Hunzeker

Four years ago, the Manatee County Commission made a very controversial move to essentially buy county administrator Ed Hunzeker out of his deferred retirement in order to keep him on for five more years, costing taxpayers more than $300,000. It was a contentious vote, but Hunzeker had the support of both key members of the business community and a majority of board members. Apparently, Hunzeker–and some of those same supporters–had designs on him sticking around even longer. Right now, however, a majority of the new board may have other ideas.

On Tuesday, the BOCC meeting erupted into a referendum on whether or not to sack Hunzeker when his contract expires in January of 2018 with commissioners largely split over the issue. Chairwoman Vanessa Baugh, who has butted heads with Hunzeker several times as of late, had inserted an agenda item that would authorize the county to begin conducting a national search for Hunzeker's replacement. Despite the fact that the issue had been brought up several times in recent months–and debated in editorials like this one way back in October of 2015–some commissioners expressed shock that the matter would even be discussed.

Commissioner Carol Whitmore, who was one of Hunzeker's biggest benefactors last time around, quickly came to his defense, peeling off a litany of successes the county has enjoyed under Hunzeker's watch, including avoiding the many financial pitfalls that other counties experienced during the run-up to the Great Recession. Whitmore noted that the reserves that the county had built up during that time were set to be spent down by 2018 and argued that bringing in an "outsider" who would inherit those challenges would be unwise. She also said that she had being inundated with feedback from the community that Hunzeker should stay on.


DiSabatino has been a maverick since joining the board in 2010, often ruffling the feathers of Hunzeker's supporters on the commission. For her efforts, she has been isolated and marginalized, with her fellow commissioners routinely punishing her by denying her the chair rotation. Smith, who was elected in 2014, has been her most common ally, and has also felt the push-back of the majority on a somewhat regular basis.

Baugh's position has seen the most movement. First elected in 2012, she came to the BOCC with no experience in government and a very limited understanding of the issues that came before the board. Her victory over current school board member John Colon was largely driven by strong financial support from the development industry, mostly entities affiliated with Lakewood Ranch honchos, Schroeder Manatee Ranch. For most of her four-year term, Baugh made very few waves and could be counted on to vote in favor of the status quo.

In recent months, however, and especially since winning a competitive race for re-election in an open primary this August, Baugh has shocked many of those who closely follow BOCC proceedings by becoming much more assertive, while displaying the sort of political courage too rarely displayed by other board members. Indeed, suggesting that Hunzeker, a darling of local developers who have seen special approvals and comp plan amendments doled out like candy on Halloween during his tenure, be put out to pasture, is going against the grain to say the least. At Tuesday's meeting, Baugh claimed that she'd recently been told by influential forces that if she didn't drop the idea of putting out a search for candidates, her political career would be over. That is not difficult to imagine. Kudos to her for bucking the good old boys.

The disagreement here really boils down to a matter of perspectives. For commissioners whose fates rise and fall with the whims of the Chamber of Commerce crowd, Hunzeker is an ideal administrator. His foremost concern seems to be keeping the movers and shakers in the business community happy, believing that their rising tides will lift all ships in our harbor. It's not surprising that commissioners like Whitmore and Benac would be receiving a positive feedback loop from their supporters. One look at their campaign contributions would suggest that the people who have kept them in office are largely the same crowd clamoring for Hunzeker to stay.

It’s just as understandable that DiSabatino and Smith would be hearing the opposite. Commissioner DiSabatino's District 4 is largely populated by forgotten small businesses who've seen their burgeoning CRA dissolved in favor of a much larger area that will include newly developed coastal communities, while most of their pleas for support (increased police patrols, enhanced infrastructure, etc.) have been ignored. She has also earned a reputation as the rare representative who actually listens to everyday constituents and is willing to go to bat for them on issues in which their rights run up against the will of special interests.

Commissioner Smith's District 2 includes many of the most impoverished and underserved areas of our county. His constituents rarely witness let alone share in the sort of successes many others champion. Too often, Smith is left fighting for crumbs in the budget on issues like funding so that children in his community might enjoy the benefit of a sidewalk on their walk to the bus stop, while developers asking to squeeze one more unit onto every acre or destroy a few more precious wetlands are given carte blanche.


Rather than put it on the 2012 presidential ballot, during which turnout would have been high and no additional costs would have been incurred, Hunzeker pushed to put it on a special, off-year, summer election that cost taxpayers $260,000. Despite an expensive, hospital-funded PAC campaign telling voters the referendum was for a property tax reduction–a myth that Hunzeker himself perpetuated at numerous public speaking engagements–the 13 percent of voters who turned out, turned it away nearly 2-1.


The county has also done a very poor job in the area of transportation management, defiantly focusing the lion's share of resources on an ever increasingly-costly extension of 44th Avenue. The project will connect the islands all the way to Lakewood Ranch–much to the delight of politically powerful developers–while largely ignoring the grid-locked north-south arteries that plague the tens of thousands of citizens who live in or regularly have to traverse our urban corridors.

Hunzeker's notoriously poor relationship with Manatee County Sheriff Brad Steube can be seen as another strike against his management style. Steube has perennially had to come before the county hat in hand, asking that he be given the resources necessary to patrol the ever-growing population and miles and miles of suburban sprawl that tax his limited resources, usually to be turned away with little more than a fraction of what is needed. The same goes for the county's EMS department, which has seen rampant turnover, dangerous working conditions and increased arrival times because of a stubborn reluctance to properly fund emergency services.

County taxpayers may not have seen their property tax rates increase in recent years, but increased assessments combined with reductions in services and maddening traffic issues equate to a downgrade in quality of life that has too often come at the expense of subsidizing the true cost of new development. School impact fees are recommended by the school board but set by the county, and the asinine moratorium on those fees that existed since 2009 has left the taxpayers on the hook for the $80 million cost of the new high school that fast-paced development in the county's northeast corridor has left us with. This was an entirely-foreseeable situation that again equates to a lack of direction, the results of which have been put back on the taxpayer in the form of still another sales tax.

Finally, there is the employee culture, which has seen many of the most qualified county staff members axed to make room for employees who are less likely to stray from the approved script. The loss of institutional knowledge has been a big blow to good government, while setting a disturbing tone as to what it takes to survive long enough to make it to your retirement. It has been made clear that the county is run from the top down and those who are not on board with the status quo are unwelcome and easily disposed of. This sort of autocracy rarely produces the sort of diverse perspectives and competing debates that highlight the most high-functioning governments that give taxpayers the most value for their dollar.

Yes, there are some loud voices who have done very well in the current status quo and would like to see it remain intact. However, there are many less-heard citizens who are not happy with the way things have been managed in Manatee County and would strongly prefer a different management style, as well as a less-compliant board that is not afraid to rein in an administrator who tries to run amok.