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Milo owns Venice -- at least on the web
One of the most contentious issues yet to face city council this year is the existence of the weekly and daily home rental biz.

While such rentals have been taking place in the city for some time, it wasn't until web marketing guru Steve Milo (short bio) landed in Venice that it suddenly became a hot issue. Milo comes from a long line of highly successful web and media ventures, including his stint as New Media Director for Marvel Comics where he was the central figure in the development of their web marketing through Marvel.com.

Steve Milo owns Venice Florida on the web. Using a variety of pricey web technologies from his own experiences and from investment in new programming, Milo's two web sites (VacationRentalPros.com and PetVacationHomes.com) have come to dominate the search engines when it comes to searches about Venice Florida. In short, his operation, at least on the web, is pure genius.

Such success on the web has caused locals who have stumbled across his web sites to see weekly and daily rentals of homes in a new light. Golden Beach Homeowners Association, the same bunch that brought you the Venice Neighborhood Coalition and their ongoing fight against the Venice Airport, is particularly perturbed. While complaints have trickled in about neighborhood problems from daily and weekly rentals, the problems as presented to council seemed monstrous.

On June 11, council chose to hear from staff and citizenry on the subject. Below, then, are selected video excerpts from city staff and residents, all with strong opinions on the subject.

Bring out your dead
I chimed in as well (natch), basically stating that problems I encountered with neighboring annual rentals made the complaints coming out of Golden Beach sound like childish whining -- have there been any drug deaths or prostitution over in Golden Beach? No? Well hey, they've happened right down the street from me in a horribly managed annual rental complex now known as Sea-Jay Apartments. What was surprising was that after I was done, local development attorney Jeff Boone sought me out to shake my hand. Jeff and I have gone nose-to-nose on a variety of issues over the years, we both bear scars from our battles, but he had a few horror stories of his own from houses near him that had been rented annually.

There were two genuinely hilarious moments, both involving the current interim mayor. The first was when the office temp Hizzoner, Fred Hammett, plucked out a pithy Reader's Digest-style non-sequiter after failing to understand a word that local attorney Jon Preiksat said. Later, Hammett couldn't come to grips with a statement made by Councilman (and former judge) John Moore. Both of those incidents happen at the tail ends of the mentioned video clips.

John Patten is the head of Web Operations for Creative Pages, and has worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times.