Tom Cross: A Region's Loss

Wednesday Dec. 31 2008 • Today's Herald Tribune has an obituary for my friend Tom Cross. Tom was not a close friend of mine, but he was a good friend and good ally. We got to know each other and work together on the Oaks and Midnight Pass. I think I was lumped in with Tom and Rob Patten (who who knows who else) as "the bearded boys and banjo players" that "criped the bejabbers" out of curmudgeonly elder environmentalist Jim Neville. Jim and Fred Duisberg were some of the early defenders the coast and didn't always see eye to eye with us upstart "young" allies. 

I knew Tom as a goldsmith from upstate New York who bonded with Sarasota and started a career in computer-assisted illustration. Tom was the first person I knew who could successfully blend photographs and illustration in Adobe Photoshop. He spent years, professionally and as a volunteer, using illustration (and video) to inform citizens about this region's barrier islands and bays. Tom and I collaborated on a user's map of Sarasota Bay. I got it started in Adobe Illustrator and Tom eventually rescued me and finished the project. We need more artists committed to illuminating our natural environment, people willing to write and illustrate works such as : A Field Guide to Trapped Magic: Water. 

My big regret is that he didn't live to see resolution of the Midnight Pass issue. Tom was centrally involved in the closing and (together with Dave Jemison) they documented the story of the ill-fated pass closure. 

His ability to communicate reformed itself in his half-decade long epic contest with lung cancer, his unearned nemesis. Rather than hiding, he approached it openly, with humor, and kept many people informed not only about his status, but the cruel realities of lung cancer unrelated to smoking. He will be missed. 

Midnight Pass: Post Election, Post Denial

Saturday Dec. 20 2008 • One the challenges of being a candidate is how to maintain honesty and integrity while avoiding situations and positions that needlessly alienate portions of the electorate. You don't tug on Superman's cape, but you have an obligation to let Superman know what you think, particularly if he asks you directly.

Another challenge is separating personal feelings and positions from one's appropriate for a commissioner. While it is appropriate to bring one's experiences to bear on issues facing the commission, there is a big difference between what might be best for the county as a whole and what an individual might feel best represents their pre-commission constituency.

So during the campaign I didn't feature Midnight Pass, but neither did I shy away from it. I went and spoke (when I didn't have to) at Pelican Cove, brought up the subject and stayed after to chat with people. The vast majority of Pelican Cove residents would prefer an open pass and I gave them the condensed version of my concerns about that. I wrote three blog entries that dealt directly or indirectly with Midnight Pass. One about Big Pass, one about coastal challenges in general and one about a canoe trip to Midnight Beach. And I responded to people who emailed me about my position. [Sample response provided below.]

And although I left the door open to ways I might support a new channel, the two leaders of the Midnight Pass Society circulated emails against me, which, in my opinion, violated the spirit, if not the letter of the law that restrains non-profits from political activity. That wasn't a big surprise because MPS has used questionable tactics in the past. 

Now, a month and a half later, two things have changed. The permitting agencies have said no to the County's proposal and I no longer have to think as if I were a commissioner. As a result, I have a new take on the matter, one you may be able to read about in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in the next few days. 

SAMPLE RESPONSE DURING THE CAMPAIGN TO AN INQUIRY ABOUT MY POSITION ON MIDNIGHT PASS

Dear .......

I spent plenty of time on North Creek and around the pass in the late 70's and early 80's and I worked (hard) to acquire the entire Midnight Pass area for public use (the failed Oaks referendum) and I also fought to keep Midnight Pass open. In late 1983 I testified at the Midnight Pass hearings against the doomed scheme to "relocate" the pass. Maybe you were there too. Many of us shook our heads in disbelief when the County and State approved permits to artificially close the pass. All of this took place before the Midnight Pass Society was formed.

Once the beachfront residents and their consultants closed the migrating pass and failed to create a new channel, the County relieved them of the requirement to re-establish a new pass. Letting them off the hook left us with no pass, but also suggested that the viability of a pass in that area was in question.

