Some of you may have received an email from a group called Citizens Protecting Manatee, calling for a pressure campaign on the Manatee County Commission to move forward with its plans to reverse course on the last board’s decision to gut our wetland protections. While it presents itself as a grassroots effort, I can tell you with almost complete confidence that it is not.
Worse still, the email embeds a previous column of mine in which I call on the board to take the fight to DeSantis and his development buddies. As you may recall, following the meeting on the subject where the BOCC did not take up the item, we recorded an episode of The Bradenton Times Podcast with special guest Joe McClash.
Joe had also been in favor of going to the mat with Tallahassee on the issue, but after the meeting, a few things became clear. There was almost certainly a plan in place for the governor to suspend any commissioner who voted in favor of reversing the policy. Once suspended, the governor would be able to replace those commissioners with developer stooges, including those voted off the board last year, just as he did when a school board seat was recently vacated in Sarasota County.
The hearing for the removals wouldn’t take place until the Senate reconvenes next year, and that body has also shown itself to be pro-big development. A lawsuit hanging over the vote would result in a stay for any action taken, and a new board would be able to do incalculable damage in the interim.
The board wisely decided to instead join other local governments in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of SB 180, the statute being used to stifle home rule on this and other development-related issues. Joe, TBT reporter Dawn Kitterman, and I agreed that would be the wiser path at this point and said so. At Tuesday’s meeting, the BOCC voted to move forward with joining the suit.
It was difficult to determine who was behind “Citizens Protecting Manatee.” The group had no presence on social media, the HTML and domain registration had been set up to conceal who was behind the barebones site, and the address at the bottom of the emails, which were sent through MailChimp, was that of the Manatee County Administration Building. However, Super Sleuth Kitterman did a little more digging and found that the "update your preferences or unsubscribe" button led to a MailChimp page with a different address: Manatee Cove Dr, featuring a fictional town of "Manatee" and a Tallahassee zip code.
There is a Manatee Cove Drive in Tallahassee. It is a small road inside the Bayhead Mobile Home and RV Community. It seems crystal clear that this is another astroturf campaign targeting registered Republican voters in Manatee County under the facade of being a grassroots resident group, when in fact, it is based outside of the county.
Most of you probably have some guesses as to who might be funding and executing this campaign. Nonetheless, I wanted to be on record that neither I nor TBT support the group or its messaging in any way.
We have a new board, but it’s the same old story!! Special interest over Public interest! After making bold promises on the campaign trail of standing up to developers, the NEW County Commissioners have caved at the first sign of adversity, read the email.
No, my friends. We have a much different board than in 2024, and developers hate that after spending a small fortune to purchase near total influence over your local government, their dark money dirty tricks failed. So, they are at it again, but don’t fall for it and spread the word to your friends and neighbors so that voters aren’t duped by these fake activists.
Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of our weekly podcast. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County government since 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Click here for his bio. Mitch is also the author of three novels and a short story collection available here. He can be reached at editor@thebradentontimes.com.
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Cat L
I'm so glad they voted to join the lawsuit! The desantis admin is sooooo corrupt, it's gross.
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Report this
David Daniels
At some point, sometime, an elected official is going to have to stand up to this bullying way of affecting local policy. Whether the stick is a threat to remove a duly elected representative or to withhold funding (see sidewalk art), the more this goes unchallenged, the more normalized it becomes.
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Report this
nhughes
Thank you for your tireless efforts to keep the community informed. Keep it up!
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Report this
rayfusco68
I totally agree with you, we do not want to give the Governor the chance to replace our Board with his lackeys. This battle needs to be won by the voters, If the voters are not willing to protect their Counties interests by ousting the present regime then they deserve what happens, It is time the voters stopped blaming the people they put in office and vote them out,
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Report this
tiffanydconklin
I was wondering about who was behind this email. Thank you to you both for looking into it and letting us know what you find. Their messaging definitely seems suspect.
Thursday, September 4, 2025 Report this