Planned University Parkway roundabout sparks debate but no action

Will the intersection at University Parkway where Legacy Boulevard meets Deer Drive be upgraded with new signals and longer turn lanes, or will it be bulldozed to make way for a future roundabout? 

Lakewood Ranch residents hoping to get a final answer to that question Aug. 7 during the Manatee County land use meeting will now have to wait longer after a 3-3 vote by commissioners stalled the decision. 

As it stands, a roundabout is planned for the intersection and is moving forward. However, Commissioner Bob McCann is trying to stop those plans on the request of a group of residents who live in the Lakewood Ranch Golf and Country Club. The main gate to the country club is accessed through that intersection on Legacy Boulevard. 

Manatee County and Lakewood Ranch Corporate Park LLC entered into a reimbursement agreement on Nov. 12, 2024. The agreement states that Lakewood Ranch will design, engineer, permit and construct the roundabout, and the county will reimburse 50% of the cost, which is an estimated $3,253,336.

On May 6, without prior notice to Lakewood Ranch or its parent company, Schroeder-Manatee Ranch, commissioners voted 6-0 to negotiate the termination of the reimbursement agreement. Commissioner Mike Rahn was absent.

SMR CEO and President Rex Jensen said Manatee County had talked him into a roundabout after he originally suggested upgrading the lanes and signals. In addition, he said he already has invested time and money into the planning and design of a roundabout. 

Tie vote

At the Aug. 5 commission meeting, Rahn tried to have the roundabout issue removed from the Aug. 7 land use agenda because he and Commission Chair George Kruse would be out of town. 

Rahn wanted to discuss the roundabout when there was a full board. Because it was a last-minute addition to the agenda Aug. 5, he needed a supermajority (five votes) to support even a discussion of waiting until there was a full board to discuss the roundabout. 

Rahn's motion to discuss the roundabout failed in a vote of 4-3 (it didn't get the required five votes) with commissioners McCann, Jason Bearden and Carol Felts opposed to discussing the issue before the Aug. 7 land use meeting.

On Aug. 6, Manatee County commissioners received a letter from Bill Galvano, former senator and an attorney with Grimes, Hawkins, Gladfelter & Galvano, P.L. reasserting Jensen’s unwillingness to mutually terminate the agreement as requested by the county. 

So on Aug. 7, Rahn and Kruse called into the meeting. 

At the land use meeting on Aug. 7, McCann called Jensen a bully. However, Kruse argued that terminating a contract based solely on the will of a new board will show that Manatee County contracts "are not worth the paper they're written on." 

Courtesy image

Commissioner Tal Siddique motioned to direct staff to close negotiations (to terminate the reimbursement agreement) and proceed under the existing agreement (to build a roundabout). Rahn seconded the motion. 

However, when it came time for the commissioners to vote, Rahn's voice was muted due to technical issues. 

McCann pushed forward for a vote, excluding Rahn, who couldn't be heard. The vote ended 3-3 with Ballard, Kruse and Siddique in favor of honoring the original agreement and McCann, Bearden and Felts opposed.

When a vote is tied, the motion automatically fails, which meant that staff would continue researching a reimbursement agreement. 

“It is not three to three,” Kruse said through the speaker.

About 30 seconds later, Rahn was unmuted. 

“I’m here now,” he said. “I don’t know what happened to my system, but I vote in favor of Commissioner Siddique’s motion.”

As the sitting chair, McCann said the vote had been taken and he moved on to the next item.

So after two hours of deliberation and public comments, no action was taken. While the agreement is still in place to build the roundabout, McCann said he will continue his efforts to terminate it. 

“We can still negotiate,” McCann said. “I’ve instructed staff to go back to Rex Jensen.”

Because county staff members are still under the directive to negotiate, they have to bring the matter back to commissioners again, but a date to do so has not been set. 

Approved on consent

One reason McCann said he will continue pushing the issue is that the roundabout was approved on a consent agenda without giving notice to residents. 

Items placed on the consent agenda are approved in bulk and not discussed unless a commissioner pulls an individual item. Then, that item can be discussed or simply removed altogether.

Even Steve Zielinski, executive director of the Lakewood Ranch Inter-District Authority, was unaware the roundabout would be on the Nov. 12 consent agenda. 

The same day the roundabout was approved, Zielinski told members of Community Development District 2, which includes the country club, that he had met with Ray Turner, former District 5 commissioner, and Chad Butzow, director of Public Works, two weeks earlier. Zielinski said he was told the roundabout would likely be placed on a December agenda for discussion. 

Country Club resident Carol Cooper doesn't believe items on a consent agenda should be considered proper notice to residents, especially not this particular item that she described as "misleading and deliberately ambiguous in its description."

When placed on the consent agenda in November, the roundabout was item No. 44 and listed as follows — "Execution of reimbursement agreement with Lakewood Ranch Corporate Park, LLC for transportation improvements."

"Is the public expected to inspect every item attached to an agenda to know that this is a project in their front yard," Cooper asked.

Butzow said putting a roundabout on a consent agenda is a standard operating procedure, but called the lack of public outreach an "error in judgement." 

McCann argued that because the public was never given a chance to weigh in on the University Parkway roundabout and that the agreement was “hidden in the consent agenda,” Sunshine Law was violated. 

Cooper said there was something "disconcerting" about the entire process. She noted that the commissioners voting to honor the reimbursement agreement were in "lock-step" and offered no justification for their decision beyond the signed agreement.

“We keep hearing it’s a viable contract. Well, that really hasn’t been determined yet,” McCann said. “The most direct consequences that any resolution, rule or formal action, including a contract, made at a meeting not held in accordance with the Sunshine Law is considered not binding and can be voided by a court.”