Looking for an Economic Development Annuity: Bury the Overhead Power Lines - Spring 2018

The Town of Longboat Key recently announced that it is embarking on a three-year, $15,000,000 project to bury FPL lines there. I cannot sufficiently express how SMART and forward thinking I believe this effort will be. Our personal experience with Hurricane Irma was not devastating, though we know of many friends who suffered many days without power in the muggy and brutal September heat and had to throw out a considerable amount of foodstuffs. On the south side of Main Street in downtown Sarasota near Harshman & Co.’s headquarters, nearly a dozen restaurants lost electricity for more than five days, causing calamitous losses. Now, imagine if Sarasota had experienced a similar, significant weather event – but its power lines were buried. Businesses would be open, people could go to work, perishable food would be saved and electric company repair crews would not have to work ridiculous hours to restore power at considerable expense. Oxygen-supplying trees, meanwhile, would not need to be disfigured or destroyed to gain access to overhead power lines. All this is possible, together with the community aesthetic generated from the lack of obtrusive and ugly power lines. Take a gander at the west side of Orange Avenue in downtown Sarasota and you will see what I mean.