Kafi Benz

Kafi Benz (born 1941) is an American author and artist who began participation in social entrepreneurship through environmental preservation and regional planning in 1959 as a member of the Jersey Jetport Site Association, which opposed plans by the New York Port Authority to found a new airport in the Great Swamp, the central feature of a massive 55 square mile watershed in New Jersey bounded to the south and east by the Watchung Mountains, 25 miles west of Manhattan.[1]

During the 1980s she also became very active in historic preservation, founding a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, Friends of Seagate Inc., for that purpose. The organization later was expanded to include concerns for additional areas in the arts and sciences. At the same time she founded the official web site of the sculptor Jim Gary. In 2001 it was moved to another web site she created that may feature other artists as well, Kafi Benz Productions.[2]

Born during 1941 in Chatham, New Jersey, her mother was a commercial artist, graphic designer, and illustrator and her father was a prominent physician and surgeon who was chief of staff at a hospital in Morristown.

Initial environmental conservation

The Jersey Jetport Site Association was a small, but effective conservation organization, circumventing the efforts of the Port Authority to replace Newark Airport with a much larger complex farther to the west. After infiltrating meetings of the powerful authority headed by Austin J. Tobin, that were held to marshal support among construction companies and unions, the members of the association distributed opposition literature and drew public attention to its efforts. Greater opposition arose among the residents of the massive area that would be affected once the issue was revealed by coverage of the expulsion of four of the JJSA members (Kafi Benz, Joan Kelly, Esty Weiss, and Betty White) from a meeting at a Newark hotel, the Essex House, in a local newspaper, the Newark Evening News, on Thursday, December 3, 1959.[3]

The Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge – 7,600 acres, almost 12 square miles (31 km2)

The JJSA was closely followed by a sister organization, a new sub-committee founded in Washington, D.C. within the North American Wildlife Foundation, and these combined efforts led quickly to the establishment of the park that would become the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge by an act of Congress on Thursday, November 3, 1960. Residents such as Geraldine R. Dodge and Marcellus Hartley Dodge, Sr. contributed the funds necessary to purchase the core of the swamp as the legal opposition progressed into a victory for the preservationists that led to the perpetual protection of the important natural habitat. Along with providing the funds to seek other donors, the influence of such prominent residents opened doors to legislators. Marcellus Dodge also was instrumental in establishing dialogue with established conservation groups.

The initial donation of land to the federal government as a park was 2,600 acres (11 km2). The park now consists of 7,600 acres (31 km2) or almost 12 square miles of varied habitats. It was declared a National Natural Landmark in 1966 and given wilderness status in 1968.

During the final period of the founding of the park, Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Lee Udall, headed the federal department which was in charge of parks. He supported the efforts of these conservationists and commented that he believed they mounted the greatest effort ever made by residents in America to protect a natural habitat.

Fine arts activities

In the late 1960s Benz became a director of the Somerset Art Association,[4] then located in Bernardsville, New Jersey, exhibited fine art, and participated in the planning and administration of its annual competitive regional art show. The organization has been renamed as, The Center for Contemporary Art (CCA), is located in Bedminster, and is noted as a regional art center with a comprehensive studio art school, professional exhibition program, and a community outreach component. Her painting and sculpture works are held in private collections in several states. Occasionally sitting as a model for sculpture classes taught at the association by Berta Margoulies (a 1946 Guggenheim fellowship recipient),[5][6] many sculptures of Benz have been exhibited by these students.

At that time a friendship with sculptor Jim Gary developed that would lead to her representing the sculptor at many times, eventually becoming his publicist, creating and maintaining the official web site for Gary and his work,[7] and becoming the director of his studio, Jim Gary's Twentieth Century Dinosaurs, marketing and placing his works and exhibition.

When Gary died in January 2006, Benz established a memorial fund and led efforts to bring about the placement of sculptures from his traveling exhibition,[8] as a single collection in a suitable museum or institution where the sculptures in the collection would remain open to the public. By 2009 negotiations with a site in Sarasota seemed assured and much publicity ensued,[9] through 2010. That contract was not executed, however, and negotiations were redirected successfully to a museum in Tallahassee.[10]

In August 2011 twenty-one Gary sculptures were packed into vans and moved from Colts Neck, New Jersey for a ten-year display at the Tallahassee Museum in Florida.[11] When National Geographic Magazine was unable to meet the schedule, Benz invited three free-lance photographers to document the preparations and complex move with videos and still photographs.[12]

She represented painter Lee W. Hughes also, principally while he was a transparent watercolor artist,[13] with a studio and gallery in Mendham, New Jersey. She also represented his wife and her longtime friend, pencil medium artist Sue Hughes (née McQuillan), while she was working out of a studio in New Jersey and later, in California.

