- January 8, 2026
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Longboat Key will have a new mayor come March, but who that will be is yet to be determined.
Ken Schneier, who has served as mayor since 2020, is ineligible to remain on Town Commission after his term expires in March as he will reach his term limit. Schneier’s District 3 seat will be filled by Nick Gladding, president of the Republican Club of Longboat Key and a former environmental and land use lawyer.
“A lot of people say they want to keep Longboat Key Longboat Key. My own theory is we need to keep Longboat Key forever,” Gladding said when he filed for his candidacy in October. “In order to keep it forever you’ve got to be able to deal with all the environmental issues and deal with the canals and deal with the money it's gonna take for mitigation and hardening in regard to sea level rise, and I believe I can be helpful with all that.”
Gladding was the only candidate who filed to run for that seat, paving the way for an uncontested victory.
Gary Coffin will retain his District 1 seat and Sarah Karon will retain her District 5 seat, both also running unopposed. When Gladding is sworn in, the seven-member Town Commission will vote who next will represent the town as mayor and vice mayor.
In Longboat Key's form of government, mayor is a position largely in charge of running the commission's meetings and representing the body externally. There have been 39 mayors in the town’s 70-year history.
The town of Longboat Key’s efforts to transform the Town Green into a vibrant hub for community gatherings will continue in the new year. The Complete the Green initiative by the town included fundraising to expand the Sarasota County-funded library into a facility with event and meeting space. That fundraising exceeded its $3.5 million goal. With more than $4 million raised, any excess funds will be used to bring entertainment to the venue through arts and musical programming.
“The generosity of this community is amazing. I’ve worked in several communities and I’ve never had this problem before,” Town Manager Howard Tipton said, tongue in cheek.
Of the town's fundraising efforts, $1 million came from the Vernon G. and Sandra J.C. Buchanan Foundation. U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan and his wife, Sandy, have lived on Longboat Key for four decades, and the new library will be named in the couple’s honor.
“Sandy and I have been looking for an opportunity to give back to our Longboat community, and when this project was presented to us it was a perfect match,” Vern Buchanan said in a statement last June when news of the donation came to light. “We are all about community, and this space will be a gathering place for Longboat residents and visitors for generations to come.”
The library’s design is expected to be finalized in late summer, and groundbreaking on the project could be in early 2027. Orlando's Borelli + Partners is the architecture firm and Jon F. Swift Inc. will be the construction manager.
An arch placed on a groin by St. Regis Longboat Key has led to the latest chapter in the town’s long history of disputes over signs.
The stainless steel metal arch erected on a groin extending into the Gulf entered the crosshairs of Longboat Key Code Enforcement, which ordered the resort to remove the structure for not adhering to town code.
After a lawyer representing the developers sent a letter to the town requesting it amend the code to allow the sign, Code Enforcement said it would allow the arch to stay through February until the Town Commission could discuss the issue in public.
Originally, town commissioners voted not to pursue an ordinance that would alter the sign code, but they later changed their mind and decided to begin the process of a possible code revision.
“We are now in a position where we can avail ourselves of the process that has been established here to meet our citizens’ and businesses’ requests and look dispassionately on the merits,” Commissioner Sarah Karon said. “I trust the process. I have no leaning whatsoever as far as what the process will bring forward.”
In the new year, the Town Commission will vote on whether the sign code should change to allow the arch. If not, the issue would likely head to court as St. Regis’s stance is that a Florida Department of Environmental Protection permit allows the structure and it does not need a permit from the town. The town disagrees.
“From the town's perspective, that is a type of structure that requires a permit from the town,” Planning and Zoning Director Allen Parsons said.
As e-bikes increase in popularity, town staff is looking into regulating uses of the vehicles.
Town staff has floated the idea of updating town code to include how and where e-bikes are operated. Concerns include how fast the vehicles can go, with some able to reach speeds up to 28 mph. Police Chief Russ Mager said he has been discussing potential safety concerns with the vehicles operating on sidewalks alongside pedestrians.
“Our considerations would be that it’s operated safely and you have some kind of mechanism in place to maybe have some speed governing on the sidewalk to make it safe for the pedestrians and the other cyclists,” Mager said.
State law allows e-bikes the same rights and privileges as non-motorized bicycles, meaning they can be used on the sidewalk, in bike lanes or on the side of the roadway. A recently passed state law specifies that counties and municipalities are allowed to enact ordinances to regulate the use of e-bikes, golf carts, mopeds, etc. How and whether Longboat Key will do so is likely to be decided in the new year.
Permits have been issued for the subaqueous wastewater pipeline, which will replace the aging sewage line that traverses Sarasota Bay to a Manatee County treatment facility.
In March 2025, Longboat voters decided by a 90% margin to take out a State Revolving Fund loan with a 2.89% interest rate to pay for the project, which is estimated to cost about $30 million.
The 1.1-mile landward portion of the pipe has already been newly lined thanks to a $2.3 million effort. Now, design is underway for the underwater portion of the project. Design is nearly complete, and town Utility Manager Jessie Camburn said construction could begin in mid-2026.
Garney Construction will install the pipe, using barges, turbidity curtains, excavators and cranes to dig a trench and bury the pipe on the floor of Sarasota Bay.
The new 20-inch, plastic pipe will replace the metal pipe that is more than 50 years old. That metal pipe ruptured in 2020, leaking 11 million gallons — according to Berkeley Research Group estimates — of sewage into Sarasota Bay.
A fixed-span bridge replacing the Cortez Bridge is expected to begin construction in the summer, according to the Florida Department of Transportation.
The Cortez Bridge is a two-lane drawbridge that connects the barrier island of Bradenton Beach to Cortez. With the bridge’s 70th birthday coming in 2026, FDOT is well underway in the process of designing a replacement. The fixed-span bridge will have a 65-foot clearance and is expected to cost $135.3 million, according to FDOT’s most recent estimates.
Construction bids will open in March, and construction is expected to begin in the summer and continue for about three years and four months. The existing drawbridge will remain open during construction with temporary lane closures expected as the new, fixed-span bridge is constructed just to the north of the existing bridge.
Manatee County Commissioner Tal Siddique, whose district includes the Manatee portion of Longboat Key, described the project as a long-term benefit with short-term inconvenience.
The Cortez Bridge is the quickest way off of the barrier islands for north-end Longboat Key residents.
To get to that bridge, Longboaters first need to cross the Longboat Pass Bridge, which is also nearly 70 years old. Replacing the Longboat Pass Bridge is still a possibility for FDOT. In 2024, it held community meetings to gather public opinion on the possibility with three design options introduced, including a 78-foot-tall, fixed-span design that was not received warmly by residents. FDOT has since began looking at the possibility of repairing the existing bridge rather than replacing it, though no decision has been made.
More than three quarters of the town’s general fund revenue comes from property taxes, and nearly 60% of that revenue is used to fund police and fire.
So, with state leaders in Tallahassee floating the idea of a massive overhaul of property taxes in the state, municipalities all over the state are paying attention. Gov. Ron DeSantis called property tax reform “the big kahuna” of his policy goals in the coming year.
“For me, I think the basis is if you’re a Florida resident and you have a primary residence here, a homesteaded residence, you’ve got to be able to own that free and clear of the government,” he said. “The notion that you should be just paying rent to them indefinitely, people have been pinched by these property taxes.”
Longboat leaders are urging state leaders to think about how local fire and police departments are funded when discussing property tax reform in the upcoming legislative session, which begins Jan. 13.
“Let’s just make sure that everybody understands that eliminating a revenue source doesn’t eliminate the cost,” said Longboat Key Town Manager Howard Tipton. “Unless you’re going to do something with that cost, which is a lot of public safety, you’ve got to find another way to pay for it. So let’s just have a really thoughtful conversation about where we want to go with this.”
Any significant changes to how property taxes are implemented would need to be decided by a ballot measure, according to the Florida Constitution.
The town of Longboat Key and the Florida Department of Transportation are planning a roundabout to replace the intersection of Broadway Street and Gulf of Mexico Drive.
Town staff and commissioners say a roundabout will keep traffic moving and increase safety.
“The community up there has looked for safer access to the beach from the village, and the roundabout will do a great deal to make that a safer intersection,” Commissioner BJ Bishop said. “I’m not a huge fan of roundabouts, but in that area it works. It will work very well to mitigate the pedestrian and cycling safety issues.”
In September, the Town Commission unanimously approved two resolutions that would allow the future contractor to perform utility relocation work ahead of the project. They also specify the town would be responsible for landscaping and brick paver maintenance of the roundabout.
Design work for the roundabout is expected to be complete by the end of February and will follow the town’s comprehensive plans to transform Gulf of Mexico Drive into a “Complete Street” that caters to pedestrians and bikers as well as motor vehicles.
“Gulf of Mexico Drive essentially serves as the town’s main street,” Assistant Town Manager Isaac Brownman said. “It is a great opportunity to be able to change the face of just one road corridor and have such a dramatic positive impact to the community over time.”
The first step of the town’s Complete Street initiative wrapped up in December with the completion of the Country Club Shores turn lane project, which repaved 0.84 miles on the southern end of the street, added curbed and landscaped medians and increased the width of bike lanes.
