Potential shift to municipal management of parkland that county purchases within city jurisdictions also discussed
Editor’s note: This article was updated the evening of Feb. 28 to correct errors regarding the number of properties the ESLOC members recommended for purchase and the number recommended for denial.
In 2024, Sarasota County’s Land Acquisition and Management Programpurchased 704.34 acres of land within three county Environmentally Sensitive Land Protection Program (ESLPP) priority sites, Jono Miller of Sarasota, chair of the county’s advisory Environmentally Sensitive Lands Oversight Committee (ESLOC) reported to the county commissioners this week.
“I know water quality is a priority of yours,” he told the board members. “We’ve been taking that into consideration.”
Using a slide, Miller pointed out that the vast majority of the land protected through the program in 2024 was within “a conservation easement in the eastern county.” He was referring to 656 acres on the Longino Ranch. The other 5 acres were protected on East Venice Avenue, he added.
Approximately 699 acres of the three sites are within the Big Slough and Deer Prairie Slough corridors, Miller said.
All of the land is within the Myakka River watershed, he pointed out. The transactions involved what he characterized as “key parcels that we’ve been looking for.”
In delivering the annual ESLOC report to the board members during their regular meeting on Feb. 25, in Sarasota, Miller explained that the role of the ESLOC is to “serve as an advisory committee to the Board of County Commissioners on issues involving acquisition, protection and management of environmentally sensitive lands.”
Last year, Miller continued, 18 parcels were nominated for consideration by the ESLOC members for county purchase. The committee recommended that the county buy two of them and refrain from pursuing nine of them, he said, with the remainder to undergo further review.
“We don’t want to be in a situation where we turn down a parcel because it seems to have no connectivity to county land or protected land and then find out later that [adjacent land] was under some protection,” he continued.
Reviving the idea of expanding the ESLOC’s role
In a review of the ESLOC’s goals for this year, Miller did remind the commissioners that county policy will not allow the committee to advise county leaders on other environmentally important lands in the county. Yet, the committee members continue to believe that would be appropriate, he indicated.
That issue came up several years ago, with then-Commissioner Michael Moran as the primary opponent.
As The Sarasota News Leader reported at the time, during an Aug. 30, 2022 discussion, then-Commissioner Christian Ziegler talked with his colleagues about a conversation that he had had with Miller, who long has been the ESLOC chair.
The ESLOC members, as Ziegler phrased it, were “looking for a little bit more of an ability to provide comment” on properties that the county was considering purchasing with revenue other than the money generated by the annual 0.25-mill tax that county property owners pay to generate revenue for the Land Acquisition Program.
County Administrator Jonathan Lewis explained that the idea had been raised in the past. If the commissioners wanted staff to revise the ordinance governing the work of the ESLOC to broaden its responsibilities, Lewis added, he would take care of that.
Ziegler responded that he had told Miller only that he would bring it up, as Ziegler had not “really looked into [the proposal].”
Then-Chair Alan Maio pointed out that he was the commission representative on the ESLOC. The advisory board members “feel that, with the array of talent that’s there, they want to be allowed to comment on properties” outside the scope of the ESLPP.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Commissioner Ron Cutsinger said. “It brings just additional talent and expertise to the process. … [The ESLOC members have] done a great job,” he pointed out. “I’d love to see them on board for … the additional properties, as well.”
Moran was not present for that discussion.
During the board’s regular meeting on Jan. 18, 2023, Moran pulled from the Consent Agenda of routine business matters that day a draft resolution related to the August 2022 discussion. One of the “Whereas” clauses called for modification of the scope and duties of ESLOC, “to include other environmental lands in addition to those lands acquired through [the county’s Environmentally Sensitive Lands Protection Program.”
“This is a very specific board with a very specific mission with a very specific, clear understanding that it is to hear the public related to acquisition [of land] with those very specific funds” raised by the tax,” Moran stressed of the ESLOC.
“Boy,” he continued, “it feels like mission creep to me to expand [the committee’s duties].”
Then-Commissioner Nancy Detert agreed with Moran: “I think it’s a major change in policy that we need to walk a little slower on and do a little more prep [before approving any modifications].”
Commissioner Mark Smith concurred with Moran, as well. “I’m new,” Smith said, referencing his November 2022 election to the commission, “but I was a little taken aback by the expansion of the [ESLOC] role.
He, too, would like to discuss that proposal before voting on it, Smith added.
Nicole Rissler, director of the Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources Department, then stepped to the podium to point out that a revised resolution had been prepared, omitting the language about expanding the ESLOC’s scope of work. That version ended up passing unanimously.
A potential shift in management of parkland within cities
Yet another goal of the ESLOC members for 2025, Miller told the commissioners this week, is to explore means of assisting county staff in allowing the municipalities in the county to take control of or manage county land.
In response to a question from Commissioner Smith, Rissler of Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources explained that when the county acquires land within a municipality, “In many cases, it would make sense for the city to manage [that land].”
Perhaps the county could transfer the management responsibility to the affected city, she continued — or, perhaps, even the ownership.
When Commissioner Smith sought more details, Rissler stressed that she and her staff were considering the change only in regard to parkland, as the county land acquisition program also focuses on property that would be used for such purposes.
She noted that, in 2016, the county policy in regard to parks shifted to a regional model. “It’s kind of contradictory,” Rissler continued, “that we’d be purchasing small neighborhood parks within a municipality and then managing them.”
Both the ESLOC and the county’s Parks Advisory and Recreation Council (PARC) have set a goal of determining where parkland purchases within municipalities would be appropriate, Rissler said, as well as working on a mechanism that could be implemented in those situations “to allow the municipality to operate [the park] — and in many cases own it, with restrictions.”
Smith responded laughingly, “I know the cities appreciate us handing off property to them.” He added, “Probably, they would appreciate some funding to help [them in handling the parcels].”
Then he asked Rissler whether the cities receive any of the ad valorem tax revenue raised each year to fund the Land Acquisition Program.
They do not receive any of that money, she replied. However, she continued, county staff does use money out of that designated revenue for “start-up” efforts for new parks on land that the county has bought. “We do anticipate that [those funds] would come to the city to be able to [handle the start-up effort],” Rissler added, “if we get to a good example.”
Smith pointed out that the commissioners have a couple of upcoming meetings scheduled with municipal boards in the county. Perhaps those sessions would offer good opportunities to discuss the issues that had been brought up that day, he added.
One other critical goal for the ESLOC this year, Miller also told the commissioners, is to improve citizen outreach and education ahead of the referendum the board has planned during the November 2026 General Election, with hope that citizens will approve the extension of the Land Acquisition Program beyond its termination at the end of 2029.