Developer’s interest in school board causes worlds to collide

Attend any public comment session during a Manatee County School Board meeting and be prepared to hear about a host of adversaries to public education in Manatee. State legislatures, testing companies, Republicans, Democrats, school administrators, teachers — they are all regular targets of citizen angst.

But none has attained such Voldemort-like status among those citizens as one group: The developers.

The woes of the district, with crowded schools in East Manatee and its just-scraping-by budget, are often attributed to homebuilders that bring people into the county but don’t want to pay their share.

So when one of the top home-building executives in the county applied to fill a vacant school board seat, public school advocates took notice.

Charles Tokarz, the chief financial officer and vice president for Medallion Home, has submitted his name to fill the empty seat on the School Board of Manatee County following Karen Carpenter’s departure. Gov. Rick Scott will make the appointment at his discretion.

Tokarz has not run for public office in Manatee County before, although he did apply to serve on the Citizens Oversight Committee for Infrastructure Sales Tax this spring, a position he was not selected to fill.

Tokarz’s partnership with former U.S. Senate candidate, Medallion Home CEO and Scott ally Carlos Beruff has many declaring Tokarz the likely appointee. Beruff was appointed this May by Scott to chair the Constitution Revision Commission.

“I would say he (Beruff) definitely has very good odds of succeeding and getting the candidate he wants into that position,” said Rosalie Shaffer, the president of the League of Women Voters of Manatee County.

Tokarz did not reply to multiple voice messages and emails requesting comment for this story, and a reporter who visited his office at Medallion Home was told Tokarz was getting ready to leave for the day and would not comment.

Impact Fees

The School Board of Manatee County has butted heads with developers over who should bear the cost of educating the increasing number of students brought to the county by new development.

The school district says builders need to cough up their fair share. Builders say they already pay taxes and take on the risk, so having to give the district thousands of dollars for every house they sell cuts too far into their profit margin. The battle over school impact fees, the rates levied on developers for the cost of increasing the student population, has been ongoing for years.

Tokarz’s employer, Medallion Home Gulf Coast Inc., is a member of the Manatee-Sarasota Building Industry Association. The association’s CEO, Jon Mast, has spoken on behalf of his organization against impact fees at several school board meetings, and Beruff has spoken against impact fees at several Board of County Commissioners meetings.

The school board established new impact fee rates in May. If approved by the county commissioners, builders will have to pay the school district $6,147 whenever they build a new home in the county. That money can be used by the district to expand existing facilities, build new schools and make purchases to offset student population growth.

The new fees will be a steep increase from the roughly $4,000 rate builders currently pay, and developers will likely yearn for the 2009-15 era, when school impact fee collection was suspended entirely.

Shaffer said a candidate who has ties to the building industry could present problems for many residents.

“Most citizens want someone dedicated to the success of the school system and the education of students,” Shaffer said. “When there are factors that may cause influence in that person’s decision-making, people get concerned.”

School Board Vice Chairman John Colon, himself originally a Scott appointee, voted in favor of re-establishing impact fees earlier this year. Colon laughed at the idea that developers have an undue influence over the board, and he said while powerful builders like Beruff and his associates were constituents, they are no different than any other constituent.

“I’m not voting to do a moratorium on impact fees,” Colon said. “Put that in the article, I don’t care.”

Friends in high places

If Tokarz receives the appointment from Scott, all three top executives at Medallion Home will serve as governor appointees. While chairman of the Board of Trustees at the State College of Florida, Beruff led a successful effort to eliminate tenure for faculty, making SCF the only one of Florida’s 28 state colleges not to offer continuing contracts to faculty. In January 2016, Scott appointed Peter Logan, president of Medallion Homes, to join Beruff on the board.

Beruff did not respond to phone calls requesting comment for this story.

Carpenter said she doesn’t think business connections would play as strong a role in this appointment. She said she thinks Scott will be looking for someone who is strong on charter schools and school choice.

In 2015, when Scott appointed Colon to replace Mary Cantrell after she died, the Bradenton Herald reported that community members, including home developer Pat Neal, helped conduct interviews and made recommendations to the governor’s office. A spokeswoman for Scott’s office disputed the role that local groups played in the past and said Scott alone would be making the decision.

“Gov. Scott will review the candidates and make the appointment based on who he believes will best serve Manatee County families and students,” spokeswoman Kerri Wyland said.

Scott’s office said there is no statutory time frame for filling the seat, and vacant seats are filled at the governor’s discretion.

Misty Servia, who also has applied for the position and ran for the District 3 seat in the 2016 election, said she would be interviewing with State Education Commissioner Pam Stewart on June 23.

Carpenter, who served on the school board from 2010-17, said she had never heard of Tokarz. But, she said, although Beruff and Neal wield large influence in the county, their ultimate goal was a strong school system.

“The focus here is to get the best possible person for the district on that School Board, and those two guys, regardless of what people have said about them, they want a good quality education system so they can sell their product,” Carpenter said. “And we are not there yet.”

In Tokarz’s application for the Citizen’s Oversight Committee for Infrastructure Sales Tax, he gave a brief explanation for his interest in the role.

“I’m starting to wind down my professional career and want to donate my talent and experience for public service,” his application states.

This story was originally published June 10, 2017 at 11:32 AM with the headline "Developer’s interest in school board causes worlds to collide."