Commissioners Knight and Neunder express ire over lack of knowledge of county’s purchase of 162 Beach Road parcel prior to board’s 2024 vote to approve original settlement
Following nearly 35 minutes of discussion on April 21, the Sarasota County commissioners voted unanimously to direct the Office of the County Attorney and County Administration “to re-engage” with Siesta Key property owner and business manager Michael Holderness “and his team” in regard to the settlement of the federal lawsuit that Holderness filed against the county in March 2024.
The negotiations would be based on the comments the board members made that day, Commissioner Tom Knight said in making the motion. The settlement could end up being the amended one before them that afternoon, Knight added.
Commissioner Mark Smith seconded the motion.
“Certainly, Mr. Holderness has a claim here that I believe is warranted,” Knight said at the outset of the discussion as the board met in Venice.
However, Knight also made it clear that he is angry that county staff did not inform the board members that a county-owned parcel — 162 Beach Road — which is part of the proposed settlement, was purchased with county Neighborhood Parkland Acquisition Program funds.
Over the past six weeks, Knight said, he had reviewed of all the materials he could find that the board had received relative to the federal lawsuit and the proposed settlement. “There was nothing in there that I could see,” he pointed out, that said the property located at 162 Beach Road on Siesta Key was bought with money raised through an annual 0.25-mill tax of property owners in the county, to make it possible for the county to buy environmentally sensitive lands and parcels that could be used for parks.
Turning to County Attorney Joshua Moye, Knight asked, “Is that something that … you would think would be important?” prior to the 5-0 board vote on Nov. 19, 2024, to approve the proposed settlement.
On that date, when Moye discussed the mediated settlement with the commissioners, Knight and Commissioner Teresa Mast were participating in their first board meeting since they were elected two weeks earlier.
“Did I miss something somewhere along the line?” Knight asked Moye as a follow-up question during the April 21 discussion.
“The way [the settlement proposal] came to the board in November of ’24,” Moye began, “was through a county attorney memo,” and such memos typically do not contain information of that sort.
He said he believed Knight was correct in saying that the provenance of the 162 Beach Road property was not included in that memo in the Nov. 19, 2024 meeting packet.
Moye acknowledged, “Of course, I would add it in now, if I could go back.”
“I think the first reference to [the county acquisition of the land],” Moye continued, was in the materials that the county’s Environmental Permitting Division staff provided in the agenda packet for the Nov. 5, 2025 public hearing when the board members considered the application for the Coastal Setback Variance that Holderness needed to construct a two-story-over parking home on the 162 Beach Road property.
The approval of that variance — allowing construction seaward of the county’s Gulf Beach Setback Line — was another facet of the original settlement. Commissioner Smith cast the lone “No” vote at the conclusion of that hearing.
Dunes and other coastal habitat protect inland properties from storm surge and other flooding events, county staff has pointed out. The Gulf Beach Setback Line (GBSL) was established in county regulations in 1979 to preserve coastal habitat for that reason, as the Environmental Permitting staff has made clear over the years.
“I thought it would have been important to know” how the county acquired that 162 Beach Road property, Knight again told Moye on April 21. “Now we’re here trying to resolve a lawsuit without all the knowledge that we need to fundamentally resolve it.”
He added, “I can handle scrutiny” of the decisions he makes as a commissioner. However, Knight continued, “I don’t like handling scrutiny of things that I have no control over.”
Moye did note that, because the settlement was mediated as a result of a federal lawsuit, a lot of the details of that effort are confidential.
Nonetheless, he continued, the general issue was that the county was not using the 162 Beach Road site, and Holderness was offering to trade to the county four other parcels that the public is using, in exchange for it.
Knight also asked County Administrator Jonathan Lewis whether he could offer a reason why the details of the purchase of the 162 Beach Road parcel were not included in the documents provided to the commissioners, outside of those for the Nov. 5, 2025 variance hearing.
“I can’t speak for the county attorney’s memo,” Lewis responded. Yet, it was mentioned in the variance materials, which is “where we would typically mention it,” Lewis added.
