).
On Nov. 18, 2019, I attended a BZA hearing at which a Board Member argued insistently to overturn a decision of Zoning Administrator Donna Thompson. That BZA member is Jon Mast, CEO at the Manatee-Sarasota Building Industry Association, a powerful construction industry lobbying entity.
At the aforementioned hearing, Mr. Mast played a key role in the Board’s decision on the Appeal identified as 19-155651 ZZ. Before he spoke, the board was polled: four members appeared to support Zoning Administrator Donna Thompson’s decision. After Mr. Mast spoke at some length, the vote was called: The Board voted 4-3 to overturn the Zoning Administrator’s decision.
In his discussion, Mr. Mast appealed for interpretive judgment on technical and evaluative matters to a person in the audience. The person whose opinion he sought was neither an independent stormwater expert nor county Staff with the credentials to render an informed evaluation. Rather, Mr. Mast appealed to the appellant Gabbert’s own attorney, William W. Merrill III, asking him whether Mr. Gabbert’s new plan was better than his former plan. I refer you to the hearing video: http://sarasotacounty.granicus.com/player/clip/4626?view_id=16
At the 1 hour 11-minute mark, Mr. Mast asks Mr. Merrill to interpret the relation of zoning rules to the proposed modification at issue: (1:11 ff)
At 1:13:40, Mr. Mast asks for Mr. Merrill’s summary qualitative judgment on the matter:
Mast: “All you want to do is make it better.”
Merrill: “Yes.”
Mr. Mast then personally attested that “over and over and over and over and over” similar stormwater changes have arisen, and that it is normal for them to be ruled as minor changes. He did not point to specific precedents or to staff research on the matter. He simply asserted that similar cases to Mr. Gabbert’s came up “over and over and over and over and over.”
Mr. Mast’s skilled solicitation of an evaluative judgment from Mr. Merrill as to the relative merit of Mr. Gabbert’s new stormwater plan seems to have influenced the final vote. But can Mr. Merrill, the attorney for appellant Gabbert, be considered either an expert on stormwater, or a disinterested observer in this matter? It is open to serious question whether “competent, substantial evidence” was the deciding factor in this instance.
An established protocol should be followed which doesn’t put thumbs on the scale for anyone. We have one: “no person shall be appointed with private or personal interests likely to conflict with the general public interest.”
The Sarasota County Commission is forcing a county-wide redistricting that every thinking resident opposes. It's doing it for one reason only -- to retain the corruption that has run things for many years:
This is the Board that selected Bob Waechter's curdled map that carves out Blacks and stuffs District 1 with white & right voting blocks.
This is the Board that was pleased to give our public lands at the Celery Fields to industrialists Jim Gabbert and Bob Waechter -- until the people spoke out.
Board of Sarasota County Commissioners
This is the Board that approves super-sized developments like Siesta Promenade for Benderson Development Inc., and grants outmoded community formats to Pat Neal, Rex Jensen, Carlos Beruff and their ilk. Wealthy developers, builders contractors and Realtors bankroll the powers that keep control of Sarasota in the hands of the few.
At Phillippi Park on Friday 12.13, tell the Board their attempt to protect Mike Moran's seat in District 1 will not work. We know who Mike answers to:
And whom they all answer to:
Come out and tell them their rotting dominion of broken infrastructure, rampant development, Red Tide and regressive power lunches with oligarchs is over.
Friday morning, the Board will be meeting at the mansion in Phillippi Park. Let's be so loud they'll hear themselves being tossed out of office in November 2020.
Note: After all presentations were given, the Board of Zoning Appeals first spoke 4-3 in support of the County Zoning Administrator's ruling that James Gabbert was seeking a major modification of his WTF. Then, led by Jon Mast, CEO of the Manatee/Sarasota Building Industry Association, it halted an actual vote, tabled the motion to deny Gabbert. Mast, purporting to "amend" Justin Powell's original motion, turned it into a double approval for Gabbert, and undermined the Zoning Administrator's interpretation of our Zoning Code. [Ed. note: this was edited to clarify the rather confusion Board action. Best to watch the video - link below.]
Board of Zoning Appeals at Gabbert Appeal 11.18.19
It’s not often that Sarasota’s regulatory boards interact with the general public. If the County were to require one or two seats on each Board to represent residents, and duly reported on Board actions to inform interested residents, that might help close the gap between the self-interest of business-as-usual and the larger shared values of the general public. Some historical context -- I’ll keep it short. In 1980, Sarasota County was first in the state of Florida to address future development with a planning document curiously named “Apoxsee.” It served as a sort of rudimentary Comp Plan.
