Patten's platform -- a self-serving bit of self-promotion

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Venice United had me fill out a questionnaire, and I'm proud of what I wrote, so here it is, below, in full. They never did endorse anyone. Seems that in the end, they wanted someone who looked distinguished like Sherman, but that thought like me.

Go figure.

Anyway, this pretty much spells out my platform and how I think for those that are unfamiliar with my writing over the years.

"Democracy doesn't work unless you participate." -- Frank Zappa


1. From 2007 – 2010, the City of Venice spent a great deal of time and money, including a plethora of citizen input, to create a comprehensive plan designed to serve the City of Venice for the next 20 years. With the 2011 city council, this plan has come under attack by special interest groups, specifically the Toscana Isles project and the Venice Airport. How do you feel these and other comprehensive plan changes / revisions should be handled?

A.): Unfortunately, thanks to our illustrious governor (with a lower case 'g') the DCA (Florida Department of Community Affairs, the agency responsible for collecting, approving and enforcing the state's collection of Comprehensive Plans) has been castrated. This makes any Comprehensive Plans (including Venice's) optional luxury documents that carry about as much legal weight as the text on the back of a box of Wheaties.

The Comp Plan is still law, but it won't be the DCA enforcing it in any great capacity. The way things are falling out, it looks like citizens will have to sue in order to get compliance in the case of a disagreement. At least that is my current understanding.

So to answer by walking away from the question: The Comprehensive Plan is unfortunately legally irrelevant. We are on our own. You may now kiss the environment goodbye as whatever makes money for land developers and their attorneys (especially their attorneys) is now law.
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2. Of late, council meetings which started at 1:30 PM have gone to 9:00 PM or later and then resumed the following day for several hours. Some believe this is caused by long winded oral dissertations by council members, others think it is caused by this council micro managing the city’s business. What are your thoughts?

A.): It isn't of late. This has been going on for as long as I can remember -- long meetings, I mean. Depends what is on the agenda. As land development issues heat up, count on more.

My concern is these hidden-in-plain-sight workshops that have been held all over the city, usually on extremely important and core issues, and NEVER televised or video recorded. It's been a great way to sneak stuff through.

All meetings should be video recorded and available for download.

Now, as to the length of meetings -- what cost democracy? Moreover, I want my chance to speak my mind. I can't very well tell others to shut up or keep it brief. I'm not going to promise you that I will try to make them shorter, although, God knows, the boredom at some of these meetings when the gums start flapping extensively is mind-numbing.
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3. While the current council has created a vision statement defining Venice as a nice place to live, work and play, the vision fails to identify the economic road forward for the city of Venice. What do you see as the economic engines (s) which will drive Venice for the next 20 years?

A.): Real estate and tourism. That's always been the economic engine here -- people come down on vacation, like the place, then buy into it. Building more and more houses only adds to the current real estate market glut and drives every one's home values down. With so many abandoned and foreclosed properties, it doesn't make much sense to add more to the mix, plus the county is approving massive quantities of land just outside our borders for near-future development.

Does anyone remember how we got into the real estate boom and bust? Anyone? Oh, but here's an idea on how we can get over the damage that the burst real estate bubble caused -- let's do it all over again, because we have learned our lesson, right?

Pop quiz: What do they call it when you repeat the same behavior over and over, expecting different results?
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4. Recently, there has been a controversy regarding benefits for council members and charter officers, both past / present and future. What is your position regarding benefits for these groups?

A.):First off, it isn't recent. Herb Levine and I tried to get this in the public's eye for a number of years and nobody had a clue what we were talking about. Former elected officials Dean Calamaras, Rick Tacy, and Jim Myers violated the charter when they voted on changes to employee benefits that they used to then give themselves FREE HEALTH INSURANCE FOR LIFE. Later, Vicki Taylor would also benefit from this, however the perk was already (illegally) in place when she took office, so I can't really fault her -- I know from talking with her that she had no idea of the background of the perk.

This perk was and is in violation of the charter.