A search committee headed by Virginia Laudano,[14] of the Art Club of Sun City Center,[15] invited Kafi Benz to judge its thirty-sixth annual art show held during February 2003[16] jointly with the prominent Tampa Bay area[17][18] multi-media artist, Gainor Roberts.[19] Soon thereafter, Benz participated in a project with transparent watercolor artist, John Crawford, to publish his research of an early Renoir painting of Marie Le Coeur, that was among his art collection since its acquisition in Chicago during the 1930s.[20] He is the namesake of the John Crawford Art Education Studio that was created after his death at SouthShore Regional Library of Hillsborough County,[21] which now features many of his own paintings.[22] The planned book was not published before his death.

Return to preservation

During the 1980s Benz became active in environmental and historic preservation in Sarasota, Florida. She joined the Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation, Inc. shortly after Veronica Morgan[23] founded the organization in 1984, and has served in several positions among its officers as well as being a director of the organization over the years. Accompanied by Jerris Foote, Dudley E. DeGroot[24][25][26][27] and Kafi Benz conducted archaeological research to document historical and prehistoric aspects of two endangered properties that were listed on the National Register of Historic Places—the El Vernona Hotel (built by Owen Burns in 1925 and later renamed to John Ringling Hotel) and Seagate (a fishing retreat built for Gwendolyn and Powel Crosley in 1929) during efforts to protect the historic properties from demolition.

Toward the end of the decade, Benz participated in documentation of other archaeological and historical sites. She was cited as a special contributor to the survey of archaeological, historical, cultural, and natural resources in the coastal areas of Sarasota County that was conducted by the Florida department of environmental regulation as well as for recommending sites deserving further research.[28]

Powel Crosley, Jr. circa 1949 - Sarasota County History Center

In the late 1980s Benz founded Friends of Seagate Inc., which championed the preservation of the remaining portions of the large platted subdivision, Seagate, that became the estate of the Crosleys, was sold to the Horton family, and was purchased in the late 1970s for development into a club-based condominium project by the Campeau Corporation. Although the property had been listed on the National Register of Historic Places, little protection is afforded through listing and Benz's concerns were for both historic preservation and environmental conservation. Unfortunately, the condominium market in Florida had collapsed shortly after Campeau acquired the property and the ambitious plans to use the 1929 home and auxiliary buildings as the clubhouse and headquarters of the development were never realized. Work permits were kept alive by intermittent, but unrelated and minimal construction until the corporation began to collapse. That collapse led to the demise of many of the most prestigious department stores in America—such as Bonwit Teller—having been acquired by the failing Federated Department Stores division that had become part of Campeau.

The Seagate property changed hands several times with several inglorious plans submitted for redevelopment that met with opposition until Friends of Seagate was founded and Benz's campaign for acquisition was begun, that resulted finally, in public acquisition.[29] In 1990 the property was acquired by the state of Florida with a division into two portions, the bay front residence and 16 acres (6.5 ha) being overseen by Manatee County and the much larger, eastern portion of the property along Tamiami Trail being overseen by New College and University of South Florida until their separation and the resulting development of this portion into a new campus only for the satellite, commuter campus of the university. Following the public acquisition of the property the objectives of Benz's organization were expanded to broader preservation issues involving archaeological, artistic, cultural, environmental, and historical aspects of the region. Lake Underwood, a patron to Friends of Seagate, provided much of the funding and equipment for the expansion of the organization.