I was selected by the County Commission to serve (as a volunteer) on the Blue Ribbon Panel on Midnight Pass (1984) where I supported (and I may have helped draft) a plan sent to Tallahassee that called for a major one-time opening of the pass, followed by a hands-off, see-what-happens approach. Our premise was to "re-set" the system to see if a natural pass could sustain itself, if the natural ebb and flow of the tides could keep the pass open. If not, then it would be clear that attempts to maintain a pass would be working contrary to the natural hydrodynamics of the area. In other words, we wanted to see if a natural pass could persist without perpetual tinkering and management. We felt that Midnight Pass should be self-maintaining and not require a lot of ongoing management (and public dollars).

Unfortunately, that bold consensus initiative was rejected by the state.

In 1995 I once again participated in a series of professionally facilitated meetings (the Little Sarasota Bay Forums) with the goal of reaching another community consensus. At that time many of us demonstrated a willingness to put community consensus above entrenched positions. All participating stakeholders, including the Sierra Club (which I represented), Audubon Society and Midnight Pass Society agreed to a Policy Goal and Implementation Recommendations that were later adopted by the Sarasota County Commission. I've never "worked for" the county on the pass issue as a paid employee or contractor.

While it was not the preferred outcome for any group, it did represent community consensus and I believe the stakeholders who agreed to it have an obligation to support it.

Consequently, I stand by the County's adopted 1995 position. Soon we should know if state permits can be issued and (if it can be permitted) many of us will be looking closely to see if the plans are consistent with the goals and implementation recommendations adopted by the stakeholders and the County.

In addition to determining if the proposed project meets its adopted goals, the County Commission also has an obligation to carefully consider the costs associated with re-opening and maintaining a pass. I'm confident that, if it wanted to, the county commission could find the money for the initial project. But, in addition to the challenge of identifying a revenue source, the County Commission will need assess opportunity costs for other now crucial coastal management objectives, including waterway access, red tide, and bacterial contamination of our beaches. These concerns were much lower profile years ago and fiscal responsibility dictates consideration of how we will (or won't) fund all needed coastal management projects.

I've been working on the opportunities and challenges of the Midnight Pass areas in various ways since the pass was open. Since then I've been willing to listen and work with people from all parts of the community to try to reach consensus on this contentious issue. There is no reason to believe that will change once I am elected.

Sincerely, Jono Miller

P.S. This is difficult community issue that should have been resolved years ago. Some may question my analysis and some my question my judgment. But let no one question my commitment to Sarasota's coastal resources. Whether as a member of the National Estuary Program's Citizen's Advisory Committee, walking and documenting all our beaches with students, using a NOAA grant to study neighborhood stormwater impacts, working to find alternatives to the City of Sarasota's Whitaker effluent discharge, meeting for years to secure funds needed to increase public access to our waterways, studying spoil islands with a National Science Foundation grant, documenting recreational use of Sarasota Bay or teaching about our environment, I have spent nearly forty years working on behalf of our coastal resources because, as I have been known to say, our coastal resources are what makes Sarasota County different from DeSoto County. Since it is clear that coastal resource issues are of major importance to you, I would encourage you to look closely at the records of all three of us District One candidates before casting your vote. There is more at stake here than just Midnight Pass.

Setting the Record Straight: "Facts" in a Funhouse Mirror

Even though my Republican opponent signed a pledge not to base messages on "lies or subtle deceptions or half truths", she apparently approved three negative attack ads (two mailers and a TV spot) that contained a total of five separate lies, deceptions and/or half truths about me. Had I responded during the campaign I would merely have been repeating the distortions, but now I can reveal how distorted or spun these accusations were.

Each accusation starts with a smidgen of "truthiness" and goes on an excursion that ventures into the "lies, deceptions and half truths" territory. 

MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS ARE FROM OUTSIDE SARASOTA COUNTY. This appeared three times in slightly different forms. I guess we need to define "major". My major contributor was a Sarasota environmentalist -- myself-- I poured close to $25,000 of my own money into the campaign account (as well as foregoing a half year's salary). All my other contributions came in amounts of $200 or less, which can't be said for the money that poured into the local Republican Party to defeat me. 

