Your Tax Dollars at Work

This week, both the Manatee County Commission and Manatee School Board voted to approve major property purchases with taxpayer dollars, and there were several red flags among the deals.

On Tuesday, Manatee County Commissioners voted 5-2 (Baugh and Jonnson dissenting) to spend $32.5 million to purchase 161 acres of a former dairy farm next to a county landfill off State Road 64 and Lena Road, in order to build a future operations center that will extend the life of the landfill, while also housing a facility for the public works department, utility field infrastructure, fleet support services, and a new east-county Manatee County Sheriff’s Department station.

The purchase price came under fire because a market appraisal of the land came in much lower at $110,000 per acre, as opposed to the $187,488 per acre the county is paying. The fact that the sale was presented to commissioners with the urgent need to include only 30 days to perform due diligence further fueled speculation that a bad deal was being rammed through before the public could understand the issue and weigh in.

There is no question that because of the rampant growth that continues to take place in east Manatee, the county must exercise foresight in acquiring land that will be needed to deliver services to taxpayers. The county currently has two such facilities, both in west county, that are used to do so now. Their use is being stretched toward capacity, however, and, as staff explained Tuesday, tremendous cost through inefficiencies as service trucks and patrol cars spend more time on the road and less time on site.

There is also no question that the parcel of land is unique in terms of suitability for the county’s needs, and that its proximity to an existing landfill, as well as a sewage treatment center, add value, while the minimal amount of residentially-zoned property around it will create fewer headaches in terms of planning and zoning as well as community opposition.

There is also very little question that should the county not purchase this particular property, the opportunity cost will be high in that dealing with the aforementioned needs will almost certainly cost taxpayers tens of millions more. For example, the existing landfill’s life would be extended by about six years because its third trench would no longer have to be used for a transfer station, which could instead be built on a portion of the purchased land.

The savings for that aspect alone could be as high as $75 million, according to staff. In the end, the purchase, even if higher than the market value for someone who wanted to put homes on it, will almost certainly be a net gain for taxpayers, as attempting to purchase other parcels of raw land or existing physical plants on developed property in a piecemeal fashion, as needed (and at future land prices), would cost much more both in terms of tax dollars and inefficiency.

Those dynamics obviously give plenty of leverage to the landholder in terms of price, which is why it is common for governments to spend more than market value when making such acquisitions. Yes, a 30-day due diligence period seems rather short, especially given the property’s agricultural history and if the county wound up with a "pig in a poke" as Commissioner Stephen Jonsson put it, there'd be a lot of angry taxpayers. But unlike most land purchases, county staff has been working with the landowners for 18 months and should have a very good idea of what they'd be getting at this point. So again, as long as the county is certain that there are no major hidden costs or other problems with the land, it seems like a net win for taxpayers.

On Tuesday night, the Manatee School Board voted unanimously to move forward with the purchase of land from the Neal development empire for a future middle-school campus site in North River Ranch, Pat Neal’s massive, east-county master-planned community. However, as it had previously been reported that Neal hadsaid he would donate the landbefore receiving the approval, many taxpayers cried foul.

While Neal did tell planning commissioners that they wanted a school there and acknowledged that it would help his company sell homes, the former state senator denies ever offering to give away land for one.

The county attorney’s office did warn the BOCC that stipulating land be donated for a school site could be problematic, as capacity technically existed (though students would have to be bussed to Myakka) and should the land be sold to another developer, that landowner could sue the county for a requirement that was not legally-defensible.

Fast forward to 2020 and existing taxpayers are now on the hook for up to $2.5 million to again cover the cost of growth and essentially build schools for people who haven’t moved here yet.

Part of the problem is that the concurrency rules used to determine whether adequate school capacity exists to absorb what will be added by a new development are antiquated and ineffective because they consider a geographic area that is in almost every instance far too large to reasonably expect that students be bussed away to the schools that have room. Because this method works in developers' favor and developers hold as much sway in Tallahassee as they do here, don't count on that to change, however.

The other part of the problem is developer influence. When it comes to juice with the BOCC and school board, Neal’s got as much as anyone. As such, every time one of the entities purchases land from him–such as the land used for Neal Preserve and, more recently, the BOCC’s creation of a special tax district to purchase land from Neal for another preserve on the Braden River–it’s bound to raise an eyebrow.

Case in point, school board member Dave Miner, who’s been criticized for taking campaign money from vendors who do business with the district, asked for clarification Tuesday as to whether or not it would be appropriate for him to vote, given that Neal had contributed to his current reelection campaign. Miner, who is an attorney himself, was obviously leading the two attorneys who spoke to confirm that because such donations are not considered a direct quid pro quo and therefore not subject to state ethics rules on conflicts of interest, elected officials are actually required to cast votes (Florida statutes do not allow for someone to otherwise abstain from voting, though Miner has abstained "in an abundance of caution" for non-qualified reasons in the past).

Yes, it is correct that an elected politician can take money from anyone or any company and then vote in that person or corporation's favor every time they come before the body the official serves on without ever running afoul of any laws or regulations. It’s also true that Mr. Miner is not the only local elected official to benefit from the generosity of Neal and other developers. But once they do, that’s what makes it so difficult for voters to tell whether such votes are cast with their best interests in mind or that of the party stroking the checks, and given the way things tend to go in Manatee County, they can certainly be forgiven for assuming the latter.