In 1996, about 30 far-sighted residents from a variety of professions - architecture, law, engineering, development and construction among them - began to formulate a balanced set of principles to guide future development practices. They were known as the Multi-Stakeholders Group, or MSG, and their collaboration - which was not always collegial - led to the Comprehensive Plan approved by the county several years later.
With the great Depression of 2008 came pressure to grant a kind of emergency welfare to developers. The delicate balance between the community and development interests went sideways, and remains tilted heavily today toward the developers.
Revisions in the UDC as well as in Comp Plan Amendments have contributed to this move away from consideration for the community. Certain codes are less constrained, and residents experience the impacts new developments daily - in their nostrils, in their waterways, and on their roads.
In addition to requiring public representatives on your Board, I would ask that you each support a change to the UDC: Demand that traffic studies for the site development review process be required. How could the unleashing of 100 large trucks a day at this location on Palmer Blvd. not have been addressed? The repercussions of this programmed ignorance will be felt every day by those who live and work in the Palmer, Bell, Cattlemen and Apex area. Please press for this change in the 2020 Amendment cycle.
County zoning’s fundamental purpose is to “protect a community’s health, safety and welfare.” Binding site plan rules exist for a reason. I support the Zoning Administrator’s interpretation in this matter, and ask that you help Sarasota return to its tradition of community vision in long-range planning.
What town, what community would receive the gift of an extraordinary water management system that not only protects our homes from floods, but also provides a fertile environment for birds, and a pristine open space beloved by people for its tranquil beauty -- what community would receive this inspired gift, and then direct public planners to put heavy industry right next to it?
We know the answer: The people elected as custodians of Sarasota County have never shown they have a clue about the evolving genius of the Celery Fields.
Board of Sarasota County Commissioners
In January it will be three years since James Gabbert brought his waste processing proposal to the Church of Hope. Three years since the community came out in force to tell him and the County: NO WAY.
Now, after saying little and doing less, the Board can come back on Wednesday Nov. 6 at 1:30 pm and direct the Planning Dept. to rezone these parcels for industry, offices, or affordable housing.
There are a lot of reasons why industry is wrong here. Here are two:
First, anything like what Gabbert wanted, or like the warehouses Bob Waechter owns, or a Restaurant Depot, would involve more big trucks or car traffic. Gabbert’s rising WTF there will soon be adding 100 trucks a day to Palmer Blvd., in and out, all day long.
Second, this is a gateway. Gary Walsh and others have noted the dramatic impact that they experience when, heading west on Palmer Blvd, they come through the underpass -- the world suddenly changes. The cramped corridors west of I-75 open up, turn green, then suddenly it's wetlands, birds, a huge open space and that radiant hill.
Gary Walsh
This landscape is telling us a story - it’s introducing us to East County, to the rural Sarasota that's ranching, nurseries and farms, but increasingly getting sold and subdivided into single-family gated communities. East Sarasota's rural life is disappearing -- although Becky Ayech and others out East are fighting to protect it, with intelligence and determination.
If we rezone this gateway to allow industrial uses, this beautiful introduction to East County could also disappear. Instead of entering a prelude to a pristine open space, we’ll find a concrete barrier of 80,000-square-foot-buildings and parking lots. Instead of a walkable central open space drawing people and nature into communion, we’ll have Gabbert’s WTF, So and So’s What the Hell, and some other guy's Vision of Mordor piling on noise and traffic, devouring the light, and despoiling our landscape's story.
On Wednesday Nov. 6, the Board can try to “split the difference” by taking parcels 1 and 4, east of Apex, out of surplus lands and designating them for passive recreation or an urban forest. Great, so long as that’s a permanent and irrevocable designation.
But it’s still not adequate. Parcels 2 and 3 west of Apex should not be rezoned for industry, or for anything except simple uses that serve the community. They are public land.
Here's the chess game we're dealing with:
If the Board orders Planning to rezone parcels for industrial use or offices, the process will take several months, and then return to the Board for a vote. At this point, a public hearing will be necessary.
Note: the Lambert Advisory report the Board paid for to justify sale to industry did not consider actual conditions - neither surrounding land uses, such as the nearby Celery Fields, nor the poor roads, nor the community's input, nor the market's trending toward residential in the area. Its spreadsheet price study is also out of date.
Here's the big thing: The public hearing for the rezoning is likely to be entirely gratuitous -- that is, there will be no applicant. The Board will simply be voting on an application originated by itself. And yet, if for example they vote to approve industrial rezoning on Parcel #2, then it's a fait accompli: Gabbert, Waechter or someone else can buy the land from the County and build, so long as it meets whichever zoning the Board has approved.