My sincere effort to reach out the the business/development community was distorted into the haunting spectre of "major contributors are big developers from outside our county". Yeah, I had two helpful contributors who live outside the county, but happen to control land in Sarasota county. By my count about 15% of my contributions came from development-related sources. I think the comparable figure for my Republican opponent was roughly twice that. So it might be more accurate to say the campaign with the greatest percentage of developer support was my opponents.  It seems both ironic and sad to me that developers are willing to fund campaigns based on labeling environmentalists as the developer's candidates.

BELIEVES FLORIDIANS DO NOT PAY ENOUGH IN INSURANCE PREMIUMS This charge also appeared three times in different forms. Although this was touted as being "on the record" it was surreptitiously recorded at a meeting with High School students that my Republican opponent chose not to attend. Instead the head of the local Republican party stood in the back of the room with a recording device. My well intentioned (and informal) effort to explain hurricane risk exposure to high school students became an "on the record" statement "that Floridians don't pay enough insurance premiums". The implication in that statement is that people should be paying more. I never said, or even implied, that.

The fact is there are plenty of articles documenting the fact that there has not been enough money paid into the system to cover the costs of a bad hurricane year. I'd recommend The Natural-Catastrophe Crisis by Michael Lewis that appeared in the August 26, 3007 New York Times Magazine Section. Here's a quote from that article:

The companies’ models disagreed here and there, but on one point they spoke with a single voice: four natural perils had outgrown the insurers’ ability to insure them — U.S. hurricane, California earthquake, European winter storm and Japanese earthquake. The insurance industry was prepared to lose $30 billion in a single event, once every 10 years. The models showed that a sole hurricane in Florida wouldn’t have to work too hard to create $100 billion in losses. There were concentrations of wealth in the world that defied the logic of insurance. And most of them were in America.

Here's another quote that deals specifically with the situation in Florida: The single biggest issue in Florida’s 2006 governor’s race, for instance, was the price of insurance. The Republican, Charlie Crist, got himself elected on the strength of his promise to reduce Floridians’ home-insurance rates by creating a state-subsidized pool of $28 billion in catastrophe insurance coverage. “Florida took this notion of spreading this risk and turned it on its head,” says one former state insurance commissioner. “They said, ‘We’re going to take all this risk ourselves.’ ” The state sold its citizens catastrophe insurance at roughly one-sixth the market rates, thus encouraging them to live in riskier places than they would if they had to pay what the market charged (and in the bargain, the state subsidized the well-to-do who live near the beach at the expense of the less-well-to-do who don’t). But if all the models are correct, $28 billion might not cover even one serious storm. The disaster waiting to happen in Florida grows bigger by the day, but for a man running for governor of Florida, ignoring it is a political no-brainer. If he’s lucky — if no big storms hit in his term — he looks like the genius who saved Floridians billions in catastrophic-risk premiums. If he’s unlucky, he bankrupts Florida and all hell breaks loose, but he can shake down the federal government to cover some of the losses.

So yeah, Floridians have not paid enough in insurance premiums to cover potential storm damage. That's what I was trying to explain the students. So much for telling the truth.

HAS A PLAN FOR PAID BEACH PARKING, BUT OPPOSES BEACH CONSERVATION/NOURISHMENT My conciliatory and speculative exploration of how free and paid beach parking might exist simultaneously became "has a plan for paid parking at the beach, but opposes beach conservation/nourishment." No mention of the fact that the concept was premised on maintaining free parking. If you want to know where they got this, see my blog on the subject of beach parking. Its pretty clear that I was trying to suggest a consensus position, not advocate all-paid parking at the beach. 

I'm not really sure where the "opposes beach conservation/nourishment" came from. Maybe my position that we can't afford to nourish all 35 miles of Gulf shoreline?

LEAD THE EFFORT TO INCREASE OVER $250,000,000 IN ADDITIONAL TAXES. Guilty as charged, I guess, except the figures are wrong and the accusation fails to mention that "the effort" was repeatedly approved by (Republican) commissioners and the voting public. So sixteen years spent on behalf of the public to conceive and implement a popular environmentally sensitive lands program repeatedly endorsed by the county commission and resoundingly by the electorate became "championed the effort that led to $250,000,000 taxpayer dollars being spent to purchase land at the peak of the market." As you might imagine the total isn't $250,000,000 and very little land was purchased at the peak of the market. 

