How much are Sarasota Commissioners worth?

Maio continues to lead the way in net worth among Sarasota County commissioners, latest state Commission on Ethics filings show

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Source: Sarasota News Leader, November 25, 2021 by Rachel Brown Hackney, Editor & Publisher

Cutsinger in second place, with Detert reporting smallest figure

Sarasota County Commission Chair Alan Maio continues to outpace his board colleagues in terms of net worth, the latest Florida Commission on Ethics financial disclosure filings indicate.

However, Maio reported a smaller figure for 2020 than he did for 2019, his latest report showed.

As of June 17, Maio wrote that his net worth was $3,082,300. In June 2019, he noted that the figure was $3,252,097.

In second place, Commissioner Ron E. Cutsinger of Englewood reported that his net worth as of July 1 was $1,589,314 — slightly more than half of Maio’s total.

Commissioner Michael Moran narrowly edged out Commissioner Christian Ziegler for third place. Moran reported that his net worth as of April 30 was $927,150.25. That compared to $620,716.38 as of May 1, 2020.

On Dec. 31, 2020, Ziegler noted, his net worth was $876,233.25. That was more than three times the amount he listed as of Dec. 31, 2018: $206,324.83.

Ziegler won his District 2 seat during the November 2018 General Election.

Rounding out the board members, Commissioner Nancy Detert attested that her net worth as of Dec. 31, 2020 was $392,213. That was up slightly from her Dec. 31, 2019 total of $322,206.

More detail here

Board to consider proposal to dedicate a Quad Parcel to builders

Mike Moran and Al Maio – the two commissioners who voted for James Gabbert’s giant, outdoor debris pulverizing plant on the SW Quad parcel – are now pushing a building lobbyist's proposal that would put a builder's showcase there, despite the fact that the proposal violates the Conservation Easement approved by the Board in 2020.

M&M were joined by Cutsinger and Ziegler in the 4-1 vote to fast-track the BIA proposal.

Excerpts below are from the 4.29.22 Sarasota News Leader article.

With Detert objecting, County Commission authorizes staff to negotiate with Manatee-Sarasota Business Industry Association to take over Florida House lease and move building 

April 28, 2022 by Rachel Brown Hackney, Editor & Publisher

Making the motion, Commissioner Moran calls for ‘plenty of public input’ on proposal during future board meeting

Commissioner Michael Moran this week won the support of his other three colleagues to authorize county staff to start negotiating with the Manatee-Sarasota Business Industry Association over the future of the Florida House.

Formally, Moran specified county talks with the Business Industry Association (MSBIA) “and/or any nonprofit that’s affiliated with [it]” to take over the county’s lease of the 4454 S. Beneva Road site in Sarasota where the Florida House stands. That lease will end on June 30, 2027, county staff has noted.

Further, Moran called for allowing the MSBIA or the nonprofit to move the building before that lease expires.

The MSBIA has created a nonprofit organization called the Building Industry Institute....

The MSBIA proposal in a June 7, 2021 letter from its CEO, Jon Mast, to County Administrator Jonathan Lewis — plus comments from MSBIA board member Teresa Mast, who addressed the commissioners at an Open to the Public comment period during the commission’s Feb. 8 meeting — included the desire to move the Florida House to one of the Quads. Those four county-owned parcels are adjacent to the Celery Fields.

Although the latter area officially is a county stormwater management project, it also is an internationally known bird-watching destination.

In October 2020, the commissioners voted unanimously to approve a conservation easement over the Southwest, Southeast and Northeast Quads, in collaboration with the Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast, which is based in Osprey, and the Sarasota Audubon Society.

The MSBIA has shifted its focus to a Southwest Quad site. ...

Detert said she objected to Moran’s motion. “We haven’t had a lot of meetings about it,” she began. “We probably need to.” ....

She said she believed all of the commissioners have met with MSBIA representatives one-on-one. “You’re kind of writing a motion in favor of one corporation,” she told Moran. ....

When Chair Alan Maio called for the vote on Moran’s motion, Detert repeated her objection to it. The motion passed 4-1.

. . . leaders of the Florida House Institute — which has become Southface Sarasota — have adamantly expressed opposition to the MSBIA proposal.