We see what they are doing here. They are pre-approving the sale of rezoned public land to a private developer, and once that rezoning is approved, the public has no further say, no public hearing.
That's why, if the Board votes to rezone in ways the community feels are inappropriate, it will be essential to step up when Planning brings its plans back for approval. With no specific applicant named, Bob Waechter can wait in the wings till it's a done deal. This is just one way it all can go down. Let's call it the Waechter way.
Here's the thing: We've told our elected officials all this and more repeatedly over the past 35 months. We've told them that our wildlife area will need to expand and evolve to accommodate more visitors, some who come from overseas to explore this treasure.
We need to keep saying it: Keep these parcels for public uses. We need our public lands to remain free from an industrial zoning concocted in 1975. For our central park to fully realize its potential, our planning process must totally be free from the degradation of developer greed and backroom cronyism.
We might have to give our commissioners hell so Sarasota’s Celery Fields can remain a heaven.
Elian Rosaire
Let's do all we can protect this beautiful place, and secure a healthy future for all of Sarasota County. We can start by sweeping out those who think it’s still 1975, and bring in people of vision, spirit, integrity, and common sense.
Think of this not as our last stand, but as the first spark of restoring human sensibility and intelligence to Sarasota County in 2020.
Development Interests, Redistricting, Water Management and the fate of the Celery Fields all converge in this excerpt from Oct. 26, 2019 Herald Tribune article entitled: Redistricting criticism mounts as big vote nears" by Zac Anderson:
. . . [Commissioner Mike] Moran is viewed by some political observers, including GOP insiders, as being more closely aligned with the business community, including development interests.
Some believe the redistricting effort is not simply about protecting Republicans, but protecting the Sarasota County power structure and development interests.
Dist. 1 Sarasota County Commissioner Mike Moran
Moran is an insurance agent who moved to the region from Michigan in 2002 and became active in local politics, serving in a succession of roles that involved key decisions on development proposals.
A former president of the Sarasota Republican Club, Moran was appointed to the Sarasota County Planning Commission — which reviews development applications and has been a springboard to elected office — in 2012.
Rick Scott
In 2013 Moran was picked by former Gov. Rick Scott to serve on the Southwest Florida Water Management District board, another position that reviews major development proposals. Prominent developer Carlos Beruff, who is close with Scott, served on the board at the same time.
Development interests appeared to view Moran as a friend when he ran for the County Commission in 2016. They donated heavily to his campaign.
The Herald-Tribune wrote in 2016 that “Almost half of the more than $72,000 in contributions Moran’s campaign has received through July are tied to developers, attorneys who work closely with developers, other politicians, contractors, investors and real estate agents, according to campaign finance records.”
Developers who give generously to local political candidates
“Those donations include at least $7,600 from 38 separate $200 donations (the cap for local campaign contributions) from LLCs with addresses listed at the offices of Lakewood Ranch, Schroeder-Manatee Ranch and Medallion Homes — companies owned by highly influential developers Pat Neal, Rex Jensen and Carlos Beruff.”
Waechter, his wife and corporations that Waechter controls gave a total of $1,800 to Moran’s 2016 campaign.
Waechter is a real estate investor who is aligned with key figures in the Sarasota County power structure and has been one of the most influential behind-the-scenes political players.
Moran also received extensive contributions from Sarasota businessman Jim Gabbert and his companies. After winning a seat on the commission, Moran supported Gabbert’s controversial proposal to construct a recycling facility for construction and demolition materials roughly 1,000 feet from the Celery Fields, a nature area beloved by bird watchers and other outdoor enthusiasts.
Florida Department of Environmental Protection has issued two permits needed for construction but TST Ventures awaiting approval of county applications
This is the concept plan for the waste transfer station as approved by the County Commission in October 2015. County staff has told the News Leader that TST Ventures has to adhere to the facets of the plan, as required by county land development regulations. Image courtesy Sarasota County
Plans are proceeding for a waste transfer station near the Celery Fields, The Sarasota News Leader learned this week.
The owner of the business — James Gabbert of Sarasota — has received the necessary state permits for the site work.
In an April 30 email, Dee Ann Miller, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), told the News Leaderthat the department had issued the Environmental Resource Protection and National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits to Gabbert. However, she added, “[N]o application for the solid waste permit has yet been submitted.”
Gabbert is waiting on several permits from county staff.
On April 12, an application was submitted to the county for a commercial office building as part of the Palmer Transfer Station project, Mark Loveridge, the county’s land development manager, wrote in an April 30 email in response to a News Leader inquiry about the status of the TST Ventures plans.