This controversy came to light because of postings on my web site, Marshall Happer took it from there. This wouldn't be a controversy if it weren't for Herb Levine and I continuously trying to bring it to light. Now, almost accidentally and as an afterthought, the seeds of doubt that we planted are bearing fruit in the name of Marshall Happer and Ed Martin (although we complained about it to Martin while he was in office only to get a blank and empty gaze back -- now suddenly Martin sees the light; funny, that).
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5. What (3) issues do you feel your council will need to address?

A.): If growth is to be allowed, we must make sure that any growth is compatible with what we already have and we shouldn't repeat the same mistakes of the past (like putting houses next to industrial land again).

We need to take a long look at how one Charter Officer, namely the City Attorney, can rack up such huge legal bills with little to no council knowledge of what is going on in the numerous lawsuits that the city has involved and is involving itself in. If you were being sued, would you just hand your credit card to your attorney, tell him to do whatever he feels is OK, and not look back while the case is ongoing? When you are the defendant / respondent?

Not me - I want to know what is going on (and, in fact, I already do). This and prior councils, including members who claim to be brilliant attorneys, just turn a blind eye away from what has been the single biggest unnecessary financial black hole. The city just settled an EEOC discrimination case in the police department with an out of court settlement of a whopping $190k. While City Attorney Bob Anderson has claimed that insurance has picked up that tab, he never said what our legal tab was. There are currently two other lawsuits pending against the city from the police department, and council is oblivious.

Third, we need a city manager we can trust, not Nancy Woodley who has alienated the unions with past statements that anyone who has filed a union grievance will not be promoted or allowed to laterally transfer (source: reprimand from Marty Black in her employee jacket), nor one who helped cover up the shenanigans of our former building department head, Hans Behrens.
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6. During the discussion of the 2012 budget, the issues of fire department staffing, city staffing and the possibility of increasing property taxes have taken the stage, front and center. What is your position on these three issues?

A.): As I stated in council meetings on the record, giving tax and impact fee breaks to the Boones and their clients on the backs of employee layoffs is unforgivable and ought to be criminal. It was guaranteed to start a union war against the city, one that could cost the city nearly as much as the $3 million in breaks that were being offered to the Boones. In this pre-election period, Dan Boone has pulled the request -- for now, anyway. I'll guarantee you that he will want it again in the second week in November, right after this election, and he may well get it, depending on the results of this election.

For the record, I am opposed to merging any existing fire or police services with county agencies. I believe it will not save money and we will lose autonomy.

Further layoffs may be an awful necessity, but I would prefer a hiring freeze across the board. The idea of layoffs is an ugly thought that makes my skin crawl. People's lives are in the balance, real people, and this city goes way out of its way already to make working life uncomfortable for its many employees.

Taxes? Raise them? OK, fine. Who can afford to pay them? I suspect that raising taxes may very well backfire and give less revenue to the city by causing people who can't afford the tax raise to walk away from paying them entirely, as the tax collector's office will not let you make partial payments on past due tax bills. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the near future in the both the cities of Sarasota and North Port, as both have decided to raise taxes substantially. If what I think will happen there actually does happen there, it'll be a disaster on multiple levels.
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7. An issue which consumed a great deal of the 2007-2010 council’s time and money was the Venice Municipal Airport. This topic has divided the community pitting neighbor against neighbor. Do you think these issues have been handled properly by the current council and if NOT, what would you have done?

A.): We virtually condemned a number of homes by arbitrarily placing them in an RPZ (Runway Protection Zone), thus temporarily, more likely permanently, devaluing them with no thought of compensation. That's not fair or right and may well result in yet another set of costly lawsuits (think Bert Harris Act). Mayor Holic's argument that these homes have always been in an RPZ defies logic, history, and common sense. For starters, if they had been in an RPZ before, that would and should have shown up in the title research prior to the current homeowners' purchases. It didn't.

The city is going to have some problems here, this was an unlawful taking, and this could be even costlier than the Sunshine Lawsuit, the EPA battle, and the current police department lawsuits combined.

Strangely, in order to do get those homes into an RPZ, the city effectively photoshopped two 60 foot trees out of the RPZ, trees that clearly exist in the RPZ in the backyards of two houses on Airport Road just two houses away on either side of Harbor Drive. This council was told this recently by members of the reformed Venice Neighborhoods Coalition at an open council meeting, yet the council members I have asked since all claim they have no memory of receiving that information.