More no good deed goes unpunished.

HAS NEVER CREATED A JOB OR MADE A PAYROLL and NO EXPERIENCE BRINGING JOBS TO OUR COMMUNITY This one has a definite kernel of truth, but it is implicitly based on the premise that people running for local office have to have had experience creating jobs. That's news to me. It is true that I have not held a position that had as a primary goal of job creation. [Had my opponent?] Instead I had a job instructing students about the local environment and many have stayed in the area after graduation and got or created local jobs. I believe 10% of all New College graduates live and work between Tampa and Naples. Surely my participation over a 30 year period has contributed to local employment.

But beyond preparing students to find work locally, the fact is I have created jobs here. Not a lot, but I have; both directly and indirectly. It started back in 1975 when my future wife and I created a small environmental consulting business. And yes, we did hire people on occasion to work for us.

But more importantly, I was a leader in creating the County's Environmental Lands Program, (which I was also pilloried for, see the prior accusation) a program that created the need for local acquisition agents as well as land managers. We'll work on a total.

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I had hoped the campaign would be about issues and where the county needed to head, instead my Republican opponent descended into a litany of distorted attack ads that lacked any way for voters to independently research the truth. According to definitions provided by the Sarasota County Civic League, this appears to have been dishonest, irresponsible and disrespectful. For more on this see an earlier blog.

If you Love Your Cabbage Palms

I attended (and spoke briefly) at Palm Disease Update presented by Dr. Monica Elliot, Professor of Plant Pathology and Associate Center Director of the Ft. Lauderdale Research & Education Center of the University of Florida. While Dr. Elliot covered several topics, I was most interested in Texas Phoenix Palm Disease, which is killing Cabbage Palms in Manatee County (ironically around Palmetto). For more on this phenomenon, see an earlier blog. But I ended up with new insights about why pruning cabbage palms is ill advised. 

Here's my take: In my opinion, the only fronds one should remove are ones that are completely dead, the color of a manila envelope. And I'm not even sure why anyone would spend time and energy doing that.But removing green or yellow fronds has several negative effects. 

1) The palm tree is able to remove nutrients from the aging frond. Removal before they are completely dead deprives the palm of these nutrients. 

2) The dying fronds can serve as barometers that let plant specialists interpret nutritional deficiencies or disease. Removing these fronds can complicate diagnosis. 

3) In addition, taking fronds with still-living tissue wounds the plant. Any wound is a potential entry point for insects or disease. This problem is magnified in palms, which lack the wound healing capacity of dicots.

4) Removing green fronds reduces the photosynthetic capacity of the plant. Few people would contemplate taking a third of the photosynthetic surfaces (leaves) from something like an oak, but many don't bat an eye about taking ten green fronds from a cabbage palm. This reduced capacity weakens the palm and can cause pencil-neck, a narrowing of the trunk. 

These first four points all contribute to weakening the tree, the opposite effect most people want in a home landscape. 

5) Some overprune to what has been called the "hurricane cut". There is no rational reason for this. If you had a hundred species of trees on your property, the last tree that might need pruning to survive a hurricane is the cabbage palm. And Dr. Elliot suggested there may be evidence that "hurricane cut" actually makes palms more vulnerable. That make some sense because the growing tip "sword frond" is more vulnerable after severe pruning.

6) Finally, it takes only seconds to pick a fallen frond off the ground. Just about anyone can do it. Removing live fronds requires far more time, the use of sharp instruments and frequently, ladders. All this increases costs and risks. Landscapers must be laughing all the way to the bank, because they are charging top dollar for dangerous work that is completely unnecessary. Cabbage palms are self pruning. The fronds fall off when they fall off and in the meantime contribute to the full spherical head that typifies the species. And who wants to be calling an insurance agent or making a trip to the emergency room to solve a problem that could have been avoided with the simple application of patience and gravity? 

The photo on the right shows a young over-pruned palm.  (My version shows the image with strange color.)The circles identify 21 fronds with some green left in them. Let's assume there are only 4 comparable cut fronds on the other side that we cant see, for a total of 25 missing leaves. At the top we see only a few left, maybe five. That means 5/6  (83%) of all the leaves have been removed -- a devastating loss for just about any plant. 

