BRADENTON — The roundabout planned for the intersection of Legacy Boulevard at Deer Drive and University Parkway in Lakewood Ranch will move forward as planned after a 4-3 vote by commissioners on Tuesday.
The decision brings to a close open negotiations between Lakewood Ranch Corporate Park, a subsidiary of Schroeder-Manatee Ranch (SMR), and Manatee County’s public works department. Those negotiations—initiated by commissioners—sought mutual termination of the agreement.
The project, initially envisioned by the county as intersection improvements with extended turn lanes and updated signalized lighting, was later revised when transportation staff and engineers concluded that a roundabout would be a safer and more cost-effective solution.
After the county’s public works staff persuaded Schroeder-Manatee Ranch CEO Rex Jensen that a roundabout was a superior improvement plan for the location, Manatee County Government and Lakewood Ranch Corporate Park negotiated an agreement that if SMR completed the roundabout, the county would reimburse it half the cost.
The terms of that agreement were approved in November 2024, solidifying the project as a planned traffic roundabout. The agreement was passed on the consent agenda, but months after its approval, several residents of Lakewood Ranch communities cried foul.
According to those who opposed a roundabout at the location, they and the boards of their neighborhoods' CDDs were never informed that the agreement was being executed, and they were not fairly included in any advance discussions regarding a change in scope for the project from intersection upgrades to a roundabout before the deal was struck.
In May, Commissioner Bob McCann—who was elected District 5 commissioner before the agreement was approved, but was not yet sworn into office—requested the board’s support to direct county staff to enter into negotiations with SMR to see if the two parties might be willing to mutually terminate the agreement.
McCann laid out his argument that canceling the plans and agreement for the roundabout was the right thing to do given the circumstances of its approval, and in consideration of the concerns brought to him by his constituents.
McCann’s motion ultimately carried 6-0, but some commissioners made it clear that they only supported the directive to explore SMR’s willingness to terminate or amend the agreement. Because the agreement was a legally binding contract, several commissioners felt that the agreement should not be terminated unilaterally by the county.
SMR CEO Jensen was not receptive to negotiations, however, and initially responded by penning a public letter to the commission expressing his frustration with their approval of McCann’s motion and vowing to take legal action should the county attempt to terminate without cause.
Regardless of the publicly aired tensions over the matter, negotiations between SMR and the county remained open and ongoing per the board’s directive.
Earlier this month, staff presented an update to commissioners on the negotiations, making it known that they had hit a wall due to SMR’s unwillingness to either agree to terminate the agreement or amend its terms.
A majority of the commissioners argued that the negotiations should close and the agreement be honored, citing the county’s legal obligation. However, McCann disagreed, stating that he had concerns whether the process used to approve the agreement initially had violated Sunshine Law requirements regarding “reasonable” public notice.
A motion was made on August 7 to close negotiations, but the vote ended in a tie when a technical issue left one commissioner, Mike Rahn, unable to vote due to his mic being muted during the vote. A tie vote is recorded as a failed carry.
Being left unable to record his vote on the matter, Commissioner Rahn requested that the item be rescheduled to go before the board again this week.
On Friday, Rahn added the item to the commissioner's agenda and advertised that he would make a motion to direct staff to cease negotiations and proceed with the existing roundabout project and agreement.
“I bring this motion forward,” Rahn said, “to finally put this thing to bed.”
However, McCann presented a set of motions of his own on Tuesday, again attempting to argue that the process for approving the original agreement was not only lacking transparency and public input, but may have also violated Sunshine provisions.
McCann told his colleagues that, since the board had last voted on the matter, he had sought ethics opinions on the potential consequences for an attorney who participates in approving or supporting a measure that may have violated the state’s Sunshine Law. According to McCann, who holds a Florida Bar License, the consequences could include disbarment.
After holding up the written guidance he received in response to his inquiry of the Ethics Commission, McCann said before reading from its text, “I don’t want to vote on something that could put my bar card in jeopardy, and I don’t want to vote on something that would go against statutes.”
Summarizing the guidance, he concluded, “They have cautioned me not to vote in the affirmative.”
McCann then announced that under Robert’s Rules of Order, he had prepared three subsidiary motions that, if approved, could serve to modify or postpone the main motion on the table—a motion to end negotiations with SMR to terminate the agreement.
The purpose of the postponements sought by McCann, he said, was to provide time to seek further legal review and/or legal opinion to answer the question of whether there was a Sunshine violation committed in the original approval of the reimbursement agreement.
As each subsidiary motion moved to board deliberation, it was clear that each commissioner’s position remained unchanged, as reflected in their vote on the matter.
As in previous meetings where the subject was raised, Commissioners Carol Felts, Jason Bearden, and McCann felt strongly that the agreement should be reconsidered—if not terminated, then amended to intersection improvements without a roundabout.
Commissioners George Kruse, Mike Rahn, Tal Siddique, and Amanda Ballard made the case that a Sunshine violation likely was not committed—because the meeting where the agreement was approved was publicly noticed—and that the greater legal consideration should be the county’s obligations as agreed to in the executed contract with SMR.
At one point in the debate, when asked for her legal opinion, the county attorney said she did not believe that a Sunshine violation had occurred.
With each motion, McCann drew the board’s attention to several aspects of the timeline leading up to the agreement for the roundabout, including the lack of information made available equally to all stakeholders, the item’s approval via a consent agenda, a contradiction in what the Public Works Director Chad Butzow told the LWR Townhall Executive Director Steve Zielinski about when the item would come forward for public discussion, and the fact that a budget resolution amending the CIP had not also been approved, among other details.
Though Bearden and Felts agreed with McCann’s perspective and passionately argued for the other members to give them greater consideration, Rahn, Siddique, Ballard, and Kruse did not waver in their perspectives on the matter.
As in prior meeting discussions, the back-and-forth by members ran long and at times tense, even personal, but one after the other, as they were brought to a vote, each of McCann’s subsidiary motions failed 4-3. When the vote moved to Rahn’s original motion to cease negotiations and affirm the existing roundabout agreement and its terms, the motion carried 4-3 with Bearden, Felts, and McCann voting in opposition.
At the end of the meeting, tensions rose again after Rahn read a statement into the record regarding McCann's decision during the August 7 meeting not to extend the courtesy of time so that Rahn's vote on the roundabout could be counted. McCann was acting as chair on August 7.
"My right as a duly elected official to vote was denied by the chair," Rahn said in part on Tuesday. "In not being allowed to vote on an item that I had seconded on Commissioner Siddique's motion, the vote wouldn't be here today, because that vote would have carried 4-3—the chair knew where my vote was heading.
"We know that Commissioner McCann, as the chair, knew that I was having technical difficulties on Zoom, but I was present... not only did it deny my right to vote, but it denied by citizens of District 4 the representation on the board on a vote that would have come through."
Rahn went on to point out that in previous similar circumstances, courtesy had been given to allow attending members a vote, and added that prior opinions issued by the State Attorney General had affirmed that in such circumstances a meeting should be recessed to provide a commissioner the opportunity to participate in the vote.
McCann responded to Rahn's remarks by reading provisions regarding meeting quorum and the taking of a vote, adding, "Your interpretation of the law is wrong, and it's like that often."
The exchange grew increasingly heated between McCann and Rahn until Chairman Kruse, attempting to get control of the meeting, declared, "This is commissioner comments, not commissioner fighting. You guys can go out in the hallway and beat the hell out of each other when we're done here, but right now, this is commissioner comments."
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