You can actually sort of see the trees in the aerial photos if you already know what you are looking at. The written docs and charts that would require their mention are strangely mum on their existence. According to the city's docs as submitted to the FAA, these two trees do not exist.

Meanwhile, this deception of the FAA means that the FAA has no knowledge currently of the existence of two 60 foot trees smack in the middle of an airport runway flight path in what should be a cleared part of the RPZ. Which was the plan all along. Sure hope the pilots see them, at least.

By saying this, I become an enemy of the airport politically, which is not true at all. The airport needs to be there, if only to prevent more development and buildout at the south end of the island. To stay there, it needs to be economically viable, which means no more sweetheart leases written by the Boones and bypassing the city attorney (Hona Luana, the Venice Golf Association, etc.) so that the airport's coffers gets fair market value. The supporters of the airport need to play fair -- Art Nadel is no longer here. While the airport is free to fly over its neighbors, it doesn't need to bully them on the ground as in the case when Paul Holliwell referred to them as "anti-airport Nazis."
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8. There has been some discussion suggesting the council should be reduced from 7 to 5 members and a separate discussion on the possibility of districting the city. What is your position on these issues?

A.): Do it. I would even offer up my seat. But that's not all.
--- Go from 7 to 5 members.
--- Make terms of four years, thus calling for elections every other year instead of every year -- cuts election expenses by half.
--- No districting (this whole town isn't much bigger than some city's districts, and then there is the size of the county's districts in comparison)
--- Eliminate seat numbers so we don't have a repeat of this circus of an election, which, in turn, is an EXACT replay of the 2004 elections (see my comments made in 2004 at http://www.veniceflorida.com/features/2004endorsements.htm). As I stated in 2004, if five people are running, vote for any two. This is just like how the Sarasota Hospital Board elections are done.
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9. Following the resignation of Isaac Turner as city manager, the council has been unable to agree on a path forward; a. to make the acting city manager ( Nancy Woodley ) the city manager or b. using an outside recruiting agency, perform a national search for a new city manager. What is your position and why?

A.): Seeing as I am the guy who gave Woodley her nickname of Godzilla due to her blind stomping on employee rights, take a wild guess as to how I value her as a city manager, or even as a department head for that matter. For her stances on employee and union rights, Woodley shouldn't just be fired, she should be deported to Wisconsin to live with those who share her views. She has done more to foster unfairness, employee favoritism, and fear than any other current city official, a holdout from the George Hunt / Dean Calamaras administration that has failed to notice that Hunt is no longer here.
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10. If elected to the city council, what would be your goals for the next 3 years?

A.): Get a decent city manager (we haven't done it yet, but maybe); better understanding and oversight of our current legal problems with an eye towards the root causes in an attempt to avoid them in the future (that is not as difficult or vague as it sounds); fair treatment of residents and employees (that'd be a first, eh?), fair treatment of both airport businesses AND the neighboring homeowners (it is possible, but it will take a unified effort, and I am not sure that can happen), protect the land values of existing homes, make developers pay their fair share in impact fees rather than burdening the rest of us, reduce vehicular inventory, more.....
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11. How would you describe yourself: A slow growth advocate, a proponent of reasonable growth, or a pro-growth advocate supporting revisions to the comp plan?

A.): Slow growth, and I am the only slow-growth candidate. The other three are vocally pro-growth, although they use the meaningless phrases 'intelligent growth' or 'smart growth' -- buzz phrases used to hide a pro-growth, pro-annexation agenda.

If you want this economy to grow, overbuilding is not the way to do it; in fact, overbuilding is just a repeat of how we got to where we are. Supply and demand -- you want property values to rise? Limit the availability until the market catches up.

Real estate and land devel;opment are two entirely different concepts and can be at odds with each other. The real estate market must be protected and nurtured. The land developers can fall off a cliff as far as I'm concerned.
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12. Which member of the current council do you most respect/admire and why?

I like Kit McKeon and John Moore, although I don't agree with some of their votes. Moore in particular, for bringing to light things like the blank lease in the Sharky's debacle a few years back, plus his stance on demanding better clarity of terms in land development issues. Moore has been a constant advocate of due process, and for that he has been a bit of a hero of mine.