“I would rather have too much information rather than omitted information,” Knight said. “I think my decision might have been different” in November 2024, when the board voted on the settlement terms, he added.
Commissioner Joe Neunder expressed concerns about the legality of the county’s turning over the vacant property standing at 162 Beach Road on Siesta Key to Holderness, since the Neighborhood Parkland Acquisition Program paid $1.4 million for it in 2017.
Commissioner Teresa Mast did ask County Administrator Lewis at one point whether money could be taken from the county’s General Fund — which is made up largely of the annual property tax revenue — to essentially purchase the 162 Beach Road property from the Neighborhood Parkland Acquisition Program, so the issue of the legality of the transfer to Holderness would be moot.
Lewis responded that that would be possible.
Even so, Mast acknowledged, “I’m not sure if it’s necessarily the best option.”
The lawsuit and the proposed, amended settlement
On April 21, Holderness’ attorney, Dave Smolker, of the Smolker Mathews firm in Tampa, told the commissioners during the Open to the Public comment period, “In [the federal] suit, we alleged that the county had promoted the physical invasion and use by the general public of Siesta [Beach Lots’] dry sandy beach on north Siesta Key.”
Smolker added, “Please know we don’t believe that litigation is an end in itself. It’s a means to solve problems.”
After the complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, in Tampa, he continued, the parties “recognized it was worth spending the time to try to work out a fair and equitable solution.” Smolker further noted, “Mr. Holderness is a big advocate of county acquisition of public beach on Siesta Key.”
In exchange for the county property located at 162 Beach Road — and the approval of the variance for the construction of the proposed house on the site — Holderness offered as part of the original settlement that he would give the county the three parcels near Beach Access 3 that were at the heart of his lawsuit, plus an additional lot that he owns south of those three parcels.
The county also was to pay Holderness $500,000.
However, as The Sarasota News Leader has explained, the Office of the County Attorney notified the commissioners ahead of the April 21 meeting, via a memo, that Holderness had proposed an amended settlement offer because the agent for Siesta Beach Lots’ title insurer, “recently informed Siesta Beach Lots the title insurer could not provide a policy of title insurance to insure the County’s title to Lot 26,” which is the parcel south of those near Beach Access 3.
The insurance issue arose, the memo continued, “because Siesta Beach Lots’ claim to title was based on a ‘wild deed.’
A February 2016 article on the About Florida Law website, published by the Sackrin & Tolchinsky law firm of Hallandale Beach, explains, “A ‘wild deed’ is a phoney, fake document filed in the public records and used by the evildoer to cloud title to real estate as he or she claims a legal right in property belonging to someone else (usually as part of the closing procedure in a sales transaction).
As the Office of the County Attorney (OCA) memo further pointed out, “A lack of marketable title means the County would be at risk of a lawsuit … from any persons with ownership interests in the property. As a result, a court could find that the County did not have any interest in Lot 26.”
As a result, Holderness’ attorney had proposed an amendment to the settlement, the April 21 OCA memo pointed out. That called for Siesta Beach Lots “to defend title to Lot 26 against any adverse claims to title and indemnify the County in an amount not to exceed $75,000.”
Yet, the memo also explained, that “promise to defend title and indemnity does not address the lack of what the County bargained for in the settlement agreement, which is marketable title to Lot 26, in addition to marketable title to Lots 15, 16, and 17 [in the Mira Mar Beach subdivision close to Beach Access 3 on Siesta Key].”
Therefore, the memo proposed four options for the County Commission to consider in advance of the April 21 discussion:
- Accepting the proposed amendment to the settlement.
- Rejecting the proposed amendment.
- Providing a counter proposal to the settlement.
- Directing County Administration and the Office of the County Attorney to renegotiate the settlement.
‘There was nothing nefarious’
During the April 21 discussion, Knight noted that he had reviewed the video of the October 2017 board meeting when the purchase of the 162 Beach Road property won board approval, with then-Commissioner Nancy Detert the only board member to oppose it.
