- April 19, 2024
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The Longboat Key Planning and Zoning Board was already due to get at least two new members.
Former P&Z members Penny Gold and Debra Williams were sworn in Monday morning to the Town Commission.
Now, the P&Z Board will need to fill the third vacancy with the resignation of Phill Younger.
“I have been involved with the town for 15 years, and I feel like there’s a shelf life for everybody, and I felt it was time for me to pass the baton to other people,” Younger said.
Younger served on the town’s code enforcement board from 2007-2010, Town Commission from 2011-2017 and P&Z Board from 2017-2021. He said he has no intention of becoming a town commissioner again.
“I’ve seen people step down at the appropriate time, and I have seen people hang on too long,” Younger said. “And, they can develop an inflated sense of self-importance, and I certainly don’t have that.
“There’s always somebody around. Nobody is indispensable, including me.”
The Town Commission also has a vacancy in the District 5 seat left by Ed Zunz, who officially resigned on Monday.
Zunz told the Observer earlier this month he would consider applying for the P&Z Board. He is among the Longboat Key residents who submitted a P&Z application by the March 19 deadline. The town also received applications from Christopher Carman, Jeffrey Carman, Gary Ehlers, Leonard Garner, Paul Hylbert, Aaron Kleiner, Steven Miesowicz, Margaret Nuzzo, Brandie Puls and Michael Warnstedt.
It’s still too soon to determine who could fill Zunz’s seat on the commission.
Anyone who lives in District 5 interested in filling the vacancy on the Town Commission can submit the necessary paperwork to the town by 4 p.m. Friday, April 9. The commission is expected to appoint a District 5 candidate during its April 19 workshop meeting, Town Manager Tom Harmer said.
Five of the six commissioners have prior experience on the town’s P&Z Board. District 1 Commissioner Sherry Dominick is the only commissioner who hasn’t served on the P&Z Board.
Here are the districts where the remaining P&Z Board members live:
On March 16, Younger announced his resignation from the P&Z Board effective immediately ahead of the end of his term in May.
“I only had a month left anyway,” Younger said. “I felt that if I arranged [it so they could] streamline [it], and they could get the process done in one step and it would be more efficient.”
Current P&Z members Gary Coffin and Jay Plager are seeking reappointment.
The Town Commission is expected to consider appointments for the P&Z Board at its April 5 meeting.
Planning, Zoning and Building Director Allen Parsons said Younger was thinking about the potential benefit of allowing the town to have a simultaneous orientation of all three newly-appointed P&Z members.
“As part of the discussion, P&Z Board member Younger then selflessly offered to vacate his position earlier than the end of his term in May to assist the Town Commission in filling the upcoming vacant P&Z Board seats; allowing the Commission to fill three vacant seats simultaneously in April, rather than in a staggered approach,” Parsons wrote in an email.
Younger said he was proud of his contributions toward the town’s beach renourishment program and the St. Regis development. However, he expressed his displeasure with how the underground utilities project was funded.
“At the time, I wasn’t overly pleased with the way the undergrounding funding went about and how it fell, not that I was opposed to undergrounding at all, but I didn’t like the payment scheming that was worked out for it,” Younger said.
