Oust Manatee County commissioners, elect citizens not beholden to developers

Where's the money? For years our illustrious Board of County Commissioners have been telling us that growth is good, that all these new houses will bring in a lot of money from property taxes.

Well, here we are a few years and a couple of thousand houses later and now they say we need an increase in the sales tax.

So where's the money? Seems like the only thing all these new homes have brought to the area is traffic, and if you think it's bad now consider this. There are 23,000 approved home permits on the books now. That means a minimum of 46,000 more vehicles on the road.

In a few years we will not be talking about adding yet another bridge across the river, but filling it in, paving it over and adding traffic lanes.

I think it's about time we got rid of our rubber-stamp commissioners and replace them with someone who is not in the developers' pocket. I think that anyone who votes for an incumbent or anyone who is endorsed by developers would be like chickens voting for KFC.

These developers don't care about us or the environment. All they care about is building "luxury" homes and making more money. Take Carlos "Long Bar Pointe" Beruff, who wants to tear up acres of mangroves and dredge acres of sea grass so his rich friends will have a place to park their large yachts, and Pat Neal, who is building a commune for his family on Perico Island and doesn't want some pesky mangroves to block their view of the water.

I cannot wait to see the hit the environment will take if Carlos gets elected to the Senate.

So remember when you vote folks. Cluck, cluck, cluck.

William Roberts

Bradenton

This story was originally published May 8, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Oust Manatee County commissioners, elect citizens not beholden to developers ."