Commission turns down Michael Drake’s bid for five years, wants visitor counts and financials, and BJ Bishop asks whether the society can survive at all.
—For 40 years the Longboat Key Historical Society had no home. Now it has one, a little 1930s linen cottage under the live oaks on the Town Center Green, and the Town Commission has made clear it wants to see the society earn the right to keep it.
—At its Oct. 19 workshop, the commission agreed to give the society a new lease on the cottage site. The old one ran out in November 2025. But commissioners turned down President Michael Drake’s request for another five-year term, backed a two-year deal with reporting requirements, and spent most of the discussion asking whether the organization is alive enough to deserve even that.
—Commissioner BJ Bishop pushed hardest. She followed up after the meeting with written questions on the society’s board, its meetings, its membership and whether its president still lives on the island. Drake’s answers, dated Oct. 27, are now in the commission’s packet.
—The lease is on the consent agenda for the commission’s Monday, Nov. 2 regular meeting. Consent items pass together on a single vote with no discussion unless a commissioner pulls one for debate.
—A Short Leash, Not a Long Lease
—The proposed lease keeps rent at $10 a year. It gives the society a two-year base term with three optional one-year renewals, five years at most. Each renewal is the town’s call alone, at its “sole discretion.”
—It also adds accountability the 2020 lease didn’t have. The society would owe the town quarterly reports on how many days it was open and how many visitors came through the door, plus an annual financial report.
—Town Manager George Landry framed the choice at the workshop. The commission could approve a new lease or leave the old one expired, in which case he and Assistant Town Manager Isaac Brownman would “take the necessary measures” that come with an expired lease.
—The commission chose the lease. Nobody chose five years.
—The Only One Who Signed the First Lease
—Bishop opened the questioning by noting her own history with the cottage.
—“I’m the only one sitting up here who signed the last lease,” she said.
—Then she turned to Drake. “One of my concerns, Mike, is you’ve been carrying this full tilt by yourself, it appears. I don’t see a lot of board members here in the audience to give you some support and back up,” Bishop said. “I’m wondering what the status is with the Historical Society, because for you and your wife, this is a lot on one plate.”
—Drake said the society has a three-member board. The other two members, Cathy Meldahl and Stephanie Claussen, have day jobs and couldn’t attend, he said, adding that the town had only called him about the meeting the Friday before.
—“Sometimes I have felt like it’s been just me doing it all,” Drake said. “And knowing what I know today, to get us to where we’re at, I would still do it, because I think this community should have a historical society.”
—“Not a Viable Organization”
—When Bishop came back for a second round, after a short fight with her microphone (“What continues to concern me is my inability to turn on the microphone”), she got to her main point.
—“The one thing that concerns me is the viability of the Longboat Key Historic Society with an active, involved membership,” Bishop said. “And right now, you, your wife and two other board members is not a viable organization to have all of this in front of you. So I guess I’ll be looking for some viability of the Historic Society.”
—Drake said things are moving. Visitors fill out a contact form, donations have come in, and “our traction in the last three weeks is beyond anything else that I’ve seen since I got involved on this level with the Historical Society.”
—Bishop’s Questions, Drake’s Answers
—Bishop didn’t leave it at the workshop. Her follow-up questions, summarized by Brownman under the heading “Regarding the viability of the Longboat Key Historic Society,” drew a written response from Drake dated Oct. 27. It’s the most detailed look yet at how the society runs.
—The board. Drake listed four directors: himself as president, Meldahl as treasurer and secretary, Claussen as a director, and Alan Moore as vice president, marked “Just appointed.” He wrote that he has been talking to others since the workshop, and that “it is difficult to recruit members and board members without the lease agreement in place.”
—The members. “The LBKHS has had around 125 members in the past,” Drake wrote, but the society “lost the computer with a lot of data due to the flood waters of October 2024.” The membership drive starts in November 2026.
