The time has long past to stop the lies through proxies Mayor Cunningham - stop casting stones at me and prior counsel members for our affirmative actions in regarding the Palmetto Bay Village Center (PBVC). We took action. You crested a mess you could not recover from when your inept mishandling of the PBVC resulted in a viable $15 Million Bert J Harris claim. The residents will be taking it on the chin from your actions, not mine.
This includes former Mayor Stanczyk - after all she participated in and voted for the 2008 VMU district. A fact she never seems to step up and discuss. But in my opinion, more sinister was Mayor Stanczyk's championing the proposal to build an additional 40 units and a fire station in the environmentally sensitive 22 acres back in 2014.
The facts? So when you really look at it - "my" ordinances resulted in a mere 10 unit increase at the PBVC as Mayor Stanczyk already vested 40 units and a fire station in 22 acres of sensitive land - so sensitive that it was placed on the EEL B list - and neither Stanczyk or Cunningham had anything to do with that attempt to preserve. To the contrary, May Stanczyk wanted to develop a large portion of those 22 acres. See Opinion, Community Newspapers, October 13, 2014, Mayor Stanczyk: Using the promise of a fire station as bait to develop protected native areas.
The PBVC blew up in 2022 - more than 4 years after I left office. It is Cunningham's inept handling of the Palmetto Bay Village Center that has led to a MEGA project no one wanted; that we could not have even feared in our worst dreams. Her failure to address these issues, to follow staff recommendations to approve or even to simply following the law in 2022 has actually put Palmetto Bay at risk of not 400, not 420, 450 or even 480 units, but at risk of 2,385 residential units.
None of this was ever talked about in the open - at no time from 2019 to date were residents engaged to work with the developer through an updated Charrette process or town hall meetings.
The facts were spelled out in a 3 page letter of June 20, 2025. from attorneys for the PBVC - I suggest that the residents review this letter as in my opinion it seriously contradicts the propaganda that has been disseminated under your watch.
Again, the Stanczyk record is an attempt to actually develop in the 22 acres, creating rights of 40 units and a fire station. The Cunningham record is one of passive avoidance - simply taking a populist no-vote when staff has recommended otherwise which set this Village up for the multiple failures before the Courts. My advice to the current Mayor, Council Members back in December 2023: ‘when in a hole (and mayor, you dug a very hole) STOP DIGGING!’ See the Law of Holes.
But the village proxies continue to ignore the facts, try to rewrite history and pretend they actually cared when in fact you just had to keep being a populist, blaming others and milking that political football. You had to keep digging.
RESULTS - The PBVC could have been limited to anywhere from 389 to 420, 450 if the 2022 zoning hearings and decision been handled with even slight skill - and a commitment to following the law. That its - application closed. Now Palmetto Bay residents face an initial 450, then a max of 480 without any further council input (interference?), significant commercial including a 125 unit hotel (bringing the actual total number of "units" to between 575-605).
