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the company should be credited for that, Arduin said. One portion of the Laffer report Arduin did not address in her remarks to the commission was the appendix, a long attack on the con- cept of smart growth, which the report calls "authoritarian" and "elitist." That appendix made up the majority of the first draft submit- ted to the county last November, and it was the focus of sharp criticism, even from com- missioners. But the consensus on the board last fall was that the county had drawn up a faulty contract, not that Laffer had delivered a poor report. "They did what they were asked to do," Commissioner Charles Hines said of the firm in November. Arduin told the News Leader that Laffer approached the fiscal neutrality issue from a very broad perspective and then, in subse- quent drafts, narrowed its focus. "It wasn't specified that we had to do all of that, but for our purposes, coming in as economists rather than land-use planners, it was for our process necessary," Arduin said. The firm never felt unclear about its task, or misled during nego- tiations with the county, she added. The board took no official action on the report, simply instructing County Long- Range Planning Manager Allen Parsons to incorporate Arduin's suggestions into his department's ongoing 2050 review. Staff is tentatively scheduled to bring forward the next round of proposed 2050 changes, affect- ing the comprehensive plan, on May 21. If everything goes as planned, final adoption would take place in early November. "If you do it a little later, I don't have to vote," joked Commissioner Nora Patterson, who will be stepping down after this year's elections. Patterson is the only current commissioner who was on the board when 2050 was orig- inally approved, and she has been the lone skeptic of some of the proposed changes. Barbetta asked Parsons if the process could be expedited, saying the changes have "been a long time coming." Despite the tough words issued in earlier months toward Laffer's anal- ysis, there was exactly zero public comment after Arduin concluded her presentation on Wednesday. Barbetta criticized "naysayers" who are against any revisions to 2050. "I'm a little tired of the rhetoric out there that's slowing things down," he said. "There's 390,000 people in the county," and only "20 or 30 people complaining about growth." % Commissioner Joe Barbetta has been a staunch advocate of revising the 2050 Plan. File photo Sarasota News Leader February 21, 2014 Page 19