Check out some of these other sources.

Palm Over-Pruning: What is with the 'Mohawk' Cut on Palms?

Articles about "hurricane cutting" Palm Trees

NO Harsh Pruning of the Sabal Palm!

If you don't love your cabbage palms, keep pruning. Eventually they will grow to reflect your antipathy.

Lies, inuendo, dirty tricks do the job for county GOP

That's not a Jono Miller blog title. [I prefer innuendo with three 'n's. ] No, that's the headline on a story on the front page of the November 12 edition of the Pelican Press. Reporter Rick Barry provides an introduction to the shameful behavior of the local Republican leadership in the most recent election. The article is backed up with an editorial with an equally damning title: LIES, SLEAZE DEMEAN SARASOTA, THE PROCESS & GOP.

Let me be clear -- I made a lot of mistakes in my first run for office. Some were mistakes in etiquette, some in strategy and tactics. I should have worked harder and earlier on increasing name recognition. I formatted my donor envelope poorly. I have trouble remembering names. I never scheduled an interview on WENG. Etcetera. On and on.

But I campaigned hard for three hundred days, gave up half a year's salary and sunk over $20,000 of my own money into the campaign because I knew it was not a position I was entitled to, but rather something I would have to work for.

And I get it that Carolyn won. I'm not contesting, challenging or otherwise protesting that reality. Within hours of her victory I posted a blog acknowledging her win, noting its historic importance, celebrating the increased diversity on the board and wishing her Godspeed. I stand by all that.

So this is not about who won, the destination. It is about the route, how we got there.

And let's be perfectly clear: I am not starting this conversation in the wake of my loss. This is not about being some sort of "sore loser". It is about being a sorely abused candidate.

My objections began two months ago on September 14th with my blog entry Fresh Lies served on a Bed of Tossed Data: The Politics of Desperation.

Then I attended the Tiger Bay luncheon on September 18th and stepped up to the microphone to ask if the leaders of both parties if they had any standards of behavior they expected of their candidates. Not so much, it turned out.

That was followed on October 4 with the blog Mason campaign: Off Track and in the Mud?

Then it was off to USF on October 8th to hear Stephen Carter speak about Civility in Politics and Society. Again I went to the microphone to as what rules of thumb should be employed in determining when appropriate negative campaigning lapses into inappropriate dirty campaigning. If I understood Dr. Carter's answer, he recommended imagining what my mother would think and considering if it served to erode the political process. I took his advice.

On October 24th I hit the keyboard again with HELP WANTED: CIVIL ELECTION ENFORCERS.

And that was followed November 1 with Carolyn Mason: Dishonest? Irresponsible? Disrespectful? You Decide.

Which was followed with a supporter's letter Jono Miller Supporter Objects to Negative Ads Against Miller.

So long before the evening of November 4th, I was "on the record" speaking up publicly or writing about inappropriate campaign behavior. I did so no less than seven times before anyone knew the outcome of the election. In addition the publicly accessible blogs, I sent emails to the Civic League and some of the Republican supporters of Carolyn expressing my concerns PRIOR to the election. 

So for me this is not a week-old story but a two month-old story.

--------•••-------

As far as I am concerned the election is settled. The behaviors of the candidate, local Republican leadership and Civic League prior to the election are not. So I'm not challenging the outcome but perhaps figuratively (and in some cases literally) what one might call the income of the election.

I appreciate the intent of Rick Barry's article. It dealt with a topic at least one writer at the Sarasota Herald Tribune was unwilling to pursue. Not really newsworthy, I guess. 

And while I think Rick's characterization of Carolyn was a little harsh (and I fear the editorial may have inappropriately resorted to journalistic paralipsis, if not proslepsis) I believe he raised several issues that must be aired and resolved. 

Our civic process here in Sarasota has sustained a grievous wound. It has been there awhile and after each election, we wrap it with a another layer of reassuringly sterile gauze while the underlying infection festers. Eventually, two or four years later, the putrescence seeps through and we add another layer, telling ourselves that this time we are on the road to recovery. But down deep we know that's not true. We need to unwrap this thing, expose it to the light of day, remove the necrosis and do what is necessary to really promote healing. If we don't we will lose the limb, if not the body politic.

