Move afoot to move the airport?
City manager gets the jibblies and slams door on questions
Venice Florida! dot com tries to get the city's take on recent revelations, is instead given the boot from a city press conference by City Manager Marty Black for... well, actually we're still not sure, the story keeps changing
-- John Patten, 06/21/06
-- jpatten@veniceflorida.com

Got a comment? Make it here.

General background:
City Manager Marty Black holds regularly scheduled meetings every Tuesday morning with the media. On Tuesday, June 20, I  showed up to the regularly scheduled media meeting and was asked to leave. I had not behaved in any disruptive manner, nor is the city alleging any bad behavior on my part. Instead, Black came up with a series of three different reasons for the exclusion.

The first reason was that the meeting was by invitation only. Such an invite had been given to me, casually, over a year ago by Black.

Later in the day, I was phoned by a city staffer on Black's instructions. I was informed that the reason was really some sort of conflict of interest. I had recently proposed to Black the possibility of brokering advertising space on the Venice government's web site. The discussion never went beyond the speculative possibility phase and no meeting was ever set to firm up the idea into an offer.

The first thing I did was apologize (for Black) to the staffer for the uncomfortable place she found herself in. She was unnecessarily getting caught in the line of fire and it was flat out unfair.

I then fired off an e-mail to Black and CC'd it to council and local media. I chided Black for his creative response and for hiding behind the skirts of city staffers. As to any supposed conflict of interest, I reminded Black that the city has advertised in both newspapers. If such a conflict truly exists and if Black is so concerned about it, he ought never to talk to anyone from the media again.

Finally, Black himself called. A third reason was floated: according to Black, I don't write articles based upon city presentations and press releases. Black stated that the Gondo and the Herald-Tribune give him "fair and equal access" but, according to Black, that Venice Florida! dot com is concerned more with personal vendettas and as such should not be privy to the general presentations given to select and invited print media at his weekly meetings.

It is only fair to note that Black has posted messages on this web site's message board in the past and those messages have not been edited or deleted (with the exception that all messages are eventually deleted as they age and as server space fills up). Moreover, Black has never submitted an article to this web site for publication on any topic. If he had, it would have been published with no limitations on length.

Specific background:
In recent weeks, rumors about plans to move the airport have firmed up to be more than just rumors. The entire subject has turned into a shark infested feeding frenzy of paranoid whispers and down turned eyes. Everyone wants to talk about it. Nobody wants to talk about it. Conversations are routinely starting with "You didn't hear this from me, but..."

Slowly emerging from this thickening cloud of smoke is a picture of secret greed on a nearly unimaginable level, one that has the potential of forever altering this town in one of the most negative ways possible by an incredible build-out on the southern portion of the island of Venice.

Is it a done deal? Far from it from what I can tell so far, but then again, I don't know for sure. I was trying to ask that very question when Black got spooked and turned into a Club 21 bouncer.

Take the following dots and connect them yourself. That all of these things are happening simultaneously is coincidence that is beyond credulity.

1.) Legal challenge to Sharky's On The Pier lease
The Sharky's restaurant is on airport property, right on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico. While council and, specifically, Councilman John Moore have been highly critical of the way that former city manager George Hunt handled the negotiations with Sharky's, not much has been said until earlier this year. Simultaneous to former Mayor Dean Calamaras' resignation being finalized a month or so back, Moore went on the attack, stating that the Sharky's lease was a bad lease and was possibly unenforceable due to blank spaces in the lease where dollar amounts ought to have been.

On Moore's cue, the city is looking to legally challenge the sufficiency of the restaurant's lease.

The fight over the Sharky's lease has taken on a life of its own. My gut reaction is that it is probably unrelated to everything else that is currently going on and documented below. I don't see Moore as a player in the grand airport build out. But still: the timing is damned odd.

2.) No progress at Tomato Pasta Park
After the $10 million bond was approved, spending and activity happened immediately in all but one area. The Community Center was built out and modified. The peer was rebuilt. Beach sand was renourished. The Island Wastewater Plant was demolished. The plant, on the gulf, on airport property and adjacent to Sharky's, was to have been turned into Tramonto Vista Park (or Tomato Pasta Park as it is often unofficially referred to, this because nobody can seem to remember the unmemorable phrase 'Tramonto Vista').

And then everything stopped.

