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As Water Conservation Month continues, there are many ways you can help! Did you know that your automated irrigation system is required to have a rain sensor shut-off device to help conserve water?
Three years ago, a breach at the former Piney Point fertilizer plant released about 215 million gallons of polluted wastewater into Tampa Bay.
The incident made international headlines, forced nearby residents to evacuate, and helped feed a red tide bloom that had a major impact on the environment and local economy.
The closure of the troubled site is now underway. Water levels have been drawn down significantly as crews work round-the-clock to inject hundreds of millions of gallons of wastewater deep underground.
"Turning your back on it doesn't do a thing," attorney Herb Donica said. He was appointed in court in August 2021 to lead closure operations for the troubled property.
"I think the big leak they had in April 2021 was the wake-up call," he said.
Wastewater injected deep underground in Manatee County
Manatee County's injection well has operated for about one year, and 182 million gallons of pre-treated wastewater from the site has been disposed of deep underground.
Donica has received about $92.7 million in state funds to shutter the property, although an estimated 210 million to 240 million gallons of wastewater remains. He estimates what remains of that funding may run dry before the end of this year, and that it could potentially cost an additional $50 million to finish.
"The community was left holding the bag," Donica said. "You can call it the taxpayers. The financial issues are one thing, but having to live with it we're talking about the people of Manatee County. They have to live with it."
Crews are slowly draining water out of the sediment from the SeaPort Manatee dredging project that was deposited in 2011 into the gypstack system by filling "geotubes" with the slurry and allowing the water to drain out of them while the sediment remains inside.
The cleaned water is then sent across Buckeye Road for pre-treatment and underground disposal at the Manatee County well site.
The process has already had some hiccups. In March, Manatee County reported a 6,000-gallon spill at the well site after a power outage caused wastewater to accumulate and overflow onto the property.
Donica said there is no better way to dispose of the water.
"You cannot evaporate your way out of it," Donica said. "You can treat the water and make it pristine, and a lot of people in science believe that you can discharge it into the bay safely. But after what the community has gone through they just won't stand for that, and frankly, they just won't believe it."
"They've been burned on this several times in 20 years," he said. "The community would never stand for discharging water into the bay. Bishops Harbor, the Gulf, the bay. It's so important to west central Florida. That's why people live here."
A home in Lighthouse Point tops all transactions in this week’s real estate. Sharon and Michael Tetterton sold their home at 55 Lighthouse Point Drive to Walter George Glaser, of Cos Cob, Connecticut, for $8.5 million. Built in 1995, it has five bedrooms, four-and-a-half baths, a pool and 6,159 square feet of living area. It sold for $4.5 million in 2017.
The 2024 Giving Challenge has raised more than $17.2 million for more than 700 local nonprofits in its annual 24-hour fundraising event that ended at noon Wednesday, the Community Foundation of Sarasota County is reporting.
The Bay Park Conservancy and Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium wound up atop the leaderboard, collecting more than $380,000 and $350,000, respectively, in individual donations and matching gifts as the countdown clock hit zero.
Other organizations in the top 10 included All Faiths Food Bank, Cat Depot, Suncoast Youth for Christ and Agape Flights.
More than 53,000 individual donations were collected in the 24-hour period the foundation posted on its website.
Final totals are expected to change over the course of the next few days.
The first Giving Challenge in 2012 raised $2.4 million for 107 nonprofit participants. In 2022 nearly 46,000 total donors contributed $16.2 million benefiting 667 nonprofits.
Hosted by the Community Foundation and strengthened by The Patterson Foundation, the Giving Challenge events have raised more than $75 million in unrestricted funding for area nonprofits to respond to community needs with flexibility and innovation.
I see a lot of these so-called 'entertainment centers' in strip malls of Hwy. 41 in Venice and Nokomis. But I read the news all the time and the only arrests I ever see are in Manatee County. Never seen one of these kind of establishments making the news getting busted in Sarasota County. Hmm is that because the ones in Sarasota County are operating legally? Or do officials 'look the other way' because these establishments bring in revenue to the county? What are the appeal of these kind of businesses if they operate 'legally'? If they give away 'prizes' and not cash is that legal?
