STEVE REID
Editor & Publisher
sreid@lbknews.com
Do you sense the lack of enthusiasm? Do you hear the dull thud and the hollow support for 
those who want a library on Longboat Key?
This idea has grown so tiring, it has taken so long and a library makes so little sense I keep waiting for the intelligent arguments for a library other than, “It is free and you do not understand ‘today’s libraries’”.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret, but it’s really not a secret when you think about it – it’s the most obvious thought on Longboat Key: The library fantasy, financing and fundraising needs to stop.
I’m going to do a dive into the history of the concept of the Library on Longboat and why it represents the very opposite of what would enhance our island.
The reason is we are building it for all the wrong reasons. Let’s go back in time.
The art of the idea…
The idea started as a need for a cultural community art center about 20 years ago. The plan was a somewhat nebulous, but not overly nebulous, idea to replace the vibrant art center that functioned for about 40 years on the north end of the island in the Village.
For decades, Longboaters and visitors could take photography, drawing, sculpting, kiln and painting classes and there would be wonderful openings of the artists’ work with wine and cheese and a jazz band and then the community would congregate and there were lectures and events that were always fine arts-oriented. The level was what you would find at a small college arts program.
The art center was engaging and opened up new life for people who may have been in a corporate environment or busy raising kids and didn’t have a time to truly tap into a creative part of themselves. Socially it was invaluable. It became part of the very fabric of Longboat Key.
Artistic gentrification
The Ringling took this thriving operation over because like many community-run organizations it needed a rehab. The facility had grown old, the facilities needed an influx of money and there was no organizational wherewithal or entity to make that happen.
But the Ringling, after rehabbing the facility, almost used it cynically like a fundraising outpost rather than a vibrant community enhancement. It became clear they were trying to cross-pollinate with their main operation and I think they thought, “Well, look at the Zip code where many of our best patrons come from; why not create engagement?” But the Ringling-run art center truly was not serving the community in the same way the historical and original art center did for decades.
The Ringling left and unfortunately residential development took over as is the way in Florida where homes are an invasive vine filling any fertile void.
The Vision is formed
Next, former Mayors Jim Brown and George Spoll and other past commissioners got extremely involved and surveyed the community. It was not ad hoc; the Town used the Urban Land Institute.
A plan was forged by the Town of Longboat Key with the Urban Land Institute, and the conclusion was Longboat Key lacked a true center. It lacked a place where the residents could gather and do things together both literally and on a geographical level. It was also realized the Town needed to replace the lost activities that had taken place for decades in the Art Center. The Town wanted a new cultural arts and community center so residents could undertake activities and various pursuits and make their final years and experiences on Longboat Key profound and interesting and social.
The Town studied this problem for quite some time and really the outcome is intuitive; it isn’t some crazy idea that we found out. Longboaters want a place where they can gather to pursue artistic activities like pottery and creative writing and photography. Things they don’t want to do at home and they want to do in a social setting with instructors and with friends.
The Town also realized residents like the offerings at the Education Center now at Temple Beth Israel. Thousands of people go through the Education Center every winter, and Susan Goldfarb has run the center for more than 30 years bringing high-level academia to our island every season. But here is a secret I am going to let you in on – despite Susan’s eternal youthful looks, she has no plans on running the center into the afterlife – and there is no succession plan.
Part of the idea was to work with Susan Goldfarb in developing some programming where the Education Center could operate or down the road have classes at such a facility. And then lectures and meetings and all kinds of public get-togethers would happen there.
So the town was going to build and design basically an art and education and cultural center. It was going to either have Susan Goldfarb or someone of her skill level help manage it and it would be a place in the middle of town where everyone would gather for such events. But a Sarasota County Public Library is not that place.
Middle of the bell curve
Over the past weeks, I have poured through the so-called programming and classes at several other County library facilities. The offerings are interesting and useful, but not at the level of the Longboat Education Center’s classes or of the former Art Center.
The County Library’s art is more akin to the arts and crafts you would find at Michaels and spend an afternoon with your grandchild cobbling together. The public libraries are all about scrap booking and lectures on the history of the region or other intellectually light material. You will not be engaged with deep discussions on literature, poetry, mythology, religion, politics or psychology. The folks instructing will likely have less education than your average Longboater. The least interesting are the pragmatic offerings in how to use digital technology (a subsidized Geek squad of enthusiastic helpers) and endless classes on tax help. Ugh.
As much as the word “free” sounds compelling, the County Library is far from ideal for the needs of Longboat Key residents and visitors. It does not make sense and it’ll be an overbuilt building that will under serve our population and we will be stuck with it an ordinary county building plopped down on one of the few open spaces created when the Town developed the Town Center Green.
Fourth Quarter fundraising…
To add to the strange roll-out, the Town Manager is now the ever optimistic Tony Robbinsesque fundraiser tasked with cajoling three million dollars in donations to build additional enhancements to the already $11 million project so Longboat can have a large room and a porch with an overhang to call its own. The County is funding the $11 million main Library.
And the fundraising results? That in and of itself tells a story.
