- March 26, 2025
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Although Manatee County residents might have expected the Environmental Lands Management and Acquisition program to build momentum in 2025 after a slow start, ELMAC Chairman Mason Gravley said the process will continue to be a grinding one.
"Getting properties in the pipeline is such a long-term process with conservation," Gravley said. “There’s going to be multiple years between the initial contact with the landowner to the acquisition. Not because of the (county's) staff ... it's the things that are out of their control like overall funding. The processes in place are very tedious.”
Over 70% of voters passed the Conservation and Parks Referendum in November 2020 to pay for the purchase of land and easements for conservation, but the county has closed on just three properties so far: Crooked River Ranch, the Emerson Point expansion and Triple Oak Preserve.
Now, Manatee County's website lists 13 properties on the ELMAC Candidate Property Dashboard under the label, “acquisition in progress,” so it would appear that things are speeding up. The dashboard is accessible to the public by visiting MyManatee.org.
While “acquisition in progress” sounds solid, not every sale is guaranteed to make it through the required steps.
Abiding by the strict guidelines that come with using taxpayer dollars and seeking additional funding outside the county takes more time than the average real estate transaction.
The county is negotiating with the owners of two of the properties as conservation easements, which are less expensive but more complicated than buying a property outright.
One property is in Parrish. The other is Mossy Island Ranch, 438 acres next to Myakka State Park in Myakka City.
Mossy Island Ranch owner Bobby Manning said he could sell the property tomorrow if he got an offer he couldn’t refuse, and therein lies a problem with securing conservation easements. The contracts are tougher to negotiate and take longer to close.
“You have to put together a new financial plan when you put something under a conservation easement because there are going to be restrictions,” Commissioner Carol Felts said.
The landowner and the county have to come to terms that make it possible for the landowner to financially profit without causing any damage to the land that is being preserved.
Gravley, the impact campaigns manager for the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation, described the waiting period as “scary.”
He gave the example of a 78-year-old landowner whose children don’t want to continue a cattle operation, and who is sitting on a stack of business cards from developers who will pay him cash in 90 days.
“It’s a tough process for landowners, and I feel for them,” Gravley said. “I respect the ones who are in it for the long haul.”
Easements are advantageous for the county because the property owners are responsible for the maintenance, and it costs less to achieve the main goal of conserving the land. Gravley said an easement could cost half, or even a third, of a purchase price.
Manning has to make a living, too. He has three heirs to consider, who have followed in his agricultural footsteps. The ranch practices sustainable cattle, hay and sod production.
He took the ranch, which was listed for $12 million, off the market two years ago and said he’s in no hurry to do anything. Manning is weary of restrictions that could be placed on his business operations.
“I know how to make this work better than anybody,” he said. “You can’t send somebody from Tallahassee to tell me how many cows I can run here in Manatee County.”
County staff members are currently seeking half the funding for the easement from the Rural and Family Lands Protection Program through the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
While the referendum passed in 2020, it wasn’t put into effect until 2022, so millage wasn’t collected until 2023. The following numbers were provided by Sheila McLean, Chief Financial Officer for Manatee County.
Not all funds are spent on land acquisition, and not all acquisitions are paid solely by the millage.
The county has purchased $30.3 million worth of land and only collected $27.2 million in millage. County staff members are paid using those taxpayer dollars. In turn, they find grant dollars to supplement the fund.
The Crooked River Ranch was the first property acquired by the program in December 2023. The 68-acre parcel in Parrish was purchased for $11.2 million.
In April 2024, the county was awarded a $5 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to put toward the purchase price.
In addition, the Florida Communities Trust awarded the county $1.5 million to cover the cost of building restrooms and restoring the tidal creeks to create a more natural flow of water.
In addition to purchases, McLean said the millage can pay for restorations, maintenance, equipment and administrative costs.
Commissioner George Kruse set the tone for a new year of funding when he pulled a request to purchase equipment with the conservation funds from the Jan. 8 consent agenda.
By Kruse’s account, nobody went to the ballot box in 2020 and voted to tax themselves .15 mills to purchase a dump truck.
“People wanted this tax because they wanted us to buy land,” he said.
Director of Natural Resources Charlie Hunsicker said the last board allowed the millage to be used to maintain the county’s existing properties, too.
The $216,923 request was for a skid steer, dump trailer and a utility trailer for maintenance, restoration and debris hauling at all Manatee County preserves, not just those purchased with environmental land funds.
Commissioners unanimously agreed with Kruse and voted to use money out of the general fund to purchase the equipment.
“Even though it might be technically allowable, it’s not in the spirit of what people wanted to see these funds used for,” Commissioner Amanda Ballard said. “Going forward, I think we need to have a larger conversation about it.”
Salaries and maintenance costs are also allowable expenses under the referendum.
There are 23 staff positions either fully or partially funded by the tax. McLean said 14 of the salaries are split with other funding sources within the Natural Resources department.
As for maintenance, Kruse said if the county is going to purchase a property, it needs to take on the expense of maintaining it without using additional millage funds to do so.
He used developer-paid impact fees as an example. While impact fees help pay for roads to be built, they don’t pay to maintain roads.
Kruse questioned the percentage of funds actually being used to acquire land. He rounded the numbers to about $2 million paid to acquire land versus about $4 million paid to related expenses.
He said the percentage of dollars spent on the millage’s intended use is so low that if the conservation fund was a normal nonprofit, no one would ever invest in it.
“Go ahead, buy your dump trucks, but get it from a normal fund someplace (else),” Kruse told Hunsicker.
