Lynn Larson: Voice for change

Nearing the term limit for the District 1 seat, Commissioner Lynn Larson explained her decision to run for office to the Kiwanis Club of Longboat Key last July.

“If you don’t like what’s going on, you step up and run, or you shut up,” she said. “I don’t like to shut up. So I ran.”

Larson was a virtual unknown in town politics when her neighbor, Bob Gault, set up a meeting with former Vice Mayor Dave Brenner, who was then preparing to run for his first term on the commission. Brenner had never heard of Larson but ultimately persuaded her to run.

More than six years later, Larson sat at the dais for her final regular commission meeting March 7 as her colleagues delivered their time-honored “roasting” of outgoing commissioners.

Vice Mayor Terry Gans called Larson “diligent” and “persistent.”

“I could say one person’s persistence is one person’s pain in the neck,” Gans said. “…But in the process of polishing a gem…sometimes, you need that roughness and the persistence…”

“You are the most tenacious person I’ve ever come across, maybe in my life,” Mayor Jack Duncan told her.

But during her initial lunch with Brenner?

“She was actually pretty quiet,” Brenner said. “…It’s pretty safe to say she became more confident as she served on the commission.”

Gault suggested Brenner meet with Larson because he was impressed by her work as president of the Country Club Shores Unit IV homeowners association.

“She had shown herself to be very responsible and very concerned about controlling property taxes and making sure money was responsibly spent,” he said.

Larson, who served as the first female director of the Florida Department of Insurance, wasn’t well known at Town Hall, but she knew town issues.

A police pension board member, she was concerned about the rising unfunded liabilities for the town’s three pension plans. She was fed up with the town’s millage increase during a recession that forced many citizens to slash their budgets and the perceived attitude of town staff under then-Town Manager Bruce St. Denis.

“It was their town, and if they were nice, we just might be able to live here,” Larson said.

Larson received exactly 50% of the vote in a three-way runoff election against fellow Country Club Shores residents Lee Pokoik and incumbent mayor Lee Rothenberg — the town’s first runoff in 20 years.

On election night, she cooked corned beef and cabbage for her supporters at her home, both because it was the day before St. Patrick’s Day and because she had a limited campaign budget, and corned beef was on sale.

A crowd of about 50 cheered when she got the phone call notifying her that she was a new commissioner, having won 58% of  the vote against Rothenberg.

In her six years on the commission, Larson earned a reputation as a budget hawk and voicing her sometimes unpopular opinions.

She cast the lone sole vote against hiring current Town Manager Dave Bullock in 2011, following St. Denis resignation — not because she opposed Bullock but because she disagreed with only interviewing one candidate — but now describes Bullock as an asset to the town.

“When he was hired, many things changed, including a more responsive attitude from top down,” she said. 

She was an advocate of overhauling the town’s three pension plans and vigorously opposed allowing employees who were within five years of retirement to join the Deferred Retirement Option Program (DROP), which allows retirement-age employees to accrue pension benefits while still working.

She tried unsuccessfully to reschedule surgery to be there for the first vote in 2014 and expressed outrage with the 4-2 vote that occurred in her absence.

“We have tried so hard to bring pension reform to the town to get costs under control,” she said. “What message are we sending?”

Larson also urged the town in 2014 to consider the long-discussed possibility of burying utilities. Florida Power & Light Co. had announced plans to replace current poles with larger, storm-resistant ones. When an FPL official warned that funding for the project could be transferred to another community if the town delayed, Larson lashed back.

“I don’t appreciate being threatened,” Larson said. “We just want to look at the facts and make a decision.”

A year and a half later, voters approved a Gulf of Mexico Drive underground utilities project; at press time, voting was underway for a neighborhood and side streets project.

Larson said she’s grateful that she had to campaign for her seat in 2010 (she ran unopposed for the following two terms).

“I met people I never would have met,” she said. “I listened to people.”

Doing so made her aware of the needs of individual communities — which is why she sometimes proposed townwide regulations, such as those restricting boat-and-trailer parking after hearing from Longbeach Village residents who didn’t want restrictions.

“They don’t want government telling them what they can do in their neighborhoods,” she said.

Larson is looking forward to spending more time with her family post-commission.

“The time that it’s taken away from my grandchildren is time that I can never get back, although I like to think that it’s made me a role model, especially for my granddaughters,” Larson said.

She’s also looking forward to seeing what her successor, Armando Linde, will accomplish.

Larson recently emailed these words of advice to Linde:

“If I have learned anything, it is...to listen and then make my best decision with the facts at hand. You will never please everyone, and most days, you might not please anyone. You do the best you can.”