Jack Duncan takes mayor’s seat

Eight months ago, then-Vice Mayor Jack Duncan planned to step down from the Longboat Key Town Commission to spend more time with his family.

Instead, at Monday night’s commission statutory meeting, Duncan raised his right hand to take the oath of office twice — once for a third and final term as District 2 commissioner and a second time after his fellow commissioners chose him as Longboat Key’s new mayor. 

Standing with him for the first swearing in was newly elected District 4 Commissioner Jack Daly and Commissioner Phill Younger, who won a final term in his at-large seat. Duncan, who on Monday began his third and final term in his seat, was not challenged.

By his side the second time was District 3 Commissioner Terry Gans, whom commissioners selected for the vice mayor seat.

Commissioner Irwin Pastor nominated Gans for mayor; Commissioner Lynn Larson nominated Duncan.

Pastor, Gans and Commissioner Pat Zunz voted for Gans; Larson, Duncan, newly elected Commissioner Jack Daly and Commissioner Phill Younger voted for Duncan.

After the 4-3 vote in favor of Duncan, Pastor made a motion that passed to make the vote unanimous.

Pastor then nominated Gans for vice mayor. Larson nominated Younger.

Gans, Pastor, Daly, Zunz and even Younger voted for Gans; Duncan and Larson voted for Younger; the commission then voted to make the appointment unanimous.

When the meeting adjourned at 7:24 p.m., it was the first time in four years in which Jim Brown was not mayor of Longboat Key.

Final words

After calling Monday’s meeting to order, Brown asked if anyone from the public wished to speak. No one had signed up.

“Good,” Brown said.

It was the last meeting that Brown would call to order, having reached term limits of six years for the District 4 seat, of which he spent four years as mayor and one year as vice mayor.

 He joked that he was going to skip the next agenda item: commissioner comments.

But his fellow commissioners weren’t letting him off the hook.

Younger made the first remark.

“This town’s going to miss you,” he said. “We’re going to miss you.”

“Thank you,” said Brown. “I agree.”

Pastor, who was elected last year, called it an honor, albeit one that was too short, to serve with Brown.

“I learned an awful lot about the position of mayor from you,” Pastor said. “I thought it was for ceremonies. But it sets the agenda.”

Zunz said Brown recruited her after the resignation of Commissioner Bob Siekmann in 2011.

“For a few months after that, when I would see Jim, I wouldn’t know whether to punch him,” she said.

Duncan said: “To me you’ll always be Mayor Brown, and I think four years of being asked to serve in this position says it all. It shows the dedication you’ve shown to the town and us all.”

Gans praised Brown’s leadership, calling the town “more harmonious than it has been in a long time.”

“So much of what had been left to do later has been done,” he said.

Larson said it was she who nominated Brown as vice mayor for the year he served in the role before becoming mayor.

“It’s a wonderful thing that you spent that one year working under the stewardship of George Spoll or you wouldn’t have been such a great mayor,” she said, paying tribute to another past mayor sitting in the audience.

Brown, 69, stepped down from the seat, leaving Duncan to take over the meeting.

Duncan presented Brown with a plaque in honor of his service. From the podium, Brown recalled his first involvement in town affairs: It was 2002, and he had been picked to lead a Community Center Advisory Committee, he said, drawing sighs from several audience members.

“We’re still working on it,” he joked.

He didn’t know anyone in town, but at one point, Susan Phillips, assistant to the town manager who served alongside Brown on the committee, looked to him and said, “You should be mayor.”

Brown thanked town staff, especially Town Manager Dave Bullock, whom he first met with to discuss the town manager job in the office of Dave Persson, who was then town attorney, on a weekend in 2011 after the resignation of longtime Town Manager Bruce St. Denis.

He also thanked his fellow commissioners.

“I know the reason I’m sitting here talking about four years as mayor is that I’m sitting here surrounded by people who made this job easy to do,” he said.

When he was done speaking, Brown said, “I’m told I’m supposed to go to the electorate,” and headed toward the audience.

But he had forgotten something: Town Clerk Trish Granger handed him the “Mayor Jim Brown” nameplate that sat in front of him at the dais for the past four years.

New role

Duncan’s path to the mayor’s seat involved “some tough choices,” he told the Longboat Observer Monday night.

He announced in July that he would not run  — a decision he reversed three months later.

Duncan told the Longboat Observer in October that he reconsidered after others urged him to complete the remaining two years until he reaches term limits.

Duncan isn’t sure the role will be much different than that of vice mayor or commissioner.

He also isn’t concerned about whether people will remember to call him “Mayor” or accidentally slip and say “Vice Mayor.”

“I’d like to think of myself as Jack,” he said. “I’m not big on titles.”