Rendering courtesy KSA

Sarasota voters approved Single Member Districts for County Commission seats last year. It’s a move that turns the current power structure on its head. Big donor dollars are far more effective with the diluted accountability of At-Large voting. Our current County Commissioners are the beneficiaries of At-Large Voting. They failed to convince constituents to vote against Single Member Districts. Now they want to change district boundaries.

At-large voting for Sarasota County Commissioners meant every voter in the County voted for all five Commissioners. This created huge disadvantages for grass-roots candidates. The old at-large system required candidates to campaign in the whole County, reaching a population over 400,000. It was like running for Congress. Candidates with huge war chests and PAC support had the advantage vying for this important local position.

If a Commissioner elected “At-Large” voted against his own district’s interests (like Mike Moran did with the Celery Fields or Al Maio did with Benderson’s Siesta Promenade) it was difficult for voters in the district to “throw the bum out” at the ballot box. With Single Member District voting,

getting rid of a Commissioner who is throwing your district under the bus is easier, because the voters who live in the district are the only ones deciding if that Commissioner deserves a second term. Grass-roots, door-to-door campaigns have a shot against candidates anointed by developer dollars and dark money.

After Single Member Districts passed, our County Commissioners got busy with redistricting.

Last May, County staff provided population data to the Commissioners indicating current district populations are reasonably balanced, ranging form 79,915 to 87.525. The population database County Staff used is the same one used by the U.S. Postal Service, and has a clear methodology. Undeterred, the Commission chose to hire a consultant who (surprise!) found a wider district population range from 79,590 to 89,824, exceeding the 10 percent difference the Commission was looking for to justify redistricting. Problem is, the consultant data has been proven deeply flawed. A subcontracted consultant recommended against redistricting before the census, and conceded he was unable to calculate a margin of error for his data. Ron Collins, a local activist who analyzed the data, flagged multiple, significant mistakes. Collins puts the margin of error at 25 percent or more, making the consultant information unreliable.

It’s worth noting the consultant maps include the addresses of the current Commissioners. Taking incumbent addresses into account introduces another credibility problem. Right now there is a cluster of Commissioners living in Nokomis (Maio), Osprey (Hines) and Venice (Detert). If we are going to make changes, should Nokomis and Osprey be in the same district? Moran and Ziegler live near the University Town Center mall and along Fruitville Road respectively. We don’t have any Commissioner living between Bahia Vista and Blackburn Point Road, and no one lives east of I-75. Districts are supposed to be drawn based on community representation as well as population.

Take it easy Commissioners. Wait for the census.

Cathy Antunes is the host of The Detail.

Rendering courtesy KSA