During that discussion, Knight continued, Carolyn Brown, who was director of the county’s Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources Department at the time, talked of the fact that the property would provide beach access for the public.
“Is there beach access or not?” Knight asked, noting that he had been receiving what he characterized as “conflicting information. … I don’t see beach access on that property.”
“I think I would agree with that,” County Attorney Moye responded.
Commissioner Mast added that that is her understanding, as well.
(In remarks to the board during the April 21 Open to the Public period, Holderness said, “I’m donating an $11-million appraised, Gulf-front property with direct beach access in exchange for a tiny, 50-foot-wide, landlocked county parcel with no water access.”)
“It just alarms me,” Knight added, not to have all of the pertinent details about an issue on which he has to cast a vote.
“There was nothing nefarious with it,” Moye replied, referring to the omission of the property’s provenance from the Nov. 19, 2024 materials regarding the proposed settlement. “We weren’t trying to omit it purposely to trick anybody.”
“I hope not,” Knight told him.
Commissioner Smith said that perhaps the board needs to give direction to staff to ensure that the commissioners know how property “was paid for” before it is offered to someone else.
He disagreed from the outset with including 162 Beach Road in the settlement, Smith continued, because he believes the county should not give up land it owns that has dunes, especially if the new owner’s plans call for building on those dunes.
Another concern he has, Smith noted, is that the website of Sarasota County Property Appraiser Bill Furst shows that the 2025 total value of the four lots that Holderness would transfer to the county is $85,800. Yet, the 2025 value of 162 Beach Road is $2,754,700. “And then we’re throwing in another half-million in cash. … I have real difficulty with that.”
Smith acknowledged that when he had discussed the property values one-on-one with Moye, Moye had pointed out that appraisals differ. Smith did note that Assistant County Administrator Nicole Rissler, who formerly was director of the county’s Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources Department, had mentioned that county appraisals had determined the value of the Holderness lots slated for the transfer to be in the range of $30,000 apiece.
He also said that Moye had pointed out to him that, because the Holderness parcels could be homesites, their individual values likely were closer to $3 million each.
Then Smith explained that if a person wants to construct a house on property seaward of what the state calls its Coastal Construction Control Line (CCCL), the individual first has to obtain a permit from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP).
Smith proceeded to read from Florida Statute 161.053, which is the law involving the CCCL. It discusses the need to preserve the state’s beaches and dune systems, he added, “while ensuring reasonable use of private property.”
Smith read other state regulations related to coastal construction before pointing out, “What I’m getting at here is that [unless] Mr. Holderness … can confirm” that FDEP would deem the lots proposed for transfer to the county as buildable lots, then Smith does not believe they have the worth Holderness has stated for them.
“My contention is that we need to go back to the negotiating table,” Smith told his colleagues.
Commissioner Mast brought up the county’s goal of providing more beach access to the public. In the 1990s and early 2000s — when she was a member of county staff — she said she recalled that Siesta Key homeowners, especially, were among county residents who pleaded with county leaders to try to purchase more beach property.
The only option that would resolve the issue that day, she told her colleagues, was for the board members to approve the amended settlement.
After she concluded her comments, Commissioner Neunder pointed out, “I have considerable heartburn on this [issue],” because he had had to learn the history of the county’s purchase of the 162 Beach Road lot on his own, instead of reading about it in materials from the Office of the County Attorney or County Administration.
Moreover, he said, “I’m finding things out in our media that I had no idea [were] going on.”
Neunder added, “I just think the best course forward would be to renegotiate [the settlement terms].”
Referring to all of the background that they had referenced, Chair Ron Cutsinger told his colleagues, “Just stripping everything else away,” if he were to be asked that day whether he would prefer the county’s keeping the 162 Beach Road property or taking ownership of the lots that Holderness would transfer to the county, which have direct water access, he would choose the latter.
“To me, it’s very clear,” Cutsinger said.