TOP STORY APRIL: Commission chooses Zunz for District 5 seat

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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED APRIL 7, 2011

The Longboat Key Town Commission’s transformation continued Monday, April 4 when Land’s End resident Pat Zunz was elected to the District 5 seat, recently vacated by Robert Siekmann.

Vice Mayor David Brenner nominated Zunz, while Commissioner Hal Lenobel nominated former Mayor Jeremy Whatmough and Commissioner Lynn Larson nominated former Mayor Ron Johnson.

Brenner, Mayor Jim Brown and Commissioners Phillip Younger and Jack Duncan voted for Zunz.
Lenobel voted for Whatmough, and Larson voted for Johnson.

For only the third time since 1955, two of the seven seated commissioners are women.

Zunz, who will serve out the year left on former Commissioner Robert Siekmann’s two-year term, becomes the sixth new face on the commission in the last three years. (Other recently elected commissioners with no prior commission experience are Brown, Larson, Brenner, Younger and former Commissioner Gene Jaleski.)

Although Zunz has no prior commission experience, she has made her mark at Town Hall in the last eight years.

Zunz was a Zoning Board of Adjustment member from 2004 to 2009 and spent the last three years on the board as its chairwoman.

When Zunz resigned in May 2009, she was appointed to the Planning and Zoning Board, for which she gave input when the board reviewed the Longboat Key Club and Resort’s Islandside renovation-and-expansion project.

Four of the seven current commissioners were former Longboat Key Planning and Zoning Board members.

Zunz, originally from New York, has also chaired the town’s Tree Subcommittee and the Vision Plan Subcommittee that worked last summer to update the Vision Plan.

Brenner told the Town Commission he was impressed with Zunz’s work last summer on that plan.

“We met every Wednesday for 10 weeks last year, and I was impressed with the way she handled that committee,” Brenner said. “She would make a great addition to the commission.”

Zunz, a retired publishing-house editor and landscape designer, was also on the Zoning Board of Adjustment for eight years in South Orange, N.J., where she was also involved in creating a master plan for the town.

Zunz and her husband Ed, who is a Zoning Board of Adjustment member, have been Longboat Key residents since 1985 and full-time residents since 2000.

Zunz, who considers herself a private person, told the Longboat Observer Tuesday that becoming a town commissioner was never something for which she strived.

“Being a commissioner wasn’t even on my radar,” Zunz said. “I thought most of what I do here was under the radar.”

But Brown told the commission it became increasingly more aware that Zunz was the top candidate when everyone he called who lived in District 5, including Siekmann, mentioned her name.

“Everyone’s list included Pat Zunz,” Brown said.

When Zunz became chairwoman of the Vision Plan Subcommittee last summer, she made an impression on a commission that is focused on revitalizing the island by trying to encourage developers to spruce up aging shopping centers.

Zunz updated the commission on the Vision Plan several times last year and told them she didn’t believe the island needed to grow leaps and bounds, but that it needed to attract some new buyers.

“I think that town needs to realize that if you don’t do anything, nothing stays the same,” Zunz said. “If you don’t upgrade and take care of properties, people move on and aren’t interested in living there. In today’s market, people expect more than they are used to. If the town just does nothing and thinks we will remain the way we were, we will go in the opposite direction.”

Zunz said she has no set agenda for the next year she will serve on the commission.

“I don’t have all the answers,” Zunz said. “But I do believe it’s a mistake not to be aware of what’s happening and just assume all the closings and deterioration around the Key are completely beyond our control.”

UPDATE: Commissioner Pat Zunz has qualified for re-election to the District 5 seat.