Island mayors demand support from Manatee County for tourism needs

The mayors of Anna Maria Island’s three cities and Longboat Key are demanding greater investment from Manatee County for the barrier islands’ infrastructure needs and services, citing tourism’s impact on the areas and planned development in both Manatee and Sarasota counties.

An infrastructure funding gap of $61.5 million is projected over the next 15 years, according to a lengthy report prepared by Anna Maria Mayor Dan Murphy, Bradenton Beach Mayor William Shearon, Holmes Beach Mayor Bob Johnson and Longboat Key Mayor Jack Duncan. The report lists infrastructure needs such as public safety, transportation, parks and recreation, public buildings and beaches and waterways.

The mayors plan on presenting their findings to the Manatee County Commission on Tuesday.

“We believe there is disproportionately high impact on our cities from tourism that places an undue burden on our resident taxpayers,” Dave Bullock, town manager of Longboat Key, said in an email. “The funding gap is calculated by estimating the cost of improvements for 15 years less all the revenue we expect to collect from all sources (including taxes on our residents). We are asking the county to help with one-third of that gap.”

Through the report, Shearon said island leadership is showing the island’s current situation and need.

“We’re justifying our need and asking for assistance, and I’m underlining the assistance because we’re not asking for the whole thing,” the Bradenton Beach mayor said. “We’re just asking for help because this is a continuous thing. It’s going to get worse.”

For several years now, officials on Anna Maria Island have mourned the drop in full-time residents who grew tired of the heavy congestion and noise problems on the 7-mile barrier island. Residents routinely complain that the island is losing its treasured position as an “Old Florida” family-oriented beach community. Home Sweet Home, a group aimed at recruiting new residents to the island, was formed to help attract people to live there — one of several efforts taken on by residents to protect its character.

According to the island mayors’ report, barrier island populations are not growing, but the demands on their infrastructure are because of visitors. The population of seasonal visitors and what officials call “day trippers” are at least 3.1 times greater than the permanent population, officials state in the report, and therefore the island municipalities must build and operate infrastructure and services for at least 3.1 times the resident population.

“Most tax dollars and things of that nature are divvied up by population, and our population (in the city of Anna Maria) — which is around 1,500 — are people that live here full-time. It doesn’t take into account all the other people that rent here and are in vacation rentals,” said Mayor Murphy. “They need parking spaces, they need streets, they need paving, they need adequate drainage just like the residents do. These are all benefits. We have to have all the amenities for them as well, yet when it comes to divvying up the taxes, they don’t count in the equation. When it comes to that, we are strapped to strictly the number of permanent residents.”

Manatee County Commissioner Carol Whitmore, a longtime resident on Anna Maria Island, sees a lot of the same persisting issues on the barrier islands from the years when she served as commissioner and mayor of Holmes Beach.

“It’s gotten maybe a little more magnified because the amount of tourism has increased. It’s nothing that I’m surprised at,” she said of the contents of the island mayors’ report. “I’m living both sides. I totally have an open mind and I have a grasp of how both of the players feel in this.”

Holmes Beach Mayor Johnson said Tuesday’s presentation is really an extension of the island mayors’ plea earlier this year in conection with the then-proposed half-cent sales tax and a fair distribution of wealth.

“Back in late summer when they were talking about the sales tax on the ballot, its distribution was by population and we went in and said, ‘Hey, we may only have 5,000 out on the islands, but we have to take care of 10- to 15,000 more each day. We just have a lot more people than we have population,” Johnson said. “A lot of those people are out here on vacations.”

Johnson said the report he and other island mayors have prepared provides more information about the nature of the island cities and the pressures placed on them. He doesn’t think there’s been a serious look at it by other officials.

“There’s no solution other than to investigate some options down the road would be my expectation,” the Holmes Beach mayor said. “We need to say ‘OK, this is something we ought to be looking at.’ That’s what I want to hear out of the county, and then I think we’ll have had a good meeting.”

This story was originally published December 2, 2016 at 5:01 PM with the headline "Island mayors demand support from Manatee County for tourism needs."