The Pelican Press has taken the lead in exploring these issues. It remains to be seen if anyone else thinks this topic is worth the ink. I can assure you that there is more out there that is not merely newsworthy, but crucial to establishing both civility and a working two party system in Sarasota.

Unconditional Surrender

If art is supposed to get people thinking and feeling, then we are extremely fortunate to have J. Seward Johnson’s giant sculpture based on Alfred Eisenstadt’s famous photograph of nurse Edith Shain (or Greta Friedman or Barbara Sokol) being kissed on VJ day. It’s a great match for Sarasota, because unlike some of Seward Johnson’s works this piece speaks directly to the many veterans and citizens here that remember the end of that war. Personally, I’m very grateful that the allies prevailed over the axis powers, and not simply because it enabled the man who was to become my father to return alive to the states. 

It is interesting to compare the memorable iconic image of the Second World War with the Vietnam War. They were, for the most part, posed, if not outright staged: the Betty Grable’s pinup shot, Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill at Malta; MacArthur wading ashore at Leyte, and raising the flag on Iwo Jima. 

The two most memorable images from Vietnam were snapshots: Nine year old Phan Thi Kim Phuc running naked down a road and South Vietnam’s national police chief executing a Viet Cong in the middle of a street. We’re not likely to see any giant sculptures of that sort. 

So we are blessed that the photo was taken of the kiss, yet saddened to realize that there is probably no comparable statuesque moment marking the end Vietnam conflict (perhaps cutting down the tamarind tree at the Saigon embassy so helicopters could evacuate?) nor, as President Bush observed when commemorating the 60th anniversary of VJ day: There will be no “VJ day” in the war on Terror. 

Although I was not born when the photo was taken, it has intersected with my life in two ways. 

First, VJ Day (August 14th in the US) was my father’s birthday. So every year we were celebrating both my father’s birthday and VJ day. 

Secondly, when I would vacation with my parents as young teen on Martha's Vineyard, an old man with a heavy accent would show slides of his photographs some evenings. I wasn't too interested until I learned he had taken photos of Sophia Loren. I recognized the Life magazine covers he had shot of her. It turned out he was one of the world's best photographers, a man known at the Menemsha Inn only as "Eisie”. It was Alfred Eisenstadt -- the guy who took the photograph of the sailor impulsively (opportunistically?) kissing the nurse in Times Square on VJ day. The photo the oversized bayfront sculpture is based on. And while Eisenstadt’s shot four exposures of “VJ Day” it was not posed or staged. 

I’m happy to let others decide whether it should be a temporary or permanent addition to the Sarasota, but I have three observations to share about the piece.

First, while I like the vista of it coming down 41, I wish it was set apart more with less background clutter.

Second, while I like the giant scale, the shift in point of view is very unfortunate. If you look at the original photo or Seward’s life-sized recreation (shown in Times Square), we are focused on the kiss itself – the heads of the participants. With the giant version, the closer we get, the less the kiss is visible and we’re basically left looking up the nurse’s skirt. That’s not the point of the piece. If it is, we should opt for Marilyn Monroe on the subway grating instead. Ideally I think we would look across at if from some height to reestablish the original point of view, although it is hard to think of a place in Sarasota where that might work.

Finally, while I love the photo and like the sculpture, I hate the title. For those whose don’t get the connection to Emperor Hirohito’s Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the War, the sculpture must seem to be about the nurse’s unconditional surrender. No doubt Johnson intended the play on words. But it seems to me that misses the point – her “surrender” to a kiss from a stranger was completely conditional – it would not have happened on August 13 or August 15. The kiss was conditioned by the euphoria of the end of the war. For me, Seward’s title coverts exuberance into submission.

Recycle Those Campaign Yard Signs!

Yes, those political campaign yard and highway signs can be recycled. I'm talking about those "corrugated" (actually twinwall) plastic signs. They are #5 polypropylene. Take them to the Recycled Plastic Man in Englewood at 530 Paul Morris Dr. (off South River Road). They are open from 7-4 on weekdays. For more on this this topic, see my earlier blog About those plastic campaign signs. . . recyclable? resusable?