The applicant officially is Rykin Construction Services LLC of Boleyn Road in Sarasota County, according to a News Leader search of county permitting records. “[The application] is under review at this time with comments due on May 24, 2019,” Loveridge added in his email.
The online permitting materials say the value of the construction would be $365,000.
An aerial map shows the proposed location of the waste recycling facility, outlined in red. Image from the Sarasota County Property Appraiser’s Office
Then, on April 30, TST Ventures applied for a permit to install three new “motor truck scales,” noting the value of that project would be $60,000. Those scales would be needed to weigh the trucks carrying the waste materials, based on Gabbert’s testimony prior to his winning County Commission approval for the project in October 2015.
The review of the latter application is due to be completed on June 12, the document says.
Additionally, in its search of county permitting records, the News Leader found that an application was submitted in February for the construction of the 8-foot-tall precast concrete wall around the facility, as detailed in the site plans. The value of that construction was put at $113,600, with Permacast LLC of Bradenton listed as the company that would undertake the work. The most recent notation on that application shows that it failed a staff drainage review.
The staff comment said, “No boundary and topographic survey noted in the permit packet. Survey must be signed and sealed by a Florida Registered Surveyor and Mapper. Please provide a site plan of scale capable to review the wall and post footing locations in relation to any or all easements. Plan has a note the lot drainage is the responsibility of the owner. Drainage is part of the application process for the permit. Please note how lot drainage will be handled, will the wall have a panel gap at the base or scuppers and openings.”
This engineering drawing for the Palmer Transfer Station offers additional details about the plans. Image courtesy Sarasota County
The most recent staff remarks on that application — entered on April 25 — said the prior comments about the survey and the “site plan with scale to determine location in relation to lot lines or easements with dimension to footings, concrete poured or wall panels” still had not been addressed. The notation added, “Corrections Required.”
On April 1, in response to a News Leaderrequest for an update, Media Relations Officer Drew Winchester also reported that, as of that date, TST Ventures had filed for two utility permits — involving fire and water lines — and those also were under review, too.
On Jan. 31, Sarasota County staff issued the primary permit for the Palmer Transfer Station to Weber Engineering and Surveying of Sarasota, agent for Gabbert’s firm, TST Ventures.
The Palmer Transfer Station is slated to be built on property located at 6150 Palmer Blvd., which is next to the county’s “Quads” parcels. Those, in turn, stand adjacent to the Celery Fields, a county stormwater project that has become an internationally known bird-watching park.
The 6150 Palmer Blvd. site comprises about 4.27 acres. It is located at the intersection of Porter Road and Palmer Boulevard, just east of Interstate 75.
This aerial map shows the proximity of the Gabbert property to the county’s ‘Quads’ parcels. Image courtesy Sarasota County
Gabbert originally planned to combine the waste transfer station project with a construction and yard waste recycling center on the Southwest Quad. However, advocates for the Celery Fields led a series of protests against the recycling facility and urged the county commissioners to deny Gabbert’s petitions for its construction. Gabbert had planned to purchase the Southwest Quad from the county if he won commission approval for the project.
The county’s Planning Commission voted to recommend the County Commission deny the petitions, largely out of concerns related to what members of that board characterized as a road network inadequate to support Gabbert’s plans.
An engineering drawing in the site plans shows these details about trucks that will be coming to the facility and traffic flow. Image courtesy Sarasota County
As for the FDEP permits: On May 28, 2016, TST Ventures received its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit, which the company needed for construction activities on the Palmer Boulevard parcel. That permit will expire on May 27, 2021, a member of FDEP’s NPDES Stormwater Program wrote in a June 2, 2016 letter addressed to Gabbert.
TST Ventures applied for that permit on May 25, 2016, according to another FDEP document. On the form, the box for “Small Construction” was marked, indicating the project would “disturb between 1 and 4.99 acres of land …” On a separate line, the application noted that the “[a]pproximate total area of land disturbance from commencement through completion of construction” would be 2.34 acres.
Gabbert, who signed the application as manager of TST Ventures, indicated the start date of the work would be May 2016, with completion in June 2017.
In regard to the second FDEP permit: On June 5, 2018, the department issued an Environmental Resource Permit (ERP) to TST Ventures for the construction of “a solid waste management facility.” That permit will expire on June 5, 2023, the document says.
The project description explains that the permit covers “the construction and use of stormwater management system consisting of drainage inlets, swales and one dry retention stormwater treatment basin.”
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CSC Editor's Note: More about Waste Transfer Facilities (WTF) here:
