Six questions for Manatee County Commissioner George Kruse
GOP commissioner is seeking a second term. He is being challenged for re-election by two Republicans.
First-term Manatee County Commissioner George Kruse and two fellow Republicans, April Culbreath and Keith Green, are seeking the GOP nomination for the at-large District 7 seat on the county commission.
Kruse and three other conservative Republicans elected in 2020 formed a new majority that, among other things, forced the resignation of former county administrator Cheri Coryea, and shaped the county’s response to the COVID pandemic, especially after vaccines became available. Their grip on county government became even stronger in 2022 when three new conservative commissioners ousted three more moderate commissioners.
But in the past year or so, Kruse increasingly found himself on the losing end of many 6-1 votes, whether it was on how to protect the county’s wetlands or on social issues, like gun rights, that normally are not part of a county commissioner’s job. Many of his fellow commissioners, and his two Republican rivals, have made it a habit of attacking Kruse, from the right.
Kruse argues he has not changed, that he remains committed to the conservative principles and goals he ran on and won in a decisive manner, three years ago. And in the interview below, he lists several changes he pushed for, like cuts in the property tax rate and making it free to ride MCAT buses, that made a positive difference to many residents.
George Kruse files for re-election. He is going at it alone
With almost nine months until primary day, Aug. 20, and a year before the general election, Nov. 5, 2024, The Bradenton Journal had a few questions for Kruse. (His responses have been lightly edited for clarity and grammar.)
The Bradenton Journal: Which votes and other actions by the county commission or positions you have taken since you were first elected in 2020 would you point to as reasons voters should re-elect you in 2024?
Kruse: First and foremost, I think it’s important to point out that, whether or not someone agrees with my votes and positions since being elected, they have all aligned with what I campaigned on to get elected. I have held firm in my core beliefs of smaller government, lower taxes, less regulations and more personal freedoms. I campaigned on those beliefs and I’ve consistently voted along those lines. Sometimes those votes went against the majority of the board, but I feel my positions were mostly aligned with a majority of the citizens.
Regarding specific positions, I came onto the board talking about housing and about lowering the cost of living while increasing everyone’s quality of life. In the past few years, I have dug through our regulations and policies to encourage more workforce housing for our teachers, our first responders, our seniors and our young professionals; a majority of which were created through non-monetary incentives with no tax dollars being spent. I am also proud of the steps we’ve taken with making our transit fare-free. The time and research spent understanding how little we were collecting and how impactful free fares have been, improved many lives at minimal cost.
Finally, I have worked closely with financial management on oversight of our budget. We have successfully reduced the ad valorem millage twice without a single cut in services provided. These are all examples of using a strong financial background to bring private sector insights and practices into the public sector.
I think the main takeaway regarding re-election is that I’m true to my word and have remained consistent. I campaigned on what I believe in and I won’t pander to the public for votes only to change my stance on the dais.
The other takeaway is that my positions have been rooted in facts, research and public support. Manatee County needs common sense and real answers from its commission if we want to move our county forward.
The Bradenton Journal: Which issues will you emphasize as a candidate and as a commissioner, if you are re-elected?
Kruse: I will continue to emphasize the same issues I’ve been working on for three years. Manatee County is no longer a small town. As we grow, we can either collectively work toward becoming a dynamic, diverse community with a great quality of life, or we can slowly become a bedroom community for surrounding counties. To avoid that fate, we need to ensure our workforce has adequate housing or we will lose our educators and our service workers. Both losses will negatively affect everyone’s lives. We need to ensure we’re diversifying our workforce, our wage base and our core industries.
We need to ensure our infrastructure is keeping up with demand and growth and, equally important, we need to ensure it’s paid for properly so we don’t continue to saddle future generations with debt payments that will inevitably lead to higher taxes. To accomplish all of this, we need the whole community to be involved.
That starts with a board that is more open, transparent and accessible to all. I have been working on getting everyone in the community more involved this past year and I will continue to do so during this next year of campaigning and throughout the following four years. Collaborative efforts allow for a streamlined and efficient manner to reach our goals while increasing community engagement.
The Bradenton Journal: You and three other Republicans were elected to the commission, establishing a new conservative majority that often voted as a bloc. However, in the past year or so, you have been on the losing side of several 6-1 votes, such as the one on wetlands buffers. Does this indicate you have lost some of your effectiveness as a commissioner?
Kruse: By this logic, we must have six “effective” commissioners. I don’t think you’d have very many people who would agree with that; maybe six people. It’s easy to vote with the majority. That doesn’t make you more efficient, just more complicit. I believe I’ve been very effective in making sure the public knows the facts and allowing them to make up their own mind about what the board is doing right and doing wrong.
Regardless, if someone does their job as a commissioner properly, the votes on the dais, and the public meetings themselves, are a disproportionately small part of representing the public. Effectiveness as a commissioner is assisting someone in need. It’s working with a resident when code enforcement issues come up. It’s hearing people’s concerns and working with staff to resolve them. I follow policies in other counties and take best practices to implement here. We’ve accomplished fare free transit, half dwelling units, ADU’s, trail systems and many other important policies these past few years. I’m actively working with staff on a number of additional future proposals. That’s being effective. It’s effectively making others’ lives, and our community, better, even if it’s done behind the scenes and off camera.
The Bradenton Journal: How would you address the traffic/parking issues that have caused so much conflict between some in the county government and leaders in the city of Holmes Beach? Should the county build a parking garage on Manatee Public Beach over the city's objections?
Kruse: I’ve discussed this at length both in town halls and in my Substack. As for traffic, you’ll never address traffic on the island as long as a car is the only means of access. The AMI roads are too narrow without adequate right of ways to widen. They will always be a bottleneck regardless of how many bridges or parking spots you provide. We need to facilitate meaningful park and ride options and multimodal alternatives to keep the cars on the mainland. We need FDOT to add a transit/emergency vehicle third lane on future bridges. Only when we can ensure quick, reliable shuttles will beachgoers utilize a parking option off the beach. We can couple that with real, buffered bike/cart/walking trails, and then we’ll start seeing a difference.
As for the parking garage, it has gone from 1,500 new spots “somewhere” on the island to less than 500 new spots immediately on the beach. The current proposal is not even close to the same as the original. When first proposed earlier this year, I stated in the papers and at a town hall that the bill was more of a stick than a carrot and I believed Holmes Beach would fix the parking to avoid the garage. They have. In fact, they have created almost three times more new parking spots since the bill was filed than the garage will actually create!
This garage will disrupt parking for 18-24 months, add crowds to an already congested location, add more traffic to the island and allocate substantial funds we don’t have to a project that is not remotely a priority compared to other urgent infrastructure. Our local leaders accomplished what they set out to do for our citizens — increasing island parking. We need to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. Implying that a few hundred parking spots on the beach for a few days a year is more important than our roads, sidewalks and bridges is simply putting politics over public interest.
The Bradenton Journal: What would be your priorities when addressing issues related to growth and development in Manatee County during your second term on the commission?
Kruse: To diversify our community and manage our cost of living, growth is going to happen. That’s not a policy position, it’s reality. However, as I’ve said for years, there are the right ways to manage growth and then there are the current ways we’re actually handling it. We have been reactive rather than proactive. Developers want the easy way, which is endless single-family sprawl on flat, agricultural land. We need to incentivize future development near in-fill locations with more density and more accessibility to transit, services and employment. I want us to prioritize encouraging this sustainable development by enhancing our incentives near the urban core and along our major corridors while discouraging endless, lazy unsustainable developments.
Removing poorly planned incentives for the sprawling developments and ensuring the cost of growth, infrastructure and utilities for these developments is covered in full by the developers, rather than by the existing taxpayers, will better align the current community’s interests with our future growth patterns. Ensuring Manatee County focuses today on tomorrow’s concerns will put people’s minds at ease. We need to get roads in before houses, sidewalks poured before schools and water capacity expanded before we need to resort to outside, cost-prohibitive alternatives. Residents should not have to worry about growth affecting their roads, their schools or their water supply. That’s not fair to current residents and it’s something that can be resolved if the board is willing to do it.
The Bradenton Journal: Manatee County is nearly surrounded by and adjacent to water – the Gulf of Mexico, the Manatee River, etc. What should the county be doing to mitigate the effects of climate change, such as rising sea levels and more intense hurricanes and tropical storms?
As with all coastal counties, Manatee County’s past and future is tied to water. Our tourism needs our beaches. Our Seaport is a major economic driver. Our fishing industry relies on clean water and healthy ecosystems. Our residents rely on Lake Manatee for safe, affordable drinking water. We need to protect our water and our environment above all else. That’s what made the wetlands decision so disheartening.
When it comes to hurricanes, even the best plans only do so much with a direct hit by a storm. Our focus should be on what we can control. We need to ensure our stormwater systems are in place to protect private property from flooding. We need to ensure we maintain sufficient natural plants and landscape buffers to protect against soil erosion. This includes minimizing and discouraging clear-cutting and incentivizing enhanced buffers. We need to focus on hardening our utilities and keeping evacuation paths accessible for when the need arises. This includes the third bridge lanes to the island.
As for sea levels, there’s only so much we can do. We don’t control the AMI municipalities that are most at risk. Our current waterfronts are substantially developed. Where they are not, we have restrictions in place to prohibit density bonuses and limit select development types that are higher risk. Current and future boards need to ensure these restrictions and policies stay in place and avoid any push to modify them by “deferring to the state minimum standards.” Why defer to the state when our county and municipalities can collectively work together to strengthen our environmental protections to safeguard our community and all those who call Manatee County home.
For more about Kruse’s campaign, visit https://www.votekruse.com/
Because the Commissioner does indeed listen to citizens, applies common sense, and considers long term consequences, it is disappointing that he failed to support any inquiry into the July 3rd firing of 11 Animal Services volunteers for no reason. The same volunteers that had been praised by management just weeks before they were so cruelly let go. Having a well run, healthy, caring public animal shelter is an important issue to many county voters - red and blue. If there was a valid reason for the Administration to coldly dismiss so much passionate free labor in a shelter where staffing and conditions - especially dogs not getting walked - remains a serious problem, then taxpayers deserve to know it. Commissioner Kruse is probably the one commissioner that understands transparency is a pillar of good government.
Kruse just recently changed his vote for the go along to get along. He states that he doesn't like the sprawl but voted many times for it. The statement of "Personal Property Rights" getting bantered on the dais. That is correct we should have that but just because developers buy land shouldn't automatically rubber stamp their change in zoning which ALL OF THE BOCC does vote for. He states that he is for more affordable housing for public workers & not being a bedroom community but one can argue that he along with the other BOCC folks only care for developers and not bringing in jobs to our community. As far as fair-free busing, well that money comes with strings and is tax dollars from the feds. He speaks about infrastructure, parking & beach access but he fails to recognize alternatives like many people being able to bike safely to the beach. Notice now the bike/walking lane on the south side of the bridge cannot be used for the next two years? How is this even accepted? Evidence that he is talking out of both sides of his mouth on these subjects. There is a serious lack of planning in mitigating traffic and alternative thinking by these BOCC members. More interested in developer issues. He still hasn't answered the question if a hotel group out of Alaska (owned by a cruise line) wanted to meet with the BOCC & Gov DeSantis. (Hint, money given to both DeSantis & local REC from this group). I think there are a lot of us that would be interested in what caused his sudden change in voting this year. Seems he fell out of favor. Unfortunately one of the people running against him has a bad record as an employee of the sheriffs dept to many negatives that made the papers of at least one criminal act (stealing records & assault). Will have to check out the other opponent. Sad we can't get better candidates.