(I departed significantly from this text to save time as the meeting was running late)

My name is Pete Theisen. I am the Anti-Growth Candidate. You heard that correctly, I am the Anti-Growth Candidate.

I have in my hand here a small booklet given to me by my campaign treasurer, Maddy Nelson. In this small booklet is the text of the Declaration of Independence. In the second paragraph it declares that everyone has a right to LIFE, and that government MUST secure that right. I take that to mean that government either has to feed you and take care of your other life needs such as housing and health care, give you a job so you can do these things for yourself or see to it that you get a job whenever you want a job.

When I first came to Sarasota in 1981 there were traditions here - Jobs, Homes, Families. BUT now, excessive building – what we euphemistically call GROWTH - has created a Boom-Bust cycle here similar to what has always plagued other parts of the country. BUST is unacceptable – and Sarasota's Jobs are gone! GROWTH has also given us impossible traffic reminiscent of third world conditions. We can't have this, we must not have this!

Try driving anywhere in Sarasota at 4 in the afternoon! Do you suppose that potential new residents don't try driving in Sarasota ? They rent a car at the airport for heaven's sake! What do they think when they try to drive? It doesn't matter what we have to offer in this town if you can't get to it and back from it in a reasonable time! What do you suppose visitors think after an hour or more in our traffic?

Look at the up-and-coming new city to the northeast that everyone is so excited about! Do they have the gridlocked density that we have “developed”? NO, they do NOT!

Right now we have 6700 single homes for sale in Sarasota and 2700 condos for sale. Tully and Al tell me that maybe a third of the rentals are vacant. Other sources indicate that a third of all buildings commercial or residential are vacant. A third of the buildings vacant and we still can't drive in Sarasota!

Not so long ago a luxurious multi use project was promoted. I think it passed but is yet to be built, probably won't be built. That project would have contained a number of very expensive residential units, plus shops, services, entertainment facilities and so on. Land preparation for this project involved the destruction of a number of “affordable housing” units and at least one historic structure. This project would have included multi level structured parking for at least three cars per unit, perhaps substantially more. Do you know what was provided in the proposal for traffic mitigation? A BUS STOP! Honest, I am not making this up, A BUS STOP, for traffic mitigation! Who in their right mind is going to buy a mid to high seven figure home with a three or four car garage, plus lots of common parking and then take the bus, anywhere at any time? OK, maybe their limo would be the size of a bus but . . . What was the thinking behind that proposal?

Did you know that from time to time our wastewater facilities discharge raw sewage into the bay? Your kids could swim in raw sewage a day or two later when they use the beach. How many “good jobs” would there be in remedying that situation?

How many “Brownfield” areas are there in Sarasota? “Brownfields” are abandoned property sites that have some contaminated soil but are not so polluted that they qualify for “Superfund” cleanup. How much work is there for wage earners if we were to clean these up?

We CAN'T grow any more unless we vastly improve our roads and utilities, both projects are deal-breakingly, prohibitively expensive. It will be years before our infrastructure will support any more new building, maybe it will never happen. Nowadays we need to put our primary job base on something other than new buildings.

The biggest thorn in Sarasota's side is traffic. Some people think that all this traffic is OK, though, that if the traffic gets bad enough, people will start taking the bus. Well, that is wrong, people won't take the bus unless the bus is nice to take. Even if we add bus runs, each bus adds to the traffic, just not as quickly as cars – assuming the bus is full.

The bus has to be emotionally safe, reasonably fast and physically convenient. We need a way to exclude the occasional disruptive people from the bus, and perhaps a dress and hygiene code, for one thing. We need shelters at every stop, for another and we need a network of smaller “golf cart” buses to connect the neighborhood buildings to the bus stops. Make these improvements and more people will take the bus.

But the bus isn't the answer for everyone. We need some more road capacity as well before we ever approve another building project, and we maybe even need something catchy like a monorail or light train that flies above the traffic and doesn't add to it, as the buses do.

We need those transportation improvements NOW! If they need approval, GET THE APPROVAL!

I started working on my Grandfather's farm in the frozen North at age 8, Grandpa, by the way, was a landlord - I understand that he had a couple or three houses, as the saying goes. I worked my way through college in construction, stores and factories. I even got a master mechanic certificate while working in both government and private industry. After 28 years of that I eventually found myself sweeping the floor in a bar part time as the only work I could find. I came to Sarasota and immediately found a full time job, Sarasota had always had a tradition of jobs, even then.

In Sarasota no one who wanted to work here would be unemployed for more than a day or two. What has happened to that tradition now? People now look for jobs, fruitlessly, for months – but our habitual economic engine has stalled. New retail and new industry from time to time consider Sarasota, try to get government approval for their operation and then go somewhere else? Why? GROWTH induced Gridlock!

What would happen if the people who want to continue the boom and bust construction cycle would instead devote 5 years to catching up our infrastructure? I mean assign all the carpenters, plumbers and electricians who usually build new condos and single homes to work on roads and utilities instead? Don't tell me we can't do it – people spent the 50s and 60s telling me every day how “we” had beaten the Axis Powers in World War II (and we did!), don't tell me “we” can't build roads, pipelines and install utility services. Compared to World War II, which we won, this is a small problem. If we tear our hair and say “the sky is falling”, then it gets bigger .. .

Not only are jobs traditional in Sarasota, homes are traditional as well. My boss at my new Sarasota job back in 1981? He helped me find a home and then helped me move in – himself! He even loaned me some furniture. Today we have homelessness, ironically with nearly a third of the residential properties in some neighborhoods vacant, and a reputation for treating the homeless with - “meanness”? This shouldn't be, this can't be!

With A THIRD of our housing stock VACANT, why is any family homeless in Sarasota?

For one thing, Tully tells me that the Section 8 approval positions are completely unstaffed. With 3000 unemployed in Sarasota it seems to me that we could find someone to get Section 8 started again.

Any finance people in here? If not any press? People and organizations who foreclose homes, can I ask you something? (Now I'm sure that foreclosing isn't what you LIKE to do but rather was all you could think of in the situation BUT) How much of a tax write-off would you get if you donated some, or all, of your unsold residential inventory to Habitat for Humanity? How many years will you have to pay taxes on it if you don't before it finally sells? Put this data onto a spreadsheet and email me with the figures, I'd like to know.

Year-round Renters are Residents Too! However, people who rent do NOT receive a homestead exemption. Yet, they certainly pay property taxes on the houses they rent as their homes because the landlord has to include these taxes in the rent or go bankrupt. Not only that, they also pay our sales taxes, license fees on their cars and as likely as not, business and professional license fees. They are our neighbors and friends. Would it be fair to give them some sort of discount or rebate on the taxes they indirectly pay on their homes? I think it would.

Within Sarasota homes, supported by Sarasota jobs, Sarasota families have traditionally thrived. We need a new way to get back to our old traditions, folks, and the Sarasota City Government needs to lead the way.

We need new jobs, we need our homes, not vacant but with families thriving in them. Put me in the position to help you. Elect me, Pete Theisen. I will make these my priorities for the direction of the Sarasota City Government.