Tramonto Vista Park has yet to materialize, no plans are yet in the works to finish turning it into a proper park, leaving some, including the park's original proponent, Maxine Barritt, wondering why and when. Barritt recently appeared before the Bond Oversight Committee to ask that very question but did not receive an answer. So far, construction of park facilities are on curiously unexplained hold.

That was another question that I wanted to pose to Black: why? Maybe he has a legitimate answer, maybe the plans are about to be unveiled. I don't know because Black refused to hear the question.

3.) The destruction of the old Ringling Brothers Circus arena
Sitting on the northeast corner of airport land is this now-rotting dangerous monstrosity, an expensive and hazardous building that is impossible to take down with a mere wrecking ball due to asbestos. Granted the building needs to be torn down, but the timing is damned curious. It's been sitting there for years unnoticed and suddenly out of the blue it is now a near-emergency situation needing to be addressed. Why? Why now?

And who will pay for its destruction? The airport fund? A future developer? Or, more likely, the municipal taxpayer.

That's another question I wanted to ask. Guess what I got for an answer? A justification for municipal ducking because this site doesn't deal with issues, just personal vendettas.

4.) The proposal of a marina on airport land
This PR nightmare has gone down the tubes thanks to the fact that the federal government will not be pork-funding it as a $2 million earmark in HUD's budget. According to recent press reports, Black hasn't abandoned the idea but stated that it would be "unlikely" that taxpayer money would be used to build it.

Key word there was "unlikely." That's why I put it in quotes.

The marina appeared to be primarily Black's agendaed desire. While Black has stated that pursuing the marina is the will of council, at least one council member stated to me that the opposite appeared to be true.

The federal funding was loudly opposed by local citizen activist Sue Lang, but she was hardly alone on this one. Even the Herald-Tribune arched an eyebrow, wondering why such an affluent community was looking to HUD for funding a project that would tend to benefit only the affluent.

This web site made no bones about being opposed to accepting a federal pork payout. One city official justified the attempt at the cash grab by saying that if we didn't take it, someone else would.

5.) Moving the airport
Venice Florida! dot com and the Venice Taxpayers League have learned that there is a move  presently afoot to move the airport off of the island. I have to do the "various unnamed sources" routine here, but we have learned that business interests within the city are quietly and gently pushing for a land swap deal that would move the airport off of the island and open up the land for very extensive real estate development.

Our information stops just short of who is involved in the push to move the airport, but it doesn't take a genius to put together a reasonable sounding scenario. Former councilman David Farley has long advocated moving the airport and has previously tried to act as a broker of sorts in arrangements with Rosemary Developments and with Stan Thomas of Thomas Ranch. The most recent publicly chronicled deal that Farley proposed was a land swap with Thomas -- the airport would move to Thomas Ranch (down by the Plantation Golf and Country Club and Manatee Community College). Thomas would rebuild the airport there and get the land on the island in exchange. Farley proposed a highway style overpass from somewhere in South Venice over the Intracoastal Waterway and onto land currently occupied by the airport. Yes, it sounds ludicrous and impossible, but that's what Farley was pushing for. This is all documented in the FAA Shade Meetings that took place in 2003.

Both the Venice Taxpayers League and I have good reasons to believe that those plans are still being floated in one form or another. Information, much of it speculative but some of it not, indicates that people are already planning a serious PR push to sell the idea to the public. Arguments will include the standard "It'll increase the city's tax base" and "It'll reduce your taxes" arguments, the same arguments that were used to push for the Henry Ranch annexation a few years back (so, are your taxes any lower now?).

This time around, though, no new annexations need to be made. The contested land is already within city limits.

Imagine stunning stucco and tile high-rises in that tan faux-Mediterranean style that we have all come to know and (not) love, shoulder to shoulder, all with a glimmering view of the beach (or a view blocked by other high-rises -- there's a lot of land at the airport, there's room for a lot of high-rises). Then also imagine the stress on our already fragile island infrastructure -- the cracking roads and sewage pipes that are both long overdue for major repairs and replacement. Then also imagine how beach access to Brohard Park and Caspersen Beach will be affected.

6.) An additional proposed airport land swap deal
For some time there have been rumors about another land swap proposal, this one involving a potential buyout offer on part or all of the Venice Golf Association's lease. When Councilman John Simmonds was asked, he said he didn't know anything about it and that he didn't believe it. Based on other information that I have received, this rumor appears to have some pretty solid legs.