—The meetings. Asked for a list of board meetings from the past year, Drake wrote: “The Board has not met in person for a while; I only have had phone conversations with the Board as things arise. Going forward, we will be meeting at the museum on a monthly basis.”
—Where Drake lives. Bishop asked whether the fact that Drake no longer lives on Longboat Key affects the society’s viability. “As far as my personal status of not living on the island after 41 years of living on the island, absolutely has no negative bearing on the vitalness of the LBKHS future,” he wrote.
—The Photos Waiting at Town Hall
—One of Bishop’s questions concerned an account that had reached a commissioner.
—“Someone reached out last winter regarding photos and other historic items that they wanted to turn over to the society, but after attempts to reach Michael Drake went unanswered, they brought the items to the Town with instructions that we keep them until a viable organization is available to provide them to.”
—So the town is holding donated island history until it decides the society qualifies to take it.
—Drake identified the would-be donor as former resident Rusty Chinnis. He wrote that he spoke with Chinnis at a Longbeach Village meeting in November 2025, before the museum reopened, while Chinnis “was in the throes of departing the island.” He believes Chinnis said he would give the items to the Town Clerk’s office.
—“We are happy to come and retrieve the items so that we can display them at the museum,” Drake wrote. “We are OPEN!”
—Ten Dollars a Year, Six Hours a Week
—Vice Mayor Penny Gold was blunt about the last five years.
—“It was originally signed in 2020 and really nothing’s happened for almost five years,” Gold said. “When you look at the original lease, it says to promptly and diligently and in good faith keep the place open to the public. And I’ve seen none of that happen until just recently. And then it’s only six hours a week.”
—“For $10 a year, whatever the town is benefiting from this, I’m not sure the public is really benefiting from it,” she said.
—Gold also pointed out that the old lease required the society to notify the town three months before it expired. That deadline passed last year, and the renewal “was never brought to us in a timely way.”
—“I know some of it was COVID, but that was four years ago now,” Gold said. “And so it’s really just been dormant.”
—Drake called the concern legitimate. He said COVID was a big part of the delay, along with his wife’s health and two board members who were “very inactive.” He said both have now committed to “give me half of what I put into it, which is every day.”
—“I know that’s the past,” Drake said. “I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I know it’s not a locomotive coming at me.”
—Gold wasn’t convinced. “After five years with no fundraising, I’m concerned that you may be a little optimistic about what you can accomplish at this point,” she said.
—The Hours Are Going Up
—Drake said the cottage reopened this spring, in March, April and May, on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., closed for the summer, and reopened in October on the same schedule. He said that schedule “actually exceeds what we’ve done in the past as the society.”
—The new lease asks for more. It sets a minimum of Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., closed on town holidays and from June 1 through Sept. 30. That’s nine hours a week instead of six. The lease allows longer hours if demand grows, and Drake said he wants that too.
—Show Us the Books
—Commissioner Steve Branham asked whether the society, a 501(c)(3), has its IRS Form 990 on file. Drake said Meldahl is handling it.
—Branham asked whether the society had raised money recently. “That’s correct,” Drake said, meaning it hadn’t.
—“I think it would be useful for us to understand the magnitude of your issues if we saw a financial report,” Branham said. He added that he liked “the idea of the lease having a little more teeth in it to look for periodic reports and to make sure that things are done as they should be.”
—Drake said insurance has been another holdup. “Without a lease, we can’t get insurance,” he said. He has an agent ready to write a policy, but the agent needs a lease. The new lease requires $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate in general liability coverage, with the town named as an additional insured.
—Commissioner Gary Coffin struck a friendlier tone but asked for more paperwork. “I don’t think we should lose sight of the fact that what he has in there is historical, and it means something to our town and our community,” Coffin said. “Being cooperative is what my main thrust is about here.”
—He asked for a business plan and for the society to recruit volunteers. “We’re not going to run a credit check or anything like that,” Coffin said. “We just want to know what your plans are and how you plan to fulfill your obligation to us and the town and the residents.”
—The final lease includes the quarterly reports and the annual financial report. It does not spell out a business plan or a volunteer recruitment requirement.
