Q+A with Wade Matthews

We don’t endorse candidates, but we do endorse issues. - Wade Matthews, BGA vice president.

Q: What is the Better Government Association? 
A: The organization was founded in 1987. One of the original board members was Jeanne McElmurray, who had been a county commissioner. She was an active Republican and pretty influential around town.

She didn’t agree with all the policies that were being followed around town, and she wanted to get a citizens group involved that could look into things and make recommendations focused on local issues or national issues that affect people locally.

We have about 150 or so members. We’re a volunteer organization. We are nonpartisan, not a 501c3. We don’t endorse candidates, but we do endorse issues.

Q: Are you trying to expand your reach?
A: We’re trying to get more people to our forums. We have four to six events a year, forums and luncheons. We usually have two or three speakers representing different points of view. Our board meets once a month, and we go over what’s happening and what we think needs a focus.

Q: What are BGA’s top priorities this year?
A: We’re considering three subjects for the next forum in May. We may talk about the homeless issue, which hasn’t been solved. We may look at elections.

In the county, the commissioners have to reside in the district, but they’re elected by everybody. They are politically identified. Manatee has a different system – they’re politically identified, but they have two elected countywide and five by individual districts. Sarasota County used to have this system, but the voters didn’t like it for some reason, before I got here. We’re thinking on having a forum on that.

There has been considerable concern about the incentives companies are given for coming here, if there is enough control on those incentives. If a company doesn’t bring the number of jobs it says it’s going to, what are the penalties? One at least went belly-up. … We want to make sure there are enough conditions to assure the county is getting its money back.

Also, some of us are concerned with some rather speculative expenditures, such as Nathan Benderson Park. Is the county putting too much money into it without assurances it’s going to be successful? Maybe it will, maybe it won’t, but there’s some concern about that. There’s concern that we’re overbuilding. 
But we haven’t taken a stand on those things; we discuss these things.

Q: How did Saturday’s forum go? What was the feeling of the audience, in your opinion?
A: The majority of people showed their concern with the lack of control on development. They were concerned about the effects of overly rapid growth, especially with traffic.

They were also concerned with who was going to pay for it — the idea of fiscal neutrality — through impact fees. People were concerned that fiscal neutrality was not adequately protected in the changes that have recently been made to the 2050 plan.

I thought all three panelists presented their cases very well, and we deliberately got three panelists who would have somewhat divergent ideas.

– Jessica Salmond