Brown puts Kiwanis Club on agenda

The path to the mayor’s seat on the Longboat Key Town Commission began with a weak moment for Mayor Jim Brown.

“I never wanted to be a commissioner,” Brown told the Kiwanis Club of Longboat Key at its Thursday, Sept. 22 meeting. “I never thought about being a commissioner.”

Brown, an architect, said that he felt at home on the Longboat Key Planning & Zoning Board, which he joined in 2004. At the time, Brown said, the commission was split on many issues, although he soon began hearing from leaders on both sides who wanted him to seek office.

“These people are driving me crazy,” he told his wife before reluctantly agreeing to run, thinking he would serve a single term.

His first term began in 2009. In 2010, he was selected by his fellow commissioners to serve as vice mayor. Last spring, Brown began his second term as a commissioner, and his colleagues chose him for the mayor’s seat.

At Thursday’s meeting, Brown updated Kiwanians about several issues.

He talked Publix.

Although he thought the first pre-application submitted by the supermarket after years of talks was “disappointing,” he was optimistic about its revisions submitted earlier this month.

He talked pensions.

Brown said that the town’s $27 million in unfunded liability was created by different commissions operating in different economic times.

“Decisions have been made for us that were not the best in the long term,” he said.

And he also discussed the town manager issue. Just two-and-a-half days earlier, Brown and his fellow commissioners unanimously accepted the resignation of 14-year Town Manager Bruce St. Denis.

“Bruce St. Denis has served this town very well for a long time,” Brown said. “I think he has been continuing to think the way he was taught to think over many commissions in the past.”

Brown said that the town manager had not done “anything that was punishable” and that a public debate on his performance would have “caused a blood bath.”

“I’m grateful that I have had the support of people during this time, including the town attorney, labor attorney and my fellow commissioners,” Brown said. “Bruce St. Denis did a good job, but it was time to let him go. We wanted to let him go with his head held high. I think we accomplished that.”