Not a Substack about Plats
No more talking about plats!
Every meeting we seemingly get to listen to two hours of the same five minutes of justification for why final plats should be denied. I am over plats. This is not a serious discussion when so many serious, productive discussions should be had by this Board.
If you would like to hear my views on this, you can check out the beginning of my podcast with The Bradenton Times from last Wednesday. It’s the very first topic but (in my opinion) the entire podcast is worth a listen. You can click the logo below to access it.
If you want a second opinion, I’d highly advise reading Mitch Maley’s article, Slow is Smooth, and Smooth is Fast, from this weekend.
There may be a short-term high to be gained from the adulation of the mob of populists who will cheer on a just-say-no-to-everything approach even if it is destined to fail. However, visionary leadership involves the ability to see past winning an inconsequential battle here and there at the expense of the overall war.
The reality is that this plat war is doing a disserve to all the good we’re hoping to achieve. Commissioner Ballard recently asked the three no voters “what’s the end game” with these votes. The only end game I can see is the county getting sued and using your tax dollars to fight a losing case. Then, when we use your money to pay our legal, the applicant’s legal and whatever additional “economic hardships” they can muster up to pad their collections, you can all take that large dollar amount and multiple it by the number of plats that are on each agenda to determine how much this game would cost you in your tax dollars.
I still believe, if we only had six commissioners present, the three “no” votes wouldn’t pull the trigger. Right now, it’s easy to play the anti-developer card when there are no repercussions due to four votes following the statutes and the law. It’s harder to play the part when your vote actually matters. Although, maybe having them successfully decline a final plat would finally get this over with. Rip off the band-aid. Lose a case. Lose your money. Get two hours per meeting of our lives back.
Whatever they do, however, please just stop saying you “don’t care if it’s illegal” to vote no. Come up with a better narrative or a court case will be the least of our problems. As Maley also said in the above linked article:
What has begun to concern me most is that if a let’s just break things mentality persists, a pro-growth governor who has shown a penchant for aiding and abetting Big Development could use his authority to remove a commissioner or two from office and swing the board back in Big Development's favor through the replacement appointments.
THAT is certainly not worth the adulation of a few Facebook commentors!
So, let’s find some other topics to discuss. Topics that can actually make a difference in Manatee County like we promised throughout 2024.
My next Substack with be pertaining to development and the conversation around moratoriums. I’m hoping to get that out by President’s Day - ahead of the important February 19 work session on the Comprehensive Plan update.
Until then, I wanted to give you some options to find me for non-plat discussions.
I’ll be doing multiple speaking events with HOA’s, industry groups and boards throughout the month of February. The two which are open to the public are:
This Tuesday (Feb 4) with the Manatee Patriots at 6pm. Click the logo below for more info.
Also, Wednesday, Feb 19 is my next monthly town hall. This month I’ll be out on AMI at the Island Branch Library.
For future town halls, the list is below. Please note that the March date at Palmetto has changed due to our rescheduled trip to Tallahassee. It is now on March 26.
In addition to speaking events and town halls, you can always find me online. I’m essentially shutting down most of the social links to better focus my time. The most active will be my official Facebook page. My twitter page (@gwkruse) will no longer focus on county business and will focus more on state/federal politics as well as policy issues such as housing.
I’m also using all aspects of the Substack platform, including notes and chat, more often. At some point, it will most likely become the primary source of information. If you don’t subscribe, you can do so here.
Of course, you can always email me at george.kruse@mymanatee.org or right from this Substack.
Finally, I try to put thought into these Substacks but that takes time. I’ve tried to counter that with the quicker notes and chat features but they don’t allow for as much commentary. So, within the next few weeks, I will be attempting to start up a podcast to further provide you timely information about our agendas, upcoming topics, meeting summaries and my thoughts on topical issues that affect Manatee County. I’ll relay more information on the exact format and schedule as I finalize it soon.
Come find me - in person or online. Regardless of how you choose to engage, I’m always eager to talk to all of you about all things Manatee County.
Just no more nonsense about final plats!
I think that the public also needs to understand that this is why they should always do their research before voting. This takeover started in 2016 and 2020 was a total disaster- this is because the public at large was not watching. At this point the community must live with what has already been approved and trust that if there is anything that can be done to change this you will point commissioners in the right direction to do so. The public must never stop watching what is going on in our government and they need to recognize that as much as the new commissioners want to change the current situation they can't. We, the public, needs to respect that and allow the newly elected commissioners to focus on what can be done.
I believe the three commissioners are vetting their frustration from the previous Board bad decisions. I would too if elected. There’s an elephant in the room. It’s called safety. You cannot possibly make me believe that thousands of homes on a single lane highway can safely provide EMS, fire department or the sheriffs office in a timely manner to answer a life or death situation in rush-hour traffic and may be in one of those subdivisions, safety of our citizens should come first and if it delays the CO aka certificate of occupancy then so be it.
Obviously, the developers never had that vision because it was always about the money and citizens and safety be damned. The moratorium cannot come too fast and I am all for it.
For the Record… GADFLY