—A Museum Without a Mailbox
—Drake’s most frustrating problem is a mailing address.
—He said he has spent two years working with the local postmaster to get the U.S. Postal Service to recognize 602 Bay Isles Road, the cottage’s address. It still doesn’t.
—“We did a mailing, and we sent out a really nice letter to past donors,” Drake said. “And people sent checks. And they got them back.”
—A few donors forwarded their checks to his personal address, he said, but most said they’d send them again once the society has an address. His written answers to Bishop say the membership drive was postponed for the same reason.
—Then there’s safety. “If we had a medical emergency at 602 Bay Isles Road, what a fiasco it would turn out to be,” Drake said.
—The society used a post office box in the past, he said, but serious donors look at a P.O. box differently. Branham offered a counterpoint, saying the Longboat Key Foundation “has always done business out of a post office box. So that doesn’t seem to slow down our contributors.” He suggested a P.O. box as a stopgap.
—“You know, I’m not a crybaby,” Drake said. “I’m pretty tenacious.”
—Why Drake Wanted Five Years
—Drake said he would sign the lease as written, but asked for one change: five years instead of two.
—“When you go to donors, no matter who you are as a 501(c)(3), one of the first three questions is the sustainability,” he said. “To tell a large donor that we have just a two-year lease, basically, is how it’s written today, it’s a deterrent for that large check writer.”
—He pointed out that he had agreed to the new reporting requirements. “I think it’s fair,” he said. If the society doesn’t keep its promises, the town can cancel the lease “whether it’s a five-year lease or a two-year lease.”
—Urgency Over Security
—Not one commissioner argued for five years, and three said no outright.
—Commissioner Sarah Karon praised what Drake had built and argued that a short lease would help him. She said she read Ralph Hunter’s From Calusas to Condominiums when she moved to the island.
—“So many much-loved tourist and snowbird destinations in Florida lose their heritage, and once you lose it, very difficult to get it back,” Karon said. “What you’ve created is an impressive archive, and you’re to be congratulated for holding on to it, cultivating it, curating it.”
—She said the society’s mission “right now feels to me it’s mostly about archiving,” without programs to reach the generations of families who have been coming to Longboat Key for decades.
—“Your sense of urgency needs to be extreme at this point,” Karon said. She wouldn’t support a five-year lease. “I think the sense of urgency is going to work in your favor.”
—“This past five years has shown that no matter how much of yourself you’ve dedicated to this project, you can’t do it all yourself,” she said.
—Commissioner Nick Gladding called Drake “a very valuable asset” but said, “I would disagree to the five-year. I think you can still go to your donors.”
—Mayor Debra Williams tied the two-year term to the library going up next door. “With the initial two-year lease, that kind of puts you close to where the library will be finished, if things go our way,” she said. “Then it’s either have something that’s got momentum or it’s gone nowhere, and then it gets reevaluated in two years.”
—Who Pays If the Cottage Has to Move
—Drake asked for one other change and lost that one too.
—Moving the cottage again, “whether you move it 10 feet or 180 feet or halfway down the island like we did,” will cost $20,000 to $30,000, Drake said. Since any move would be the town’s decision, he asked the town to pay for it.
—The lease says no. If future development of the Town Center property means the cottage has to move, the town can give 60 days’ notice and the society “shall arrange for and assume all costs associated with that relocation.”
—Drake said the current spot was chosen on purpose. He and the late former Mayor George Spoll “spent literally hours” with the commission at the time, against a staff that “wanted it 180 degrees opposite of where it is today.” Tucked into the north corner near the Public Tennis Center, he said, the cottage leaves the rest of the green free to develop.
—Karon agreed. The cottage, she said, “certainly doesn’t feel at this time like it’s in the way of any potential future plans for the park.”
—Drake also brought up the long-planned pedestrian bridge over the retention canal between the tennis center and the green, which would land right beside the cottage and has been on hold for years. One commissioner said the Friends of Tennis are now talking about it, and that if their November tournament does well, “we may have some money for you.”
