Schneier navigates unusual first weeks as Longboat Key's mayor

Ken Schneier has been mayor for about five weeks, none of them bearing much resemblance to anything any other mayor has experienced.

With the local effects of a global pandemic still center stage, he said the town is moving ahead with routine business while focusing on the emergency.

"We've never been here before," he said. "This is all new."

Schneier wasn't even mayor March 9 when he and his wife flew home to Longboat Key after visiting Colorado for the first birthday of a grandchild. Still, something caught his eye.

“Coronavirus at that time, as I recall, was still thought of as primarily a Chinese phenomenon,'' he said. "It was maybe beginning to land here. The airports were busy. There were some people wearing masks but very few. So, there was really sort of the first indication to me that this was maybe on its way to us.”

In the two weeks that followed, the term "social distancing" became commonplace as sports leagues shut down and positive tests for the disease soared nationwide. The area's first case was identified on March 21. The town has seen 13 confirmed cases and at least three deaths.

Schneier said he realized the seriousness of the outbreak as the town's March 23 commission meeting approached. It was the last time they met in person, to swear in two new members and elect  Schneier as mayor.

“I guess the main thing on my mind was, 'this is definitely going to be different,' ” Schneier said. “How different I don't know, but it was going to be very different from the way the town had conducted business in the past. How long? Unclear, still unclear, but that was the main thought I had.”

Some commissioners didn't want to hold the March 23 meeting, but it was required.

“With some trepidation, we did have all commissioners, new commissioners present at that, spaced out,” Schneier said. “We’d removed about half or more of the chairs from the meeting room, so that anyone who was in attendance was at least six, probably more than 6 feet apart from each other. And, one or two of the people, I think one person in the commission had a mask on. A couple had gloves on. So we were starting to get into the heart of it at that point.”

At the meeting, commissioners gave the town manager the authority to cancel public meetings because of the pandemic. Park facilities, beach access points and other amenities have ben closed by emergency order.  Non-essential business has been delayed. Meetings that are scheduled are held virtually, the next of which is planned for May 4. 

Schneier said he did not know what the process of reopening the town will look like. Longboat Key is in both Manatee and Sarasota counties.

Schneier said the town would coordinate with nearby municipalities to eventually reopen the things that require the “least personal contact.”

“If a restaurant is allowed to open with one-third of its normal tables, just to give an example that might happen, or even half their tables, they may decide that economically they can't open with that kind of a footprint, or they can’t do it for any extended period of time,” Schneier said. “So we have to take into account not only what the government might do, but how businesses react to how the public is going to react.”

Schneier said one of the easiest things to reopen might be the Public Tennis Center. The Longboat Key Club's tennis facilities have been open all along, with half the courts blocked off and singles play only.  Schneier envisions the town taking similar precautions when reopening the recreational facilities at Bayfront Park.

Aside from the closures and routine town matters, finances will will have commissioners' attention before long as budget planning begins. Schneier predicted the town's revenues would drop, which includes sales tax, fuel tax, tourist development tax and its share of utilities taxes.

"We're going to have to make some decisions, and they're going to be decisions that are going to be based on estimates," Schneier said. "How this virus is going to affect us from a revenue standpoint, which it will, and from an expense point?"