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The Sarasota County Commission voted to stop funding the county public library system’s membership in the American Library Association and Florida Library Association Tuesday, despite the urging of almost 60 speakers who spoke for roughly two hours Tuesday morning.
In doing so, board members decried public comments that linked the prospect of book banning to the decision and side-stepped social justice issues related to ALA President Emily Drabinski while keying in on her self-professed Marxist leanings.
This is an opinion letter from the 'letters to the editor' column in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune:
Sarasota County's leaders show disdain for libraries - and the citizens who use them
At the Nov. 14 Sarasota County Commission meeting, an overcapacity crowd attended in support of retaining membership in the American Library Association and the Florida Library Association and against attempts to restrict books.
One hundred handheld signs read “Don’t Ban Books!” and “Support ALA, FLA!” The chair told people they couldn’t hold them up. More than 1,000 petition signatures supporting ALA and FLA funding were presented.
The commissioners’ office previously stated that since the memberships were a discussion item, a vote wouldn’t occur that day.
Sixty people spoke in support of the library memberships and against restricting books. A handful spoke in opposition, including several who sought book restrictions in Sarasota schools.
Commissioner Joe Neunder talked out of both sides of his mouth, saying the membership question had nothing to do with banning books, while in the next breath stating he doesn’t want anything inappropriate in libraries that his kids might see.
It was pointed out that library collections present many sides of issues and that mothers and fathers are responsible for parenting their children.
It’s disingenuous to say this has nothing to do with book banning; Florida’s become infamous for it!
In the end, the commissioners voted 4-1 to stop funding ALA and FLA memberships.
Sarasota County School District officials and the Sarasota Classified/Teachers Association have agreed on a proposed contract settlement for the 2023-24 school year that gives raises to teachers and other employees, if approved by the School Board.
According to information provided by district officials, the package includes:
Sarasota School Board to elect new board chairperson, vote on teachers union contract
The Sarasota County School Board is poised to approve a new contract with the union for teachers and other employees and select a new board chair at its meeting on Nov. 28.
Following successful negotiations between the district and the Sarasota Classified Teachers Association, the School Board will bring the contract up for a vote on Tuesday, according to the posted agenda. The meeting also marks the annual reorganization for the School Board, when it will nominate and vote on on new board leaders for the coming year.
Sarasota School Board due to name new chair for coming year
It appears likely the board could select Vice Chair Karen Rose, who was first elected in 2020, as the chairwoman on Tuesday. She and Tom Edwards, who was also elected in 2020, are the most senior members not to have been chair. But Edwards is the only Democrat on the board and is often a dissenting voice to the four-person Republican board majority.
Veterinarian Alexis Degale’s office is seeing canines come in with a cough daily.
She said symptoms of a highly contagious, unnamed illness affecting dogs is similar to kennel cough but more severe.
“These dogs are coughing for weeks to months, so it’s kind of changed from our normal kennel cough cases,” Degale said.
Deagle works at West Shore Animal Hospital and said most of the patients being impacted visit dog parks or daycare facilities.
“We assume they’re getting it just from being in contact with other dogs, so doggy daycare, boarding facilities, but I have some dogs without that in their history, so even on a walk,” she said.
Coughing, sneezing and runny nose are symptoms Degale said dog owners should look out for. According to the vet, the illness can cause a dog to develop pneumonia if left untreated.
"One game. Just be like him for one game," former coach James Ward told the players.
Be like former long-time head coach John Sprague, who helped start the Thanksgiving tradition years ago. Sprague died last week at 74 years old.
"The day before he passed, I talked to him a little bit, and he had just gotten home from the hospital," James Ward, Sprague’s friend and fellow coach, said. "He told me he had just gotten home about an hour ago. So, I said, ‘okay, well, you go ahead and get settled, and we'll talk tomorrow,’ and so early that next morning, I got a call from his wife that he had passed."
"He was a guy that not only was a great football coach, but I don't know if people realize how important he was as a mentor and as almost like a surrogate father to so many players," current Head Coach Joshua Smithers said.
Sprague started coaching the Rams in 1981 and elevated the program to a national stage over his nearly three decades at the helm.
Having already generated controversy among neighboring property owners, a proposed David Weekley Homes project that would encompass no more than 87 homes, on about 26 acres along Hand Road in Sarasota, will be the focus of a Sarasota County Commission hearing on Nov. 28.
The board will meet that day in the County Administration Center on Ringling Boulevard in downtown Sarasota.
During the Sept. 21 county Planning Commission hearing on the project, 12 people — many of them residents of the Lake Sarasota community — took most of their time at the podium to explain their concerns about additional traffic on Hand Road and Lago Street. They said they fear that if the new development is approved, it will exacerbate the transportation situation — which already is bad, they stressed, because of the number of parents who drive their children to and from Lakeview Elementary School and Oak Park School. Both schools stand directly to the east of the development site.
Knowing that an involuntary commitment can be “traumatic for individuals who have preconceived notions,’’ Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s new behavioral health unit, opening on Dec. 1 on Osprey Avenue in Sarasota, was designed to offer a different approach.
“Many of our patient rooms have three beds,” said Terry Cassidy, executive director of Behavioral Health Services for Sarasota Memorial Hospital. “On my worst day, I would not want to be put into a room with two strangers I don’t know, especially two strangers who are also in their own mental health crisis.”
So, the new building will feature single beds in each room. Also, lots of natