From: sue lang [mailto:suelang99@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2013 10:28 AM
To: Ed Lavallee; White, Dale; Church, Bill; Dorsey, Patrick; Sarasota, Executive Team; Letters, Editor; Ed Martin; council@ci.venice.fl.us; ggiles@venicegondolier.com; bmudge@venicegondolier.com
Subject: RE: Addendum: Ernst's Misinformation re: Short Term Rentals
Mr. Dorsey, Mr. Church, Mr. Lavallee et al.
Since some of you are new here, it is important to also point out that Mr. Ernst failed (again) to inform the public that the bulk of the money spent by Venice was to settle the original lawsuit that was filed prior to Venice enacting a Short Term Rental Ordinance which the judge cited (lack of clear ordinances/land regs) as the reason for finding in the plaintiff's favor. Many members of the community suggested that the City revise its land regs back in 2004-5. Former City Manager Marty Black refused to address the deficiency and instead precipitously cited Mr. Milo two years after he started amassing what amounted to over two dozen houses where he turned every room in the house including some garages into bedrooms, and, advertised on the internet that the houses slept 12-16 people.
Up until the recent rash act by our illustrious legislature prohibiting new short term rental ordinances, the State had clear language on the definition of Public Lodging. Even today, state law distinguishes between long term and short term renting by requiring that sales taxes be collected on rentals less than one year and bed/tourist taxes be collected on rentals of less than six months. It is very clear that short term renting is tantamount to conducting a business and is not consistent with the intended use of properties zoned single family residential.
From: suelang99@hotmail.com
To: elavallee@ci.venice.fl.us; dale.white@heraldtribune.com; bill.church@heraldtribune.com
Subject: FW: Ernst's Misinformation re: Short Term Rentals
Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2013 08:57:22 -0500
From: suelang99@hotmail.com
To: executiveteam@heraldtribune.co
Subject: Ernst's Misinformation re: Short Term Rentals
Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2013 08:45:14 -0500
It is outrageous that Mr. Ernst continues to be allowed to misinform the public regarding short term rentals and the City of Venice. Mr. Ernst knows full well and has purposely withheld from every column the fact that Sarasota County does not allow and has not for many years allowed short term renting (less than a month) of single family homes, and, actively enforces this. This includes all of the barrier islands and the neighborhood where Mr. Ernst lives! Longboat Key also has a short term rental law that is stricter than the City of Venice Ordiinance. (The new City of Venice Attorney worked for Longboat Key).
There have been three rulings so far and not one has struck down the Venice Ordinance. Just because a few folks have tried and/or are threatening to sue doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with Venice's Ordinance. Many cities in Florida as well as throughout the US have similar ordinances because they want to preserve the character and stability of single family neighborhoods. The overwhelming majority of buyers who purchase in single family neighborhoods do so because they want a neighborhood which is mostly owner occupied.
Please print the truth about the short term rental laws in Sarasota County and Longboat Key and other communites such as Key West which only a few years ago restricted short term renting of houses. Mr. Ernst doesn't seem to have a problem with the lawsuits that the current Council has invited such as the recent decision against Atty Anderson's advice to give Venice Regional Medical Hospital standing which resulted in the recent lawsuit by Sarasota Memorial. Mr. Ernst has an unprofessional bias regarding short term rentals and a few other items in the city of Venice such as his recent failure to inform the public about the Ethics Commission letter admonishing Jeff Boone. He is clearly not fit to cover Venice issues. We ask that you take swift action on this matter.
Lang is correct, as far as her statement goes. As to something that you claim that she pushed through, that's not exactly true.
ReplyDeleteOne of the first things the Martin/Lang/Zavodnyk admin had to deal with after winning the November 2007 election was the Milo hearings, which had been set in play by the Fred Hammett administration in mid-2007 as Hammett and company fully expected to win the 2007 elections and pushed this back to right after the elections for obvious political reasons. But then Hammett and Co. lost the election and thus this turkey was dumped in Martin and Co.'s laps, who ruled against Milo based on advice from City Attorney Bob Anderson and specially hired attorney Andrea Zellman. The pair of attorneys assured council that the city was on solid legal ground in denying Milo the right to use his properties for short-term rentals.
This, in turn, set up the lawsuit filed by Milo against the city, which Anderson promised he would win but ended up losing anyway.
There is dated video of the hearings from January 2008 that I placed on YouTube.
I was vocal at the time in support of Milo, not because I was in favor or not in favor of short-term rentals, but because I was convinced that Anderson's legal stance was seriously flawed as it did not address the concept of the city taking away previous property rights without compensation (Anderson and Zellman were arguing, wrongly a later court ruled, that Milo never had the right to rent short-term to begin with). My arguments to council in January of 2008 are also on dated video on YouTube (serach for venice short term rentals on YouTube). Anderson dismissed my arguments as irrelevant. Turns out I was right all along.
Having won two-thirds of the votes on a platform that included getting rid of short-term rentals and being assured by the city attorney and by a hired attorney who was supposedly a real estate law expert that the city was on solid ground in denying Milo's usage, council voted 7-0 against Milo in those January 2008 hearings.
Lang isn't the villain you would like her to be in this matter. Neither is Ed Martin or even Steve Milo. The real villains were Bob Anderson and Andrea Zellman, whose incredibly expensive and horrid legal advice ensured that the city would later get legally sodomized.