... former Florida House director Matt Ross, who founded the company Eco$mart, in 1993, stressed to the commissioners during public comments on Feb. 23 that in his 29 years of working with the Florida House, he had “not seen the [MSBIA’s] presence at all.”

When the Florida House suffered through “lean times” in the early 2000s, Ross continued, “Where was the builders’ association? They weren’t there.”

MSBIA head Jon Mast

...

Notes below on key points -

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Some key takeaways:

1. The Board chose to promote one proposal – from a lobby, the Manatee/Sarasota Building Industry Association BIA – over Commissioner Detert’s motion to hear from staff about several options for the Florida House.

2. The BIA Lobby wishes to take for its own use a parcel that was given to the people of Sarasota (via two Environmental Non-profits, Sarasota Audubon and the Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast) to protect a bird nesting preserve and to foster community with a civic use – a Sarasota history archive, for example.

3. The BIA Lobby wants to rezone the SW Quad to ILW – Industry, light manufacturing, warehouse – apparently not finding any incompatibility with the Conservation Easement.

4. The county’s own documents and Conservation Easement reflect the fact that the intent of the Conservation Easement was for civic or government use, and use by a private organization is expressly disallowed by its terms.

5. Those who have had long and intimate participation in the Florida House say the Lobby has lied in pretending to have helped the Florida House when it needed it, or taken any interest in it before now.

Citizens for Sarasota County (CSC) is a coalition founded in 2014 to promote ethical, responsive government that preserves and enhances Sarasota's unique natural environment and cultural heritage while building a sound local economy based on effective stewardship and innovation. 

Board Dead Set on Repealing Citizen Initiative

On December 7, the Board of Sarasota County Commissioners will designate a special election to repeal Single Member District voting.

They're back . . . Sarasota’s highest elected officials intend to undo a Charter Amendment that the electorate approved just three years ago.

What’s going on? Why does the Board want us to re-vote on an amendment we approved by 60 percent across all five districts in 2018?

Fueled by hollow rhetoric, reasons offered by the Commissioners have been shifting:

We the People were “confused” when we voted for Single Member Districts, according to Commissioner Al Maio.

After the public explained -- in person on three occasions and through a professional County poll -- that it was not confused, Commissioner Mike Moran offered another story: “Sly Democrat operatives” have fooled a gullible electorate into voting for Single Member Districts, he said.

When the non-partisan Citizens for District Power noted that the 2018 vote passed by a strong majority in all five Republican districts, Moran switched to “sly political operatives,” or just “sly operatives.”

Instead of describing voters as confused or hoodwinked, Commissioner Nancy Detert said, "I've never liked Single Member Districts, but I'm getting tired of trying to save people from themselves.”

Board of Sarasota County

Why are our elected Commissioners bound and determined to reverse this citizens’ amendment to Sarasota County’s Home Rule Charter?

In a word, fear.

The Board has a critical task: to evaluate and approve large-scale developer plans for housing projects, commercial centers, apartments and roads. What can happen to their political careers if each Commissioner had to answer to citizens impacted by their rapid-fire blanket developer approvals in his or her district?

Take for example the highly controversial “mega-hotels” recently approved on Siesta Key.

Scale of proposed Siesta Key hotel

Residents from some 70 Siesta Key HOAs hired lawyers and professional planners, and came out in force, presenting strong, cogent arguments why these hotels would be disastrous to the local character of the barrier island. To no avail -- the Board approved both hotels that have come before it (two more are in the pipeline). Under Single Member Districts, the Board members would be answerable to their district voters on Siesta Key. In a re-election, they’d face intense public scrutiny of their voting record.

When these same politicians are elected by all the voters of the County, they can avoid addressing issues of concern in their District. They’ll drown the mailboxes of North Port, Northeast Sarasota or Englewood with their mailers, knowing full well that many voters in other districts neither know about nor care what the Board allows developers to do to Siesta Key.

In the current economic environment, Countywide voting allows candidates to ignore everything that urgently matters to residents of their district. In recent years, incumbents have refused to participate in public forums or debates, to hold town hall meetings, even to be interviewed by the press.

That allows politicians running for our Board, which dedicates a great deal of time to growth issues in an overheated developer frenzy, to evade the people who want to preserve our Siesta Key and oppose mega hotels, or who fight the transformation of vast ranchlands into suburban gated communities, or who worry about an intersection that can’t handle oversized developments -- like Siesta Promenade at Stickney Point and US 41.

