Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone

Coryea was ostensibly fired for "wasting tens of millions of taxpayer dollars“ when the county purchased a large tract of east county land that was needed for facilities that could service the tremendous growth the county commission had been routinely facilitating for developers by way of comp plan amendments, rezones, and other land-use concessions.

These giveaways maximize the amount of profit that can be squeezed from each development, but they also further stress our overtaxed infrastructure, including roadways that are already far beyond capacity in many parts of the county. Developers want the former and don’t care one bit if that comes at the expense of the quality of life of existing residents.

Developers also wanted the land the county purchased in that deal and seemingly decided that if they couldn’t use it to fatten their bottom lines, the landowner shouldn’t be able to sell it elsewhere, especially to an enterprise such as the county government, which they somewhat understandably view as one of their subsidiaries, seeing as how they’ve bought most of the people who run it.

As I’ve explained previously, the reality of that land deal was that the county was able to secure a uniquely large, continuous land parcel that also happened to abut its east county landfill. Doing so prevented the county from having to find and purchase multiple parcels of piecemeal land that would be needed as these same developers continued to build out the eastern corridor at breakneck speed, which it would have done at future land prices, provided they were able to find suitable parcels that were available. It also extended the life of the landfill, pushing out the time before it would need to look for another one, which is never an easy endeavor. All were wins for the taxpayer.

While several of the commissioners still routinely bring up the allegedfinancial waste, no one has made mention of the fact that land prices in Manatee County have skyrocketed into the stratosphere in the short time since the land was purchased. In other words, it looks like a better deal with each passing day, not that you’d expect to hear that from the puppets those same developers have installed on the dais.

I’ve also explained previously that, as county administrator, Coryea had no choice but to execute the direction that the duly elected board had given her in finalizing the deal, which took place over the course of more than two years and multiple BOCC votes. Yes, that’s right, for those who only recently began tuning in, the county administrator actually serves at the pleasure and direction of the county commission and not the other way around.

When Coryea departed, transparency followed her out the door. Gone are the days when you could count on getting record requests fulfilled completely and in a timely manner. Gone are the days when a commissioner could call a department head or employees could access the 9th floor. Gone are the days in which board members could count on the commissioners' comments portion of a meeting to air concerns in front of the public, or even count on getting a meeting with the administrator to do so privately.

I’ve been asked more times than I can count by former elected officials in our community in recent months whether I recall ever encountering a local government so inept, opaque, and deliberately in opposition to the concept of open government as the one that presently "represents“ the citizens of Manatee County. Without question, I have not.

That said, I cannot claim to be surprised. This seems like the logical conclusion of a scorched-earth, zero-sum, whatever-it-takes-to-win brand of politics that began at the end of the 20th century and has metastasized over the ensuing years to the malignancy we are currently experiencing. When the Citizens United SCOTUS ruling obliterated any limit as to the financial influence that special interest groups could wield in 2010, it simply accelerated the trend.

Most candidates immediately began accepting all of the money from wherever it came, and those who didn’t mostly lost their races. For the ones who did make the devil’s bargain, it’s been quite interesting to watch them demean the newest crop of sellouts for simply being equally willing to do whatever it took to win. They simply did it after the goal line had been pushed back.

After all, the last generation of political puppets was often annoying to their paymasters in that they were occasionally willing to go against them in a way that mattered. Sure, they’d give them their increased density even when it violated the comp plan and was incompatible with the surrounding community, bending themselves into pretzels trying to intellectualize their reasons. But when developers wanted to wade into other areas of government beyond land use–like deciding who gets to run the county government–some of them actually demured.

Those commissioners made the mistake, however, of thinking they were more than empty suits attached to puppet strings in the eyes of their benefactors. In a weird way, it sort of reminds me of our federal government’s history with assassins. For decades, the security state became obsessed with ways in which such operatives might be manipulated via everything from torture-induced dissociative identity disorder to psychedelic drugs, much of which has been documented in reports related to the MK Ultra program.

It turned out that these methods were completely unreliable and largely ineffective, and that it was much simpler to just find individuals with sociopathic tendencies and recruit them into a field in which that trait was highly marketable. In the same way, developers have seemingly given up on finding ambitious climbers who share most of their political positions and are willing to be highly flexible for the right price most of the time.

Instead, they seem to be targeting two demographics. The first are deeply-flawed individuals whose appetites will necessitate an awful lot of favors extended, amounting to at least as many favors repaid. You might be competent, but you’ll always get in trouble and usually need some help getting out of it. The second, and more common, seem to be dimwitted folks who happen to possess an impressively outsized assessment of their own talents and instincts.

Because this latter sort tends to think very little about much at all, to begin with, they are apt to take input, especially from the person who has installed them in their newfound position of previously-unknown authority. They just want to keep getting the rush that occurs when an otherwise unaccomplished person finds themselves in a position of power, even one as modest as a county commissioner.

Once the stooges get control of the reins of power and the bureaucrats who might thwart their ineptitude are displaced, a power vacuum is created because someone actually has to pull the levers of the big machine. This is the perfect opportunity for a person with tyrannical tendencies to come in and bend things to their will, shaping the landscape to give them every possible advantage.

Eventually, that person, who is one step removed from having been directly installed by the paymasters, usually comes to think of themselves as more independent than is actually the case and, together with the narcissism that is typical of tyrants, forgets their place one-time too often and must be cast off themselves. However, unless voters have expelled the puppets by that point, they are just in for more of the same.

Our county government has been captured by special interests and the half-bright team of empty suits who do their bidding. In the process, they have become the embodiment of that which they purported to rail against while running for office.

No, you’re not crazy. This is not normal and it should not be normalized. But restoring sanity won’t come quickly and it won’t be easy, as none of the races on this year’s ballot offer the opportunity to improve the dynamics and several threaten to make them even worse.

Until residents unite and organize in a way that can allow grassroots candidates to displace developer puppets, I’m afraid we’re in for more of the same and probably much worse. Our board majority is right about at least one thing, elections do have consequences. And for the past year and a half, the citizens of Manatee County and rank and file employees of its government have been suffering through them more than I ever imagined would be the case.