TEAM Punta Gorda: The cycle continues

The Artisan’s Atelier in Herald Court was one of many projects initiated by TEAM Punta Gorda. COURTESY PHOTO

One day 136 years ago, a small group of determined residents walked 31 miles to the county seat to steal Punta Gorda away from its founder.

Isaac Trabue, who named the town after himself, was a man for whom it was easy to develop an animus. He was a lawyer who liked to sue and a buyer who didn’t like to pay. When he stiffed his surveyor, Kelly Harvey, the bilked planner never forgot.

Soon, railroad interests that had built the Hotel Punta Gorda were fed up with the petty tyranny of Trabue. The dissident forces drew up a plan, hot-footed it over to Pine Level, which was then the county seat back when the city was part of a much bigger subdivision, and incorporated Punta Gorda.

That’s a long way of saying everything old is new again as TEAM Punta Gorda marks its 20th year of existence. Born in the debris of Hurricane Charley in 2004, TEAM was founded by residents, many of whom are still active in civic life, who had had enough of the city’s response to the natural disaster. It was still the era of goo-goos — good government folks who believed they could be effective without threatening disruption or glorying in discord. In short order, they raised some money, hired an outside planner, and crafted a road map for the city that eventually overtook and outstripped the 1990 master plan.

That master plan (we’re working backward again) was the last gasp of a previous generation of City Council members and community leaders. Several conflicting and converging forces — led by the late Gen. Rufus Lazzell, former Mayor Lindsay Williams and others — formed a loose coalition that pushed out of what was then the old guard. And I mean “old.” The late Marilyn Smith-Mooney, one of that era’s new generation of leaders, recalls a council member who would regularly fall asleep at meetings.

But kingmakers come and kingdoms go. The liberal ascendancy of the late ’90s and early new millennium were eclipsed by years of anarchy and drift. City Hall became a gossip mill where each meeting featured a new outrage as various department heads and appointed officials squabbled over small potatoes.

LEFT: The Professional Center building in downtown Punta Gorda, after being hit by Hurricane Charley. RIGHT: The Sunloft Center that replaced it, following a community push led by TEAM Punta Gorda. COURTESY PHOTOS

Enter TEAM Punta Gorda, which defines itself as an “All-volunteer citizen organization whose mission is to help make the Greater Punta Gorda area a better place to live, work and play.”

There’s a reason why Punta Gorda became the county seat and there’s a reason why I call the city the Pearl of the Peninsula. Unlike Port Charlotte, which is still a name on a map rather than a real community, or Englewood, a region cursed by too many governments and too little good luck, Punta Gorda has consistently re-invented itself. That’s because it has always had citizens like those who comprise and support TEAM Punta Gorda ready to step up.

Consider that the first bridge connecting the city to Charlotte Harbor was built in part by one man, William Whitten, who coughed up the money to complete the dormant project. And when people in Punta Gorda decided that the city needed a hospital, they held community events to raise money to get the project going.

All of that civic energy starts with people who care about their community — and are willing to do more than gripe. TEAM Punta Gorda is the latest and best example of that Punta Gorda tradition.

However, the wheel of history may be turning again. The election of Debi Lux, a relative newcomer to the city, and not a member of the traditional TEAM Punta Gorda crew, won her seat with a mandate several months ago. Her campaign manager claims that she, too, will be gunning for a seat on the five-member City Council next year.

TEAM Punta Gorda alumni and adherents occupy the other four seats, part of a consistent pattern. For example, Nancy Prafke, the one-time CEO of TEAM Punta Gorda, eventually rose to become mayor.

Lux won big because she focused on land use regulations, which she said are exclusive of basic contingencies like parking and greenspace. In her first months on the council, she has committed the council to re-examining almost every piece of business initiated before her election.

Her ascendancy may mark the decline of TEAM Punta Gorda’s influence, which says less about TEAM than it does about Punta Gorda’s proclivity for political change. Punta Gorda’s legacy of button-down revolutions may be endemic. So perhaps it’s fitting that TEAM Punta Gorda’s closing line on its web page history is a quote from anthropologist Margaret Meade: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” ¦

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