—A Library Next Door
—The future of the cottage is tied to the Sarasota County library planned for the same green. That project is up for second reading on the same Nov. 2 agenda.
—Brownman said town staff, the society and Sarasota County’s Libraries and Historical Resources Department met at the cottage earlier this year to look over the collection. The county did not commit to housing any of the society’s materials in the new library, he said, because its space is already spoken for. But county officials “liked the idea of having a historical museum or historical art center nearby.”
—Karon pointed to a 2028 library opening as the society’s target. Partnering with county librarians and historical resource professionals, she told Drake, means “you won’t have to create all on your own.”
—Forty Years Without a Home
—Drake asked commissioners to remember where the society started.
—“In 1980, when Ralph and Claire Hunter founded this historical society, from 1980 until 2020, the historical society never had a permanent home on this island,” he said. “That in itself speaks volumes on why it’s difficult to come from where we’ve been to where we’re at today.”
—The Hunters, founders of the Longboat Observer, started the society to save the island’s documents, photographs and memorabilia. Ralph Hunter later gave the society the rights to his pictorial history, From Calusas to Condominiums. For years the collection had no home of its own. It moved from an office at Whitney Beach Plaza to a storage unit to members’ homes as rents went up and money ran short.
—The cottage itself has moved more than the archive. It’s the smaller of two late-1930s cottages from the old Whitney Beach resort on the north end, where it served as the linen building. It later sat on the Longboat Key Center for the Arts property. When the arts center site was sold in 2017, the two cottages went to the society. The larger one was sold to the Chiles Group to help pay for the smaller one’s rescue.
—In November 2020 the commission picked a site on the Town Center Green and approved a five-year, $10-a-year lease. On Jan. 13, 2021, the linen cottage rolled 6.3 miles down Gulf of Mexico Drive under police escort from 521 Broadway to its new home.
—Then the waiting started. Opening targets were announced for early 2021, again for October 2021 and again for spring 2023. By Drake’s own account, the museum “reopened” to the public this past spring.
—What Visitors Find Inside
—Drake invited commissioners to come see the place during open hours. “You’ll see where we’ve come,” he said. “We’ve got beautiful historical photos in the place.”
—He credited a volunteer in the audience with building up the society’s Facebook and Instagram. The Facebook page now has 900 followers, he said. He said a recent newspaper article brought in “some pretty great traction of people coming through.”
—What Happens Next
—Nov. 2: The lease goes to the commission as consent agenda item 4C, recommended for approval and signature by the town manager. It passes without discussion unless a commissioner pulls it. Bishop’s questions and Drake’s written answers are in the packet.
—November: Drake says the membership drive starts this month, with monthly board meetings at the museum to follow.
—This season: Drake wants to bring back the society’s fish fry, a tradition that goes back decades. Branham said he went to one at Mar Vista five or six years ago. “It was a great event.” Drake would like the next one on the green, with the pavilion and live music. Asked whether the Longboat Key Foundation was working with the society, he said “Not yet.” He promised to reach out to Kiwanis and other island groups “one by one.”
—Every quarter: Reports to the town on days open and visitor counts. Every year: A financial report.
—Late 2028: The two-year base term ends around the time the library is expected to open. The society must ask for a renewal in writing at least three months before the term ends. The town doesn’t have to grant it.
—If It Doesn’t Work Out
—Either side can end the lease with 90 days’ written notice. When the lease ends, the society has 30 days to remove the cottage at its own cost and restore the site. If it doesn’t, the town can remove the cottage and send the society the bill.
—Commissioners said they don’t expect it to come to that, and several said they want to help. But Gold’s question still hangs over the cottage: what the public is getting for its $10-a-year lease.
—VISIT
—The Longboat Key Historical Society museum is in the Whitney linen cottage on the Town Center Green, near the Public Tennis Center. It’s currently open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., through the season. The new lease would move the opening time to 10 a.m.