Bradenton Police investigating illegal gambling at Pour Decisions Saloon
Bradenton Police Department seized several slot machines from a Bradenton business on Wednesday morning following a month-long investigation into suspected illegal gambling.
Several undercover operations were conducted by Bradenton Police detectives and Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents at Pour Decisions Saloon, located at 430 12th St. W., in March 2024.
The business had four arcade-style video slot machines available to customers for illegal gambling. Bradenton Police detectives obtained a search warrant and, with the assistance of the Division of Alcohol, Beverage, and Tobacco, the machines were removed from the business.
None of the customers or employees were arrested, however the investigation is ongoing.
Operating a slot machine without a Florida Gaming Control Commission-issued license is against the law. Business owners could face up to five years in prison and be fined as much as $10,000 per machine for failing to comply with the law.
For more information and answers to frequently asked questions about illegal gambling visit: flgaming.gov/faq. If you’d like to report illegal gambling in Bradenton, call the Bradenton Police Department at 941-932-9300 or submit an anonymous tip to Manatee CrimeStoppers at manateecrimestoppers.com.
As a former middle school teacher, Myakka City’s Patricia McKeithen always has loved educating people.
So being able to combine that with her passion for horticulture at the Earth Day Native Plant Sale on April 20 is exciting to her.
McKeithen and her husband, Eddie McKeithen, will open their nursery to the public April 20 for a fundraiser to benefit the Florida Association of Native Nurseries, a nonprofit dedicated to professionals who grow, design and plant native trees and plants.
“We are looking to build multiple sources of revenue to help us grow so we can do more outreach," said Cammie Donaldson, the executive director of the Florida Association of Native Nurseries.
The proceeds from the plant sale will go toward the nonprofit’s Plant Real Florida education campaign, which provides resources for those in the industry and people wanting to bring native plants to their landscaping.
The new gated community Vistera of Venice will bring 582 homes to south Sarasota County. Zoned for up to 1,500 residences, the project is spearheaded by Neal Land & Neighborhoods. Associated Neal Land Ventures, the land acquisition and development firm, purchased the roughly 300-acre site for $18 million (or $60,000 an acre) in 2018.
The property was previously owned by the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, which earmarked the land for affordable housing, but that plan was cut short by the Great Recession. The land is located just east of Interstate 75 and between Laurel and Border roads, in north Venice.
Vistera of Venice includes villas from the high $400,000s and larger homes from the $500,000s, but “we expect the average will be from the $500,000s to the $700,00s,” says John Neal, president of Neal Land & Neighborhoods.
Floor plans range from two to five bedrooms and two to three bathrooms, and span 1,595 to 3,748 square feet, with two- to three-car garages. Paired villas are two to three bedrooms, with two bathrooms and two-car garages that range from 1,638 to 1,848 square feet. With phase one done, and another on the way, completion for the new master-planned community is estimated for the end of 2024.
Venice council rejects 317-home density increase for Vistera PUD because of compatibility
On a convoluted path that required three separate votes, the Venice City Council rejected an application for an increase in density for the GCCF Planned Unit Development that would have increased the number of housing units from 1,300 to 1,617.
That would have meant an increase in density from 4.3 units per acre to 5 units per acre for the PUD also known as Vistera – a fact that prompted Venice Mayor Nick Pachota to make the motion against the approval because of compatibility with neighboring subdivisions in the Milano planned-unit development.
But that’s still significantly less intense than the entitlements that went with the 300-acre parcel when the Gulf Coast Community Foundation sold the property to four limited liability corporations affiliated with developer Pat Neal.
At that time, entitlements attached to the land allowed for up to 1,799 residential units – just over 5.9 units per acre – and 225,000 square feet of commercial use. Those entitlements were tied to using roughly half the property as a mixed-use affordable housing development dubbed “The Bridges.”
When asking for the affordable housing requirements to be dropped, Neal negotiated the number of homes in the PUD down to 1,300.
A 2022 decision by the Venice City Council to transfer about 24 acres from the Milano PUD to Vistera – which Neal requested in part to realign a back gate and allow for the movement of power lines – opened the door for Neal to ask for the increase in density for what is now a 323.56-acre PUD.
Prior to the 4-3 vote to approve Pachota’s motion – with Vice Mayor Jim Boldt and council members Rachel Frank and Helen Moore in dissent – the council voted down a similar motion proposed by Council Member Ron Smith.
Smith wanted to tie the denial to the fact that the council is in the midst of defining “unified control” of a planned-unit development, as well as the process to change a planned-unit development.
That motion failed on a 5-2 vote, with Smith and Council Member Joan Farrell in dissent.
That came immediately after Council member Rick Howard joined Farrell, Pachota and Smith in denying the density increase.
During the public hearing, attorney Jeff Boone argued that the concept of unified control did not apply, since nobody lived the PUD
“The overall acreage is owned by – in addition to the Neal entities – two or three other development entities,” Boone said.
Although the private sector is beginning to respond to the city’s affordable housing incentives programs, even when built, the residences will make only a small dent in the growing demand for attainable workforce housing in Sarasota.
Taking his queue from a discussion in spring of 2023, City Manager Marlon Brown said it’s time for the city to lead by example.
He has spent more than a year working with a local commercial real estate firm to assemble land to build a city-owned, privately managed apartment community in the heart of downtown — directly across First Street from City Hall.
A portion of that block is a city-owned parking lot and separating the two towers and remaining on the block is the Sarasota Municipal Employees Credit Union. The south side of the site is bordered by an alley that separates it from businesses along Main Street.
Brown will formally present to the Sarasota City Commission at its April 15 meeting a proposal to acquire just more than half an acre to build a 192-unit workforce housing apartment complex across two 12-story towers. Purchase agreements with property owners totaling $7.4 million are waiting to be signed, and Brown told the Observer a preliminary estimate for the project is about $80 million.
Some more details here:
Sarasota City Manager to pitch new affordable housing idea
Sarasota City Manager Marlon Brown has been with Sarasota since 2009, first as deputy city manager before taking over the department in 2021. Frustrated by what he saw as a lack of tangible progress, Brown will propose to the City Commission a new housing measure he says is novel in its concept and aims.
It is called the Downtown Sarasota Affordable Workforce Housing Initiative. Brown sees it as a middle solution for middle-income renters – in which Sarasota would buy two parcels of land across the street from City Hall to build two, twelve-story residential buildings that the city would own and fix the rents below the costly market rates in a downtown that has become a sightseeing tour for luxury, European cars.
At the next City Commission meeting, Brown will ask officials to kickstart the project by approving the purchases on First Street, which will cost about $7.4 million.
In a letter dated April 15 addressed to city commissioners, Brown said it was time for the city to take direct action.
“While some might question the government’s intervention in these matters, solely relying on the private sector has not yielded significant results,” Brown wrote. “We cannot remain passive as the demand for affordable/attainable workforce housing surges.”
The city manager told the Herald-Tribune the project was an “experiment in frustration.”
“We’ve talked and talked and talked and talked about affordable housing. We have talked about creating policies and programs, but nothing has been done,” Brown said.
The design by Hoyt Architects envisions about 200 total units for about 400 individuals – with commercial spaces on the ground floor and three floors of about 280 parking spaces.
Governor Ron DeSantis signed several bills Wednesday, including SB 1224, also referred to as the “Gabby Petito Act.”
The bill is inspired by Gabby Petito, who was killed by her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, in 2021. Part of the language in the bill was pushed for by Gabby’s father, Joesph Petito. Laundrie lived in North Port but a domestic violence traffic stop handled by police in Moab, Utah has been the subject of much criticsm.
SB 1224 will require law enforcement to be trained on how to assess if a domestic violence victim is at a higher risk of death or serious injury by asking the 12 following questions:
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