Town Manager Tipton told me last June that the $3 million would have to be raised by August 2024. There was a deadline and if Longboat did not raise the additional $3 million, we would be stuck with a generic County library.
Well, all of a sudden, a month ago I got an announcement and it said the fundraising has kicked off for the library and it reads like Groundhog Day as if there’s a denial that they already went through all their contacts who didn’t want to pony up two to three million dollars for a porch with an overhang and one big room that Longboaters can use. This renewed effort is like the Chiefs fourth quarter Super Bowl push.
Are they tripping?
But this is the whole sad problem: Trying to raise two to three million dollars for some enhancements to justify the project is not the way to go about solving what was supposed to be one of the more exciting chapters of Longboat Key’s evolution.
This current Town Commission is in love with this free library idea and it will forever end the chance to build what we really want and need. They act like former Town Manager Tom Harmer found gold in the County when he forged the plan about four years ago and we should all trip over it because it’s free and who turns down a free library. But free simply means general, less wealthy taxpayers are subsidizing an $11 million library for us. That alone feels irresponsible in a time of massive social program gutting and cutting. It feels like the Town leaders feel proud to have brought some pork back home and brag about it.
Tom Harmer and the Commission got so giddy over the idea of the free gold that they tripped over the gold, bonked their heads and now they have just fallen in place on this library idea as if it’s ‘problem solved.’
A small parable: Summit Fever
The disconnect between the Commission and Town Manager and what residents think and feel on this Library issue is profound.
The commission is suffering from summit fever.
It is as if they used up all the oxygen and they’re close to the top of K2. The danger of not reaching the top is they will feel like failures and they’ve spent so much money and effort and years getting there. Now, the bad decisions begin – instead of staying put or going down the slope and regrouping and coming back another day, this Commission and manager are going to trudge on and try to get to summit late in the day starved for oxygen. Their minds are blurry. I think I hear them coughing. I think I heard a last breath. I think the Commission and the library might perish on that slope on K2 for trying too hard without enough oxygen in the room. The Sherpas went down a long time ago; they should have listened to the Sherpas. But instead, we see them wearily trudging blindly on that cold miserable slope near the summit of K2 and soon we see the manager and the mayor clutching to the library as they gasp for help.
This editorial is like a final radio message to the Mayor and Manager at the top of K2:
“Guys, you’ve gone way beyond your limits. It’s getting dark. Night is falling and there’s going to be a big storm; please come down you don’t have to summit! You don’t have to deliver a library on Longboat Key! You are successes even without reaching the top of K2; even without a public library we love you. Please come back to us. Your family will thank you. Come back and join us. Your oxygen has run out and you no longer are aware of your actions… please return.”
They disappeared into the night and endless frozen expanse of sky.
A quizzical yawn
My best thought and my best advice and I think it represents most residents is let’s make the existing Town Center Green as beautiful as possible and utilize this community asset of open space.
And then I think we need to go back to the drawing table and look at the kind of activities Longboaters want to do, which is art, cultural and educational. Then we should figure out how to build an aesthetically pleasing and architecturally significant building that serves exactly those needs.
Deviating from that previously adopted mission and vision is really not at all what the Commission should be doing. They were supposed to follow an adopted mission and vision plan, not go down a path of just building something because it’s free.
We need to build amenities that dramatically enhance either the lifestyle or the property values of our residents. A library will do neither. Just ask any smart realtor and they’ll tell you that saying a new county library is going in and going to gobble up half the park will not be a selling point on Longboat Key. It will only generate a quizzical yawn.
I do not support just throwing a huge piece of development on a public parcel because it’s free. Turning something down that’s free often makes one stronger and healthier.
Don’t build a compromise
So as my wife would say, it’s time right now for the town “to put a pin in it.”
It’s better to wait, develop exactly what we are looking for, something where residents say, “I could really see myself going there.”
If this Commission and the management doesn’t have the wherewithal to take the information of what Longboat really wants and figure out how to monetize and help operate or get someone to operate a community cultural arts center, then do nothing. Build nothing and leave the park alone.
A library was never the dream.
If I plan to put a fountain in the center of my hibiscus garden, I’m not going to settle for a barbecue grill from the County just because it is free, just because grills are useful and people like the smell of brisket.
Not on Longboat. If you cannot embody the dream, if you cannot create specifically what the residents said they need, then why do it at all?
Why should the Town exist if we simply go generic?
Why aren’t we part of the county if we’re just going to emulate the county beach and parks and roll out of facilities? All we are doing is adding a layer of government and cost.
Our existence as the Town of Longboat Key is predicated on being representative and nuanced for our residents. And that includes a real arts center and cultural community center that is curtailed for us.
My instinct is we are better than this. And I’m not saying that as some weird Elon Musk edict to cut government spending. I’m saying it because we can possibly spend more and design and build something we want and need
And if we can’t do that, then we are simply wasting money and that I am against. We need to be strategic with our investments and we should be building to make Longboat Key the most sought after community in the nation for next generation. That comes from self-consciously perfecting our island, not building a $14 million compromise.