Single Member District voting requires each Commissioner to face the people who feel their neighborhoods, roads and environment are imperiled by their Board votes. And SMD candidates can reach their district voters without needing developer dollars or Dark Money, while Countywide campaigns cost at least $100,000.

Over time, special interests have made it clear that to even hope for their support, you have to publicly demonstrate your pro-growth credentials -- by serving on the Planning Commission, for example. Planning “commissioners” are not elected, but are appointed by County Commissioners -- Maio, Moran and District 5 Commissioner Ron Cutsinger all are alumni of that self-fulfilling loop.

Sarasotans worked hard to adopt Single Member Districts from a shared sense that growth here has gotten out of hand. Those who remember Sarasota as a place of taste, charm, and intelligence do not need to be saved from themselves. Rather, they need a level of political accountability that could save Sarasota from its at-large-elected officials.

Come to the Board Hearing on December 7 to speak, or simply to pack the room. The latest Hearing information will be posted to the home page of the Citizens for District Power site.

The Board discussion described above took place on Nov. 16, 2021, beginning at the 2 hour, 50-minute mark.

Sentinel: Detert helped Rick Scott devastate Florida unemployment

Note: Confirmed by an Orlando Sentinel editor: In the April 6 editorial below, "she" is Sarasota County Commissioner Nancy Detert, who when a state Senator co-sponsored a disastrous unemployment bill:

Meet the lawmakers who helped Rick Scott gut Florida’s unemployment system | Editorial

By ORLANDO SENTINEL EDITORIAL BOARD

ORLANDO SENTINEL |

APR 06, 2020 | 1:07 PM

Rick Scott instigated the movement a decade ago to deny unemployment to the unemployed, but he couldn’t have done it without help.

Republican lawmakers were squarely behind the the newly elected governor’s agenda in 2011, passing a sweeping unemployment compensation law designed to punish workers who lost their jobs — “slackers and malingerers” as one state senator [Nancy Detert] put it at the time.

She [Detert] perfectly summarized the contempt some felt for the unemployed, which led to the overwhelming passage of a law that:

• reduced the number of weeks someone can collect unemployment to as few as 12,
• required workers to prove they had contacted five potential employers each week,
• expanded the types of fireable offenses that disqualified an employee for benefits, and
• cut benefits if an employee received severance pay.

Workers also were forced to apply for benefits online, which was bad under the existing computer system and calamitous today under the one Scott’s administration replaced it with.

As others have observed, it was a system designed to help business by failing workers, those “slackers and malingerers.”

Read the entire April 6th editorial here.

Detert was also explicitly referenced in a March 23, 2020 Sentinel article entitled: The workers who sustain us during the coronavirus crisis deserve Florida’s respect:

We’ve built a rigged economy, particularly in Florida, where people in this ongoing crisis are among the most essential workers, alongside police and firefighters and doctors and nurses. 

How has this state treated them before now? 

Our lawmakers have been dead-set against a meaningful increase in the minimum wage, prompting a successful campaign to get a $15 an hour minimum wage on the ballot this fall. 

They refused to do anything about businesses failing to offer paid sick leave, and then passed a law that stopped communities like Orange County from doing something on their own. 

Dist. 3 Commissioner Nancy Detert

Over the course of a decade, they skimmed nearly $2 billion from a fund that was supposed to provide money for affordable housing.

In 2011, urged on by then Gov. Rick Scott, they stacked the deck against workers trying to collect unemployment benefits. The Legislature cut the number of weeks unemployed workers were eligible for unemployment — to as low as just 12 weeks, depending on the unemployment rate — and made it easier for employers to deny benefits. All this while keeping one of the worst weekly benefits in the nation — $275 max. A Republican state senator at the time, Nancy Detert, said she wanted to be rid of “slackers and malingerers.”

More on Florida's appalling unemployment predicament:

Herald Tribune 5.25.12: Nancy Detert with Doug Holder sponsored the unemployment bill 

And from Lloyd Dunkelberger in the Florida Phoenix 4.7.20:

FL Senate Democrats urge changing eligibility date for jobless workers denied help because of a broken benefits system