In Manatee County, progress and good deeds to celebrate

Here we are, five weeks away from a New Year and five positive developments in this community and state are worth celebrating now.

1. The public came through, voting for improvements in our school system and our county infrastructure in the November sales tax referendums. We could not keep ignoring either need. Neither of these votes were about luxuries, but about necessities. And community-building assets, like road repaving, park upgrades, school renovations — like functioning air conditioners. Yes, some of those could have been paid otherwise, but now we get a lot more. These are quality of life improvements that current budgets could never cover.

2. Admittedly, this is a work in progress, but it’s one essential ingredient to the transformation of Manatee County into a more interesting and attractive place. Our six urban corridors — State Road 70/53rd Avenue; Cortez Road, Manatee Avenue, First Street and U.S. 41 — need sprucing up to enliven our lifestyle. This month, Manatee County commissioners began encouraging that redevelopment by adopting amendments to the Land Development Code.

Now, with a Complete Streets section in the county’s Public Works Highway and Traffic Standards manual, the county can design those corridors to be friendly to cyclists and pedestrians as well as motorists. Promoting alternative modes of transportation besides automobiles is aimed at attracting the millennial generation to live, work and play here — and it’s a smart way to promote healthy lifestyles, too. Whether developers follow the county’s lead on this is anyone’s guess, but hopes are high.

3. Downtown Bradenton is poised for a significant transformation, too. An eight-story, $17 million hotel is set to be built on the old Manatee Players theater lot, this a Marriott-owned Spring Hill Suites — a high quality brand. The city has agreed to build a parking garage with retail space on the southwest corner of the City Hall parking lot. Downtown will be home to three new restaurants, two featuring Mexican fare and the other a popular Sage Biscuit doing great business at its Cortez Road diner. And City Hall is up for sale, hopefully to an enterprise that will elevate downtown even more.

4. The generosity of this community never ceases to amaze. There were some 400 volunteers who donated their time and talent to serve more than 1,000 medically needy individuals at the free and second annual Remote Area Medical clinic this month. November and December are the biggest months for food donations to the Food Bank of Manatee County, the holidays inspiring people to serve the needy. Last year, the Food Bank distributed 4.5 million pounds of food and expects to hit 4.8 million this year. Both are big numbers. Truly awesome.

5. There’s hope in politics, too, thanks to an influential lawmaker who stood up and announced his rejection of lobbyists, their money, their power broker ways — their dominance in Tallahassee. This politician announced to his entire delegation, the Florida House, that legislators had to do the same. His name is Richard Corcoran. He’s a Republican from Land O’Lakes, just north of Tampa. He’s the House speaker. “Too many lobbyists see themselves as the true power brokers of this process,” he stated in his inaugural speech a few days ago. “It all ends, and it all ends today.”

He’ll face stiff opposition from Gov. Rick Scott and Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart. “The Capitol should always be open for business,” Negron said in reaction to Corcoran’s mandate that lawmaker-sponsored spending projects be filed as stand-along bills by the opening day of the legislative session, March 7. No more sneaking in pet projects in omnibus bills compiled at session’s end — at least in the House. Kudos to Corcoran. This is a vital reform in Tallahassee’s infamous “pay to play” way of doing business.

This story was originally published November 26, 2016 at 11:16 AM with the headline "In Manatee County, progress and good deeds to celebrate."