Duncan proposes business plan

Longboat Key Commissioner Jack Duncan thinks the town’s annual Goals & Objectives exercise is not good enough when trying to plan a cohesive, longterm future for the island.

At the Longboat Key Town Commission’s Monday, June 6 regular meeting, Duncan, a retired pharmaceutical executive, suggested the town create a business plan concept moving forward.

“Goals and objectives are nice to have, and I’m not dismissing them,” Duncan said. “But I feel they are just strategies and tactics.”

Duncan wants something different.

“We need to think about what we want to be in the future,” Duncan said. “It requires an element of business planning to do that.”

To be able to plan 25 to 30 years out, Duncan believes the town must look at the island as a whole.
“You need an integrated strategy that includes the north end, the (Longboat) Key Club, the Colony (Beach & Tennis Resort), etc.,” Duncan said. “You name it, it all has to be part of an overall plan that says, ‘This is what we want to be and look like moving forward.’”

As an example, Duncan mentioned there are varying points of view on whether a recreation center should be placed in Bayfront Park or in a new town center behind Avenue of the Flowers — or if the town needs one at all.

“We need to hold meetings to create a business plan to determine exactly what we want to see happen,” Duncan said. “In my opinion, the town doesn’t perform long-range planning very well right now.”

Duncan says the town has to look no further than the current state of the island’s deterioration, in the form of aging shopping centers and foreclosed homes.

“If we continue to stay grounded in a two-to-five year approach, we will continue to run into problems like we are now with revitalization,” Duncan said. “Now, we are reacting to a problem that’s too late to correct anytime soon, and we don’t like the way things are looking.”

Vice Mayor David Brenner agreed with Duncan’s suggestion.

“A lot has changed in the last year-and-a-half,” Brenner said. “The deterioration along Gulf of Mexico Drive is noticeable.”

Brenner suggested the Planning and Zoning Board discuss the concept and formulate a master business plan, but the commission decided to discuss the concept again at its Thursday, June 16 regular workshop.
Although Town Manager Bruce St. Denis suggested the commission postpone sending a list of goals and objectives forward to the planning board until the commission could vet the new business concept plan, the commission eventually agreed that wasn’t necessary.

“I don’t believe the issues I have raised will come to a conclusion anytime soon,” Duncan said. “A long-term business plan will take some time to complete.”
 

Duncan’s Business Plan Concept

Longboat Key Commissioner Jack Duncan submitted an outline of a proposed business concept plan for Longboat Key to the Longboat Observer Monday night. The following points, Duncan believes, are just the beginning of an outline that needs to be created to establish an island-wide, 25-year vision for the island:

• Form a mission statement
• Create an integrated revitalization plan
• Long range financial planning
• Beaches
• Pension plans
• Compensation and succession planning within staff
• Information technology infrastructure
• Commission training
• Development of endowment plan
• Long-range demographic planning for the island
• Tourism
• Water resources
• Recreation

Contact Kurt Schultheis at [email protected].