If a reservoir breach at Piney Point was the only way to get some attention on the problem, thank goodness it happened in April.

There’s an old saying in government that you can’t ever let a good crisis go to waste. A crisis occurred at an abandoned phosphorus mine earlier this month, but it’s not the first time. A breach in a water stack forced state environmental officials to pump more than 200 million gallons of industrial wastewater into Port Manatee. Hey, it’s about the only thing they could do when 300 homes faced a risk of being hammered by 20-foot flash flooding. That said, if we see more red tide blooms around Tampa Bay and the number goes up on how many people start to favor just letting a whole neighborhood wash away.

The event drew Ron DeSantis to the area, where he declared a state of emergency and promised to find a permanent solution to the problem. This week, the Florida Legislature agreed to budget $100 million to fix the problem. That means help is on the way, but plenty of planets had to align to make it happen.

First, this disaster happened in the middle of the legislative session, a two month period when Florida lawmakers make decisions for the coming fiscal year. If this happened six months ago, it’s quite possible another emergency would have become the surprise expenditure of the year when everyone outside the immediate area had forgotten this site's name. "Most urgent problem in Florida" is a title Piney Point will only retain for so long. Heck, if the Piney Point breach happened three weeks later it would have come after the legislature already earmarked the entire budget and sent money to Rep. Fillintheblank’s local water quality project that was just-as-important-thank-you-very-much.

Second, this came after Congress passed the American Rescue Plan, which will deliver $10 billion to state government. When Senate President Wilton Simpson made a promise to Sen. Jim Boyd, R-Bradenton, to provide for Manatee County in a time of need, that check in the mail from Washington, D.C. made it almost painless to find a nine-figure line in the budget to help drain three gypsum stacks.

And third, this turned into a regional disaster. Yes, that’s some we-need-lemons-to-make-lemonade logic, but the fact there was so much dirty water to dispose of here that it had to be poured into a water body surrounded by a significant number of legislative districts meant this could not be ignored the same as a if all the water just flowed into a local water body, which is largely what happened in 2011 when a similar spill occurred.

But something else to recall, this isn’t over. The $100 million inserted into this year’s budget may just cover half the total cost of the project. With luck, more money will come available to fill any shortfall in costs, and hopefully this projects moves along far enough this year that there’s no turning back.

This bad luck provided a significant amount of political capitol to finally address a problem that’s been sitting, gathering rain, for 20 years. Our lawmakers know this, but it’s important this project move along quickly before that bad luck runs out. 

Image from Governor's Office: Gov. Ron DeSantis discusses Piney Point surrounded by area officials.

It was just over one year ago when the coronavirus pandemic began. While federal governments around the world were setting national and international policy, state and municipal governments across the country were working to manage issues closer to home.

While many of us only deal with our local government when we have a specific issue or problem, the daily business of state and municipal government is massive –  licenses and permits, public safety, schools, tax collection, waste collection, community planning, business support, and economic development – the list is long. Doing all of that in the midst of a pandemic – along with coordinating a massive national election last November – was no easy task. Like every other sector had to do, state and local governments had to figure out ways to continue providing these essential services effectively while helping to keep their employees and citizens safe from infection.

Communication keeping everyone informed of restrictions, protocols, and ways they would access the services needed to keep their lives and businesses going was probably the most important item for these governments. But,  creativity and collaboration, which I always say are the key skills needed to meet tomorrow’s challenges, were the next important elements needed to solve some of these issues. Randwick Council, the local government for a group of 13 suburbs along the coastline of Sydney, Australia, for example, wanted a way to communicate with residents that was clear and informative, but also positive and uplifting during an isolating and challenging time. Its creative solution: The “Spread Kindness, not Germs” campaign. Colorful signs, t-shirts, and postcards to encourage connection with neighbors were all a part of this innovative communication and outreach campaign to ensure that the residents were fully informed about restrictions and protocols while also getting a message of hope. Distributing signs and other assets supporting the campaign, like t-shirts, also provided alternative work for people whose jobs were impacted by shutdowns.

Closer to home, the Colorado state Departments of Revenue and Public Safety, the Office of Information Technology,  and the Division of Motor Vehicles wanted a way to offer state services from a smartphone. This effort was to support physical distancing. The solution was a collaboration to create and launch new features in the “myColorado” app to help residents work with state government remotely and receive COVID-19 updates.

Locally, here in Sarasota, our city government found creative ways to respond to the unfolding crisis. According to Purchasing General Manager David Boswell, the city was already well on its way to becoming paperless when the pandemic struck. His department found ways to accelerate the process. Additionally, the city moved many of the services that for years had been done in person to the virtual world. This solution was necessitated because at least 50% of the city’s workforce was working remotely. Each department in Sarasota city government was able to take the overall mandate and create a plan that would suit its specific needs. The overall goal was to expedite city services and keep residents and city employees safe.

This switch from in-person to remote access to city services was a significant shift for Sarasota residents. Recognizing the need to help its residents navigate this change, the city decided to offer trainings in Zoom, Skype, and “How to do Business with Government Agencies Online” to help build digital literacy so that people would be comfortable working with the city government remotely.

Bloomberg Philanthropies, the organization that encompasses all of Mike Bloomberg’s giving, recognizes in the overview to its Mayors Challenge launched this year that “no matter what local leaders face, creativity, flexibility, and innovation hold the key to unlocking the full potential of their cities.”

It is my most often repeated sentence: Creativity is the most important skill for the future. There is no challenge that creative thinking isn’t needed to overcome. And I am not a lone voice. As you have seen throughout this series so far, experts across every sector from healthcare to education tout creativity as the way to move forward, not just from the pandemic, but also for almost everything in society in order to achieve success in the future. We have seen so many ways that creativity has gotten us through this last year. I believe this pandemic accelerated the evolution of the Creative Age – a new era for all people.

Dr. Larry R. Thompson is president of Ringling College of Art and Design