Rus-in-Ur'be – marble plaque inset into a column of the main entrance, one of three original gateways to the property; roughly, it may be translated as, country in the city

In 2002, Benz also led Friends of Seagate Inc. in its commitment as the nonprofit environmental entity to hold land in a partnership with the Sarasota municipal government as the eligible local governmental entity, applying for a state grant for funding through the Florida Forever Program, (Florida's premier conservation and recreation lands acquisition program) amounting to $1,505,625 for acquisition of Rus in Ur'be, a large land parcel in the center of the Indian Beach Sapphire Shores neighborhood, as a neighborhood park. The parcel includes more than 11 acres (4.5 ha) and contained a great deal of wooded and undeveloped land, wetlands, a tennis court, and a Sarasota School of Architecture structure that served as a private clubhouse or recreational lounge for a bay front home opposite it on Bay Shore Road that had been sold separately from the house and held for a long time by a developer. The clubhouse was roofed with glazed blue Japanese ceramic tiles, used pecky cypress timbers for framing, and had expansive glass partitions along the western elevation, facing the tennis courts.[30] The project retained its status among those not able to be included for state funding in that cycle, but was sold for private development before the next cycle began. The structure was demolished and the tennis courts destroyed, plats for development with single family homes were surveyed, and a private road paved through the parcel, but no structures were built prior to the downturn of the real estate market as the speculation boom of the 1990s and 2000s collapsed. Several development projects have been proposed for the parcel. The property remained undeveloped through the next decade and often was identified as a likely location for a neighborhood park as other efforts continued. In 2014 the property was acquired out of foreclosure and may be destined for residential development.[31]

Planning

Interest in regional and local planning led Benz to participate in community planning projects,[32][33][34][35][36] as well as the designs for the campuses of both New College and the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee. She became a director of a large and active neighborhood association[37] and assumed a leadership role in the community[38][39][40][41] and many organizations related to community issues.[42][43][44]

She was appointed as a local government official to represent Sarasota County while serving on the federally mandated[45][46] [47][48][49] Sarasota-Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization Citizen Advisory Committee,[50] where she has served for many years, including as its chair,[51] a member of its executive committee, and its delegate to the regional committee of the chairs of all MPOs within western central Florida, encompassing eight counties,[52] the Chairs Coordinating Committee.[53]

The establishment of MPOs throughout the nation as an aspect of local government in the United States was mandated by congressional legislation. Depending upon the area, the governance of an MPO may be planning for a single community, county-wide, multiple or bi-county-wide, or regional. The area of an MPO may cross other established jurisdictional lines of government. By federal law, any urbanized area with a population exceeding 50,000 is required to form an MPO to guide transportation planning in the metropolitan area. MPOs are funded by the federal government in conjunction with additional funds contributed by the state and local governments of the regions in which they are formed. The need for larger regional transportation planning co-operation has driven the establishment of additional agencies within the MPO structure, such as the Chairs Coordinating Committee, with much larger focus to draw the officials from the MPO organizations in many regions into the national effort to integrate transportation planning more effectively.[54]

After studying the work of the road engineering expert, Michael Wallwork,[55][56] in the late 1980s she initiated the examination of a new design for road intersections, the modern roundabout,[57] by the MPO and both county and city governments and has continued to advocate[58] its application for the elimination of unnecessary deaths and serious injuries at conventional intersections, improving the environmental and beautification aspects of community designs, and while counter intuitively, improving congestion issues by carrying larger volumes of traffic than the conventional designs.

Decades later, the federal highway standards now support the use of true modern roundabouts and some states have begun requiring road planners to defend any proposal lacking this innovative intersection design. Insurance companies now advocate it as well, to reduce fatalities and injuries, and to prevent extensive damage to automobiles at intersection crashes.

Publications and other activities

Contributions by Benz to publications of organizations to which she has belonged include articles, design and layout, and illustrations[59] as well as editing.[60] She also has published privately many short stories, some of which include her own illustrations. Some have appeared in commercial media.[61] The great majority of her published works are devoted to natural history, but some are devoted to history, biography, and historic preservation as well, featuring illustrations and details of the subject people and structures.[62][63] Brochures and fliers she created on the latter topics have been distributed to encourage historic preservation and made available by local government and institutions owning the historical structures.

Other professional experience for Kafi Benz has included commercial art, graphic design, and illustration; marketing, public relations, and corporate image development;[64] real estate development; medical and research publication and editing for a Fortune-100 ethical pharmaceutical corporation, Novartis, that now ranks second in the multinational pharmaceutical industry; technical publication and editing for a regulatory agency of the federal government, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; ghost and speech writing; and electronic engineering product development, including the second generation of early personal computers while with Litton Industries.

References

  1. ↑ Great Swamp in New Jersey, Donated to Government as Wildlife Area, to be Dedicated, United States Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, May 25, 1964, P.N.46917-64
  2. ↑ Kafi Benz Productions is a web site that in 2001 succeeded the Jim Gary Web Site by Kafi Benz
  3. ↑ Hamilton, Leonard W., PhD, Keynote Address to the Tenth Anniversary Celebration, Ten Towns Committee (Great Swamp Watershed Management Committee), Sustainable Stewardship, June 24, 2005
  4. ↑ The Center for Contemporary Art (formerly known as the Somerset Art Association) is a regional art center with a comprehensive studio art school
  5. ↑ Art: Sculpture in Manhattan, Time, Monday, April 25, 1938 – review of exhibition by a Manhattan Sculptors Guild organized by fifty-eight sculptors, "able and varied work was on hand [by sculptors] William Zorach, Warren Wheelock, Harold Cash, Herbert Ferber, José de Creeft, Chaim Gross, Maurice Glickman, Hy Freilicher, Berta Margoulies, Concetta Scaravaglione..." from magazine archives
  6. ↑ Berta Margoulies O'Hare obituary, Friday, March 22, 1996, San Francisco Chronicle, page A.22
  7. ↑ Jim Gary's Twentieth Century Dinosaurs, Kafi Benz Productions, September 22, 2009
  8. ↑ retrieved January 2006 from web site of Belk College of Business of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte
  9. ↑ Cougars move over, dinosaurs on the way, Longboat Key News, September 25, 2009, p.15
  10. ↑ Tallahassee Museum will host Jim Gary sculpture exhibit, Kafi Benz Productions, August 22, 2011
  11. ↑ Martin, Laura, Jersey's Loss is Florida's Gain: Remembering an Arts Icon, Jim Gary Sculptures Move to Tallahassee Museum, Asbury Park Press, 2011.09.12 Entertainment, the Arts, front page
  12. ↑ Moving Jim Gary works from Colts Neck, Kafi Benz Productions, September 13, 2011
  13. ↑ Lee W. Hughes Legacy – Juried Art Show, Bernardsville Public Library, Bernardsville, New Jersey, June 21 through July 30, 2007 honored the artist
  14. ↑ Slide show of significant paintings prompted by the 9-11 terrorist attacks, L J World, featured a painting by Virginia Laudano, accessed 2001
  15. ↑ Art Club in Sun City Center, Sun City Center, Florida, September 2011, newsletter includes a photograph of three instructors, including Virginia Laudano
  16. ↑ Sun City art show today, St. Petersburg Times, Brandon Times on-line version, published February 7, 2003, 36th annual show held by SCC in February 2003
  17. ↑ Gainor Roberts listing, The Arts Map, Robin Colodzin and Jonathan Talbot
  18. ↑ Gainor Web Site
  19. ↑ Gainor Roberts Fine Art America profile
  20. ↑ Johnson, Rachel, Local Man Discovers Masterpiece, The Sun, a Media General Publication, August 8, 2001
  21. ↑ SouthShore Regional Library, Ruskin, Florida
  22. ↑ John Crawford Art Rooms shown on the lower right
  23. ↑ Artist's Talk by Veronica Morgan, Social Web, January 13, 2009
  24. ↑ obituary – Dudley E. DeGroot
  25. ↑ Dudley Edward DeGroot obituary
  26. ↑ memorial: Dudley E. DeGroot, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, 1927–2012
  27. ↑ Meacham, Andrew, Eckerd professor, Navy Reserve Rear Adm. Dudley DeGroot dies at 85, Tampa Bay Times, Wednesday, December 19, 2012
  28. ↑ An Historic Resources Survey of the Coastal Zone of Sarasota County, Florida, prepared for the Sarasota County Board of County Commissioners, Sarasota County Department of Natural Resources, and the Sarasota County Department of Historical Resources by the University of South Florida Department of Anthropology, Tampa, Florida for the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation per CM.235 Agreement for Cultural Resources Management; March 1990, pp. 5, 213 "...A great deal of information was generously shared by colleagues and concerned Sarasota County residents. We wish to acknowledge the special contributions of the following: ...Kafi Benz, Dudley deGroot..."
  29. ↑ LaHurd, Jeff, Powel Crosley, Jr. remembered as a visionary, Sarasota Herald Tribune, Sunday, November 15, 2015, page B-1
  30. ↑ Funding Status Report, State of Florida, Florida Forever Cycle FF2, Florida Communities Trust – Department of Community Affairs, 2002, www.dca.state.fl.us/fct/ParksandOpenSpace/.../2002FundingStatusReport.xls 2002
  31. ↑ Indian Beach development to resume, 2014.07.14
  32. ↑ Sarasota Planning Board, March 24, 2008
  33. ↑ McQuaid, Kevin, Sarasota tweaks its plan, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Sunday, August 4, 2002
  34. ↑ McQuaid, Kevin, Board hearing will focus on master plan, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Thursday, August 15, 2002
  35. ↑ Drouin, Roger, Sarasota officials delay marina vote, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Thursday, September 4, 2008
  36. ↑ Benz, Kafi, Fast-Track Cautions Misconstrued, Op-Ed, SRQ Daily, Saturday, July 6, 2013
  37. ↑ Public Presenters and Items Submitted, Minutes of Public Hearing, Sarasota County Board of Commissioners, March 24, 2008
  38. ↑ Rodriguez, Yolanda, Sarasota group takes local politics to Web, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Wednesday, October 22, 1997, p. 11B
  39. ↑ Levey-Baker, Cooper, It's Back! The Elected Mayor, Take Four; Heat Index; Our Town; Hot Topics, Talk, and History; Sarasota Magazine, April 2014, page 42
  40. ↑ Benz, Kafi, 'Trojan charter' mayor poses threat to open government, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, guest column, April 17, 2014, page A8
  41. ↑ Benz, Kafi, Proposed charter is a Trojan Horse, SRQ Daily, Saturday, April 26, 2014 (errata correction of title as noted later by author)
  42. ↑ Cona Comments, Newsletter of the Sarasota County Council of Neighborhood Associations, February 9, 2009
  43. ↑ McSwane, J. David, Election, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Saturday, March 12, 2011
  44. ↑ Salmond, Jessica, Leading Lady: Benz steps up to lead CONA, Sarasota Observer, January 22, 2015, Front Page
  45. ↑ Metropolitan Transportation Planning, U.S. Department of Transportation
  46. ↑ Metropolitan Planning, U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration
  47. ↑ Publications for Planning Resources on Legislation, Regulations, and Guidance, U.S. Department of Transportation
  48. ↑ Contacts, U.S. Department of Transportation
  49. ↑ Contact Information, Federal transportation planning capacity building program
  50. ↑ Citizen Advisory Committee Member list, Sarasota-Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization
  51. ↑ Bylaws, June 25, 2007, Sarasota-Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization
  52. ↑ Chairs Coordinating Committee, West Central Florida Metropolitan Planning Organizations, web site, including a map of region represented
  53. ↑ Minutes, March 4, 2008, Joint Citizen Advisory Committee, West Central Florida Chairs Coordinating Committee, Florida Department of Transportation
  54. ↑ Briggs, Valerie, Institute of Transportation Engineers, ITE Journal, January 1, 2001
  55. ↑ Wallwork, Michael, People Friendly Streets, Alternate Street Design, Roundabouts Web Site
  56. ↑ Holtz Kay, Jane, Articles, several articles on traffic calming
  57. ↑ Roundabouts: A Safer Choice, U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration
  58. ↑ Regional Connections, Spring, 2004, newsletter of the West Central Florida MPO Chairs Coordinating Committee (for the eight western central Florida MPOs), documenting their federally mandated activities and including discussion by MPO representatives and citizens about their objectives (see image of Kafi Benz on page two next to her statement regarding her regional transportation planning priorities)
  59. ↑ Jennings, David, A Tale of Two Commissions, Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation, Inc. Newsletter, February 2005, volume twenty, number two, Box 1754, Sarasota, Florida 34230 with illustrations of Crocker Church and Bidwell-Wood House by Kafi Benz
  60. ↑ LaHurd, Jeff, Acknowledgements, Gulf Coast Chronicles, Remembering Sarasota's Past, The History Press
  61. ↑ Benz, Kafi, Transplanter in Black, News Section: Arts and Culture, The Bradenton Times, July 19, 2011
  62. ↑ Benz, Kafi, Residence of Hester Ringling Lancaster Sanford, Sarasota History Alive!, Journals of Yesteryear, April 29, 2009
  63. ↑ Benz, Kafi, Residence of Edith Ringling, Sarasota History Alive!, Journals of Yesteryear, December 8, 2010
  64. ↑ Smith, Jessi, Get a ringside seat: MTO is not pulling any punches in his latest mural, This Week in Sarasota, December 20, 2012
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