Developers' Million Dollar Con Job Targets Republicans to Elect Incompetent Commissioners

Do your research, and you will find not one of the developer candidates will do a debate, come to a forum, be on a Podcast, or answer questions. They are all controlled by their Political hack, Anthony Pedicini, who is paid by Beruff through PACs he and his companies fund and coordinate. Pedicini sees no use in getting candidates in front of people when he controls so much money to betray us with. Once in office, Pedicini actually texts commissioners how to vote in real-time as he watches the meetings.”

The Bradenton Times

You see those glossy postcards in your mailboxes, and you get those annoying text messages. All are sent by developers with the intent to con you into voting for a candidate who will make them millions of dollars in profits. These are candidates developers would never hire themselves, but expect us to hire them to run the billion-dollar enterprise of local government.

The existing screw-ups by these developer-funded commissioners have been massive and cost millions. Other costs can not be calculated with a dollar figure, such as the loss of the most talented employees with so many years of historical knowledge; over 600 of them left in three short years. Another figure we can’t place on a ledger is the impacts of uncontrolled growth, polluting our waters and clogging our roads and schools—all so developers can make millions more in profit.

Here is an example. On Kevin Van Ostebridge’s first day in office, he put his feet on County Administrator Cherri Coreya’s desk and asked her to resign. She is a respected woman, the first female County Administrator, one who worked her way to the top position after 30 years of serving the county, yet KVO blatantly disrespects her. My only complaint with Cheri when I was a Manatee County Commissioner was that she worked all the time, that her dedication to this county went above and beyond. It was no secret KVO was carrying out the orders of Carlos Beruff who wanted her gone because the previous county administrator dared to oppose him in a sales tax referendum. KVO has no qualifications, earning just $25,000 as a realtor in one of the hottest real estate markets the year before he was elected. Absolute power corrupts, absolutley!

Van Ostenbridge’s insults to women continued as he called Commissioner Betsy Benac a c*nt on June 13, 2022. Quote from his text: "True. She’s a c*nt." (offensive/derogatory word for a female). All because KVO did not like an editorial Benac had written. His insults to the public have continued, bullying a 15-year-old when he offered testimony against KVO’s quest to eliminate our local wetland policies on orders from Beruff, who wanted our wetlands buffers to be eliminated. 

The list goes on, but as you can see, KVO hates to hear from the people while Commissioner George Kruse has bent over backward to hear from the public and is not afraid to communicate his positions, even when they run contrary to the will of Beruff. KVO decided to abandon his District 3 seat, where he was sure to lose, to run against Kruse. While Kruse started out with the developers, his recent two years have proved he is the smartest person out of all the county commissioners and really does his homework. He is highly educated and the target of those nasty developer mailers. 

I was a Manatee County Commissioner for 22 years. I can say without hesitation Kevin Van Ostenbridge is the most incompetent commissioner and the most vindictive I have witnessed during the past 36 years I have been involved in Manatee County Government. Four years ago, we Republicans had a solid choice to pick, a veteran, a financial advisor, a person who served as a planning commissioner who voted for the community versus the developers.

It should have been a no-brainer for people, but then came those developer-funded mailers and texts. What a con job they did on us Republicans. They cast Matt Bower as some evil fraudster, with those black-and-white photos making him look like a shady character. Then they mailed all those slick mailers with pictures of Van Ostenbridge stating he was a conservative we should elect, riding on Trump’s coattails. Those fraudulent mailers worked. Republicans were fooled, and KVO won. 

Since getting elected, he has spent money like a drunken sailor, the first act remodeling his office, spending thousands of dollars needlessly. Using our money to buy a voting mailing list and hiring his friend with a no-bid contract worth almost a million dollars that has no tangible work product produced. Nothing!  Not to mention, somehow, his brother is now working for the county. His latest scheme, wasting our tax dollars, was orchestrating the Satcher budget increase for almost a million dollars. Then Satcher uses the money to send every voter a new registration card, with a good percentage with incorrect data. The lying preacher was caught in a lie stating it was required by law. Spoiler alert: no, it wasn’t, and it should be grounds for the governor to correct his error and remove this fraudster from being our Supervisor of Elections now!

So, why do these developers spend millions to con Republicans like you and me into voting for their puppets? Because they make hundreds of millions of dollars off commissioners’ votes to increase density and gut our local wetland protection against the rules of our Comprehensive Land Use Plan, against our community outcry, and against the Republican principles our party is supposed to stand for. Here are some votes that total over $1 billion in additional profit for these developers that we as citizens will have to pay for now:

• The Future Development Area Boundary, also known as the FDAB, is the eastern development boundary where infrastructure services such as water and sewer connections are not available. These 2 votes  took property  that was slated for 1 house on 5 acres within the FDAB,  ignoring our  development plans that prohibited the type of massive developments approved.
• East River Ranch Moves Forward Despite Public Opposition; County Commissioners granted approval for a new housing development outside the development boundary to Carlos Beruff for 5,387 units, roughly 1.5 million square feet of commercial and office space on 1,382 acres south of State Road 64 and west of County Road 675. Kruse was the only commissioner who voiced opposition to the East River Ranch community, arguing that the density was too high and the number of homes would have a significant impact on traffic. “I’m against a development that’s this high an intensity, this far out, and that’s going to fundamentally break our roads for everybody,” said Kruse. Kevin Van Ostenbridge voted in favor of Developer Beruff. HOW MUCH DID CARLOS MAKE OFF OF KVO’S VOTE?  Well over $200 million: 5,110 additional units (from 276 entitled to 5,387 units), the conservative price for a lot is worth $50,000, 5,110 newly created lots are worth over $255 million, plus roughly 1.5 million square feet of commercial and office space worth $300,000 an acre for a value of over $11 million. TOTAL INCREASE IN VALUE FOR ONE COMMISSIONER VOTE OVER $266 MILLION. The total cost of all those developer mailers is around $1 million. Not a bad investment when you make over $266 million.
• Developer SMR Taylor Ranch, headed by Rex Jensen, was granted approval for a large-scale comprehensive land use plan amendment for the future land use classification of just over 2,300 acres of property from Agricultural-Rural (1 unit per 5 acres) to a maximum density of 1.95 units per acre. HOW MUCH DID SMR  MAKE OFF OF KVO’S VOTE?  Another vote worth over $200 million - 4,025 additional units (from 460 entitled to 4,485 units), conservative price for a lot is worth $50,000, total increase in value is over $201 million.
• Impact Fees Savings for the Developers: $585 million dollars. The difference in collections over the next five years between charging what the most recent impact fee study said we should collect and what the majority of the board, again with the exception of Kruse, is proposing $585 million dollars. The impact fees pay a direct fee to cover the cost of the required infrastructure for development. Think roads, parks, libraries, and public safety. The developer-controlled commissioners are deceiving you in the biggest con of all by saying they support maximum impact fees. However, it is a fee based on an outdated study. Think inflation - they are using a study conducted in 2015 (eight years ago) based on data from 2014 (nine years ago), when you, as taxpayers, just paid for a new study in April 2023. We have already lost $100 million of fees that could have been used for roads, sidewalks, parks, and other community needs when we did not increase our impact fees when the new study was completed. So when you get that slick postcard from KVO and County Commissioner Ray Turner claiming they are all for charging those impact fees to the maximum, it's another con job. What business would not use a current study to set rates?
• Some votes are not based on direct dollars by making sure the staff is in the right place to overlook our codes. The Bradenton Times reported Records Show Knapp Orchestrated Special Permitting for Beruff's ADU. How much is it worth to someone to get a county staff person to issue a permit and ignore private street requirements? I was a commissioner at the time this parcel Beruff now owns for his house was vacant. It had a Bald Eagles Nest and a wetland buffer requirement. Now, the Bald Eagle nest that was protected is no longer there and the wetland buffer requirements were ignored. Not a bad return on your investment when you can get approvals and permits that a staff person was told to help a developer and just make it happen. Everyone wins? The staff person gets promoted, the developer was happy with KVO enough to fuel his campaign to produce more mailers to con Republicans, and the tone was set to other of the county workers we pay with tax dollars to look the other way or risk losing their jobs.
• Elimination of our local Wetland protection. This was pushed by Carlos Beruff after failing to convince a judge our policies were not legal. He put the orders to KVO to remove them from our Comprehensive Land Use Plan. In what was a surreal public hearing, the only testimony supporting the elimination of our Wetland Policies was given by the same consultant that Beruff used to sue the county. Yes, you read that correctly. The county hired the same consultant that Beruff hired to eliminate our wetland protections. Why? Because no county staff member could offer honest testimony that these wetland protections should be eliminated. The citizens provided studies, thousands of signatures against this assault on our environment, and the commissioners, again with the exception of Kruse, voted in favor of Carlos over the citizens and proven science. The ink was not even dry when Carlos applied for a permit from SWFMD to approve his project without any wetland buffers. While it is hard to put a dollar value on eliminating wetland buffers, it is easily worth millions and KVO was rewarded with the Beruff-funded PACs attacking Kruse for not following orders. As a Republican, I am 100 percent committed to protecting our environment, and KVO, with his name-calling to label us a bunch of liberals, shows only his lack of intelligence. Protecting the environment benefits all of us, well, almost all of us. Those developers may not make a few extra million, but they will still make lots of millions. 

I could go on, but hopefully, you get the point. Those mailers supporting KVO, Turner, Steve Metallo, and April Culbreath are all developer-fueled to con you into voting for them. I have over 20 developer-funded mailers for Culbreath as of today, with three weeks left before Election Day. These are not the best candidates, not the most conservative; they are simply the ones who will do what they are told by the developers. 

Yes, this race is about developers. You got the mailers that Kruse and Siddique are also liberals. Siddique is no different than Trump, who was registered as a Democrat just a short time ago. It is certainly not cause not to vote for him. It is the con job to hit your emotions rather than hire/vote for the candidate with the best qualifications. 

Do your research, and you will find not one of the developer candidates will do a debate, come to a forum, be on a Podcast, or answer questions. They are all controlled by their Political hack, Anthony Pedicini, who is paid by Beruff through PACs he and his companies fund and coordinate. Pedicini sees no use in getting candidates in front of people when he controls so much money to betray us with. Once in office, Pedicini actually texts commissioners how to vote in real-time as he watches the meetings. He instructs them on everything from who to put on a volunteer board to library policies. This is not a democracy if it allows our local Oligarchs like Beruff, Bob Spencer, Pat Neal, and SMR to control our elected officials. It is just like Russia, not very American and not in keeping with our Republican values!

This is your county. If you want to take it back from these developers who installed their puppets, then vote for the following:

• Manatee County Commission District 1 - Republican Carol Ann Felts
• Manatee County Commission District 3 - Republican Tal Siddique
• Manatee County Commission District 5 - Republican Dr. Robert McCann
• Manatee County Commission District 7 - At-Large Republican George Kruse
• SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS Republican - Scott Farrington
• Manatee County Property Appraiser - Open primary; all voters can vote - Republican Charlie Hackney

They are not liberals. They are not siding with Biden and the Democrats. They are not against development that follows the rules and pays for its impacts. They are siding with you over the developers and the millions they spend to con you into believing they are something else to pad their profits. They also expose their families to these negative campaign tactics, having people like April Culbreath attack Tal Siddique’s wife. This is a shameful way to get into office, and Culbreath is only trying to hide from her shameful record as a “cop.”

And Republicans should not vote based on a Desantis endorsement. I am not sure what is going on with Desantis, but putting the “Lying Preacher” Satcher as our Supervisor of Elections was just offensive and shows how out of touch he is with our community. Now I get a text that he endorsed KVO. He certainly does not know our community if he supports the most incompetent county commissioner just to please Carlos. The madness needs to end with this election.

This election is important, and if you value your community, I urge you to do the minimum and send an email to five people, share your comments with these recommendations on social media, or do anything else to spread the word. If not, we will all suffer from higher taxes, degradation of our environment, congested roads, and so much more.

Joe McClash is a Marine Corps veteran and the publisher of The Bradenton Times. He served on the Manatee County Commission from 1990-2012.