"A steady erosion" - Former Sarasota County Administrator

"The adoption of the 2050 plan itself was a manifestation of this ill-advised shift but it contained some safeguards to protect taxpayers. These safeguards are now being rendered meaningless.  -- Former Sarasota County Administrator John Wesley White.

I would like to express my opposition to the changes proposed to Sarasota County’s Comprehensive Plan. I moved to Sarasota County in 1987. At that point, Sarasota County was an award-winning exemplar of sound planning and strong environmental policies. For the first ten or so years of my residency in Sarasota County, the County Commission pursued a balanced approach to growth, development, and environmental protection; however, over the past fifteen years, there has been a steady erosion of those policies as development interests have gained increased control of the local political process.

The adoption of the 2050 plan itself was a manifestation of this ill-advised shift but it contained some safeguards to protect taxpayers. These safeguards are now being rendered meaningless. Public opinion in Sarasota County, as validated by official opinion surveys, has remained committed to protection of vital natural resources and preventing harmful development, yet the Board of County Commissioners has consistently approved development that has ignored its urban service boundary, degraded transportation on state and county roads, reduced fees paid by development, diverted infrastructure resources from correcting decades-old deficiencies to support projects that foster increased development, and sought to shift responsibility for growth impacts from the development interests sponsoring increased growth to current residents and state government.  

 The proposed changes in the county’s comprehensive plan would continue and exacerbate those patterns and are inconsistent with state policies to manage growth, preserve agriculture, and protect environmental resources. These misguided policies have already cost state government millions of dollars and the proposed changes will greatly increase demands on state financial resources, while also requiring County taxpayers to pay more for the inefficient infrastructure of sprawl. I support enlightened growth management based upon sound planning principles and I celebrate the rebirth of downtown Sarasota during the period since I moved here. There is abundant opportunity for growth and development without these proposed changes. I ask that the County Commission defer these proposed amendments to Sarasota County’s comprehensive plan and adopt a more prudent and balanced approach to managing growth.

John Wesley White
"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."

-- E.B. White

See more letters here.

John Wesley White on impact fees and economic incentives

A comment from former Sarasota County Administrator John Wesley White:

One of my pet dislikes is the policy of offering "economic development” incentives to private companies.  In general, I believe incentives are a fraud and are used to extract money from state and local governments for things the businesses plan to do anyhow on their own.  The link below to a Los Angeles Times article states the case better than I could.  For many years, Sarasota County held the line and did not offer cash incentives for business expansions or relocations.  That policy has now been turned on its head and Sarasota businesses are cashing in to do what they already plan to do.  Even good companies like PGT cannot resist the temptation to play the game.  Of course, sports franchises perfected this art a long time ago.  Read the article for a persuasive case.

 

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-florida-government-incentives-to-businesses-20140916-story.html

 

The same misguided reasoning involves the reduction of impact fees.  I recall developer advocates approaching the County Commission when I worked for the County, requesting that we lower our impact fees because businesses were choosing Manatee County over Sarasota County.  Of course, doing so would simply mean that other taxpayers would have to subsidize those who realized lower impact fees.  We did a staff study of the matter and demonstrated that the reason some businesses were choosing Manatee County was because it had more readily developable (zoning and utilities) land and lower purchase costs.  Impact fees were not even a marginal factor.  In fact, Sarasota County’s lower property tax rate meant that businesses of any type would recapture the marginal difference in impact fees within less than three years and thereafter enjoy a lower property tax rate indefinitely.  This point buttressed the County’s program to acquire, upgrade, and expand water and sewer utilities in order to enable businesses to locate in properly zoned areas.

 

It is a shame that local officials forget or ignore these incentive and subsidy lessons in order to appease/please certain interests.  Sarasota County has even compounded the matter by reversing itself on fiscal neutrality.  It is so easy to disprove the economic arguments used to work the system, but doing so requires that either County staff, local advocates, or a newspaper invest the effort and have the courage to challenge these assertions.  Of course, when it’s done by County staff, they immediately become the targets of the business community’s ire and that of their own elected bosses.  Most Administrators are more “prudent” than I was.  A newspaper, while not immune to pressure from advertisers, is in a better position to expose those who would bilk the system.  Citizen advocates are usually ignored or patronized by local elected officials because the advocates are not usually well enough organized to be effective.  Besides, economic interests speak with money in addition to words.

 

 

John Wesley White

"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and 

 a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."  

      E.B. White