That said, I have reason to believe that Black has full knowledge of this last proposal, which I fully planned on asking him about and which he apparently has every intention of not answering.

Remember this: when the VGA was allowed to write their own lease, one curious clause emerged. If, for some wild and wacky reason unimaginable to mere mortals, it should ever come to pass that the  airport land on which the VGA sits should ever be placed on the market or otherwise be available for sale or swap, the VGA contractually has the right of last refusal on the purchase of all land occupied by the VGA at that point in time.

This explains the 19th through the 27th holes along Harbor Drive -- prime gulf-front property barely a stone's throw from the beach that, I am told by one of my few golfing friends, is currently ugly scrub not worthy of playing golf on.

If all of this is mere rumor, if the airport is never going to move, if there were never any plans in the back of anyone's head, one uncomfortable question is: why did the VGA want that clause?

That's one question I wasn't going to ask. The answer is self-evident.

Non-aggressive, no chip-on-shoulder query
Now, it is with all of this in mind that I showed up to Black's weekly media meeting for the very first time. It was anything but a secret that I had been nosing around about the strange rumors surrounding the airport. Black would have to be a total idiot not to know that I had some questions about the airport.

Black is no idiot.

I wasn't coming with a chip on my shoulder, I wasn't flouting a secret conspiracy or anything like that. I just had enough information to now intelligently ask about the whole sha-bang without sounding like an idiot myself. A lot of this is so bizarre that if it is wrong information, it would be hilariously wrong information and I just wanted to be sure that I wasn't being fooled or deliberately misled.

I had no reason to believe that Black would be deceptive or evasive or that any of this would turn uncomfortable and ugly. I was reasonably upbeat and optimistic, wanting to hear Black's side of the story: what he knew and what he thought about the whole thing.

Idiot me: I thought I'd ask a few straight questions and get a few straight answers.

Before I could figure out how the meeting was going to go and if this was even an appropriate venue to ask my questions, I was unceremoniously shown the door. Black would later say it was rude of me to show up unannounced.

And so I got a daisy chain of reasons as to why I was excluded from a taxpayer funded press conference, the reasons changing as I asked more questions. I wasn't invited. So I asked to see all of the invites as a public records request. Then it shifted into a potential conflict of interest. Only the media agencies that were allowed into the meeting shared those same conflicts. Then it became that I don't write what the city wants me to write about.

Then there's the fourth unstated reason, which, I believe, is the real reason: we don't want to talk about the airport just yet. Which kind of goes along with the third reason: I'm not writing about what the city wants me to write about.

This does not bode well. Unless I miss my guess, we are all about to be collectively screwed.

Granted, much of this story is murky, which is why I wanted to ask specific questions. Not all rumors turn out to be true, but more often than not, the good stories start out as rumors. If a writer doesn't ask about rumors, he'll miss out on informing the public. A good recent example is the Gondo's scoop on efforts to move the high school off of the island. J.J. Andrews first heard the tale as a rumor and according to Andrews, he was having a heck of a time early on trying to figure out if the Gulf Coast Foundation of Venice was actually involved in preliminary discussions about moving the school. Andrews hit journalistic paydirt by being persistent.

More questions than answers
As to the airport, I still have more questions than answers. The rudimentary tale on this page is a far cry from how I wanted to present this story. City hall will no doubt try to trounce me with denials and accusations of unfairness, to which I can only say if you don't like the way this story is presented, lift up your blinds and open your windows. Communication is a two-person minimum process and I have a hard time talking through a closed door.

I remain totally flummoxed by Black's unexpected reaction to a question yet unasked. Things between us have usually been fairly amiable, although there were some testy moments between us over his handling of the police union negotiations. I felt then that two wrongs don't make a right and I still believe that Black could have handled himself better. But by and large, Black has been fairly gracious and open, which makes his behavior here outrageously out of character, unless...

Unless it turns out that I am right about my suspicions about the airport and Black was ducking for cover.

When it happened, when Black confronted me in front of the rest of this town's press and told me to leave the meeting, I was stunned. So stunned that I immediately acceded to his request that I leave the meeting. That was my survival instinct kicking in -- I was so unexpectedly surprised and affronted that I immediately knew any angry response I might give would be wrong. Rather than run the risk of saying something I might later regret, I left before my meaner nature had the chance to kick into high gear.

What I should have done: parked my ass in a chair and said "call the cops."

John Patten is the head of Web Operations for Creative Pages, and has worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times.