Venice council candidates seek to define themselves at Venetian Golf & River Club forum

VENICE – The four candidates seeking the two Venice City Council seats on the Nov. 7 ballot sought to define themselves Tuesday night  at the Venetian Golf & River Club Community Association candidate forum.

Of the four, Joan Farrell, who hopes to supplant Seat 1 incumbent Mitzie Fiedler, made the most emphatic case and established herself as an anti-growth, anti-development candidate willing to stand up to developers and flout the Bert Harris Act, the state law that protects private property rights.

For those interested a play-by-play on how Farrell fared against Fiedler and how Seat 2 hopefuls Dusty Feller and Ron Smith fared, the community association posted a video on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjROZgZMBIA.

That video is meant for residents of the subdivision who have not yet returned for the winter but it is accessible to everyone.

The forum format had Feller and Smith fielding questions before a packed house for about an hour and, after a brief break during which roughly half the audience left, had Farrell and Fiedler addressing the same issues.

All four candidates voiced concern over growth and traffic and pledged fiscal responsibility. Fielder pointed to her successful effort to reduce the property tax rate for the 2023-24 budget.

Smith said he called for that – along with preservation of neighborhoods as echoed in the John Nolen Plan and redevelopment of the Seaboard District – as his three main reasons to seek public office. He later credited Frankie Abbruzzino with first proposing a cut in the property tax rate during his 2022 campaign for mayor.

Feller said she’s primarily interested in ensuring the city remains safe, emphasizing the need to retain police and firefighters with competitive wages and ensure they are properly equipped.

All four also agreed that Venice needs to do something to increase the amount of affordable housing, emphasizing the need for police, firefighters, teachers and nurses to live in the city of Venice.

Feller, whose husband is CEO of Village on the Isle, noted that CNAs, a critical part of elderly care in the retirement community, commute long distances and said she was surprised to learn that only three Venice firefighters lived within city limits.

Venice City Council candidates cite skills

Smith, who frequently emphasized his role in helping the grass-roots group, Venice Unites, negotiate changes in the recently passed land development rules, envisions himself as someone who can bring those negotiation and mediation skills to the board.

The retired newspaper editor and Florida prosecutor who ran an unsuccessful campaign for Seat 5 on the council in 2022, uses highly polished public speaking skills to make his case.

In 2022, Smith spent more time challenging developer Pat Neal than current Seat 5 occupant Rick Howard.

On Tuesday, Smith name-checked Neal favorably, saying the developer, who plans to put a Publix-anchored shopping center at the intersection of Laurel Road and Jacaranda Boulevard, is willing to “do the right thing” and put a traffic light at the center’s entrance, which is opposite Veneto Boulevard, the main entrance to the Venetian.

The sticking point then? Veneto is too close to a planned light at the intersection of Jacaranda and Laurel.

Smith noted that he is opposed to construction of the center on 10 acres that had previously been earmarked as a preserve, later saying: “They make exceptions to allow you to build a Publix, they can make an exception to have a traffic light for that Publix, because it shouldn’t be there.”

Feller, the only one of the four candidates who has never previously sought public office, hopes to bring similar skills to the board, citing her time as a restaurant owner in Alabama, as well as networking nationally while operating an animal rescue nonprofit.

Fiedler, who is seeking a third consecutive term, frequently points to achievements of the City Council during her first six years.

Those include the establishment of an asset management plan to shore up $104 million in deficiencies, something accomplished by setting aside funds to account for vehicle depreciation, instead of relying solely on the local option sales tax for capital purchases and the $6.4 million stormwater cleanup program.

A resident of the Venetian Golf & River Club, Fiedler ran unopposed in 2020 for her second term and should have been playing to a favorable audience as she had in her first election six years ago.

But her vote in favor of a map change that would allow Neal to build the Village at Jacaranda and Laurel shopping center, as well as her willingness to place updates on the planned widening of Laurel Road on the council agenda have soured many of her neighbors.

The North Venice Neighborhood Alliance – a grassroots group opposing the center – started in the Venetian Golf & River Club and raised funds to file a circuit court challenge to that July 11 council vote.

Feller referenced that division early in the evening.

“I do hate to see what it’s done to your community here; I know there’s been a lot of infighting, a lot of division of people in this neighborhood who used to be close, used to be friends,” she said.

Farrell criticizes Neal role in seeking road widening

Farrell, who has a failed campaign for a Tennessee state house seat under her belt, pointed to that decision as her main reason to seek office.

“The reason that I entered this race is I was appalled by the land grab that was made by Pat Neal on July 11 and rubber stamped by city council. It was just unconscionable,” said Farrell, who went on to question a recent appearance by Neal before the council to urge the start of eminent domain proceedings to acquire one remaining piece of right of way needed to widen the roadway and include a 12-foot wide multi-use recreational trail that would become part of the Florida Gulf Coast Trail.

Neal is part of “The Economic Stimulus Working Group,” which has entered into public-private partnerships with Sarasota County to fast-track the extension of Lorraine Road, which would eventually link with Knights Trail road and the widening of Laurel Road.

Farrell called the partnership with Sarasota County – which owns that section of Laurel Road – an “unholy alliance” and linked the road to construction of the shopping center.

“I will fight tooth and nail to stop the Laurel Road widening because if it is stopped, then the Publix will be stopped because those two peas in a pod,” Farrell said. “And I think we have a good chance of stopping that Laurel Road widening.

“What this race is about is whether developers are going to continue to own City Hall, or if the citizens are going to own City Hall and I’m voting in favor of the citizens.”

The plan to widen Laurel Road came about during the same era as annexations in northeast Venice brought land that later became Willow Chase, the Venetian Golf & River Club and the expansive Milano planned-unit development that now includes the proposed shopping center.

The city thought it had secured the right-of-way for that widening through pre-annexation agreements with the developers who originally wanted to come into the city.

After the Great Recession Neal acquired a significant portion of the vacant land and successfully argued in Circuit Court that a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Koontz vs. St. Johns River Water Management District invalidated both extraordinary mitigation fees attached to those annexations and the right-of-way set aside for the road widening.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Four Venice City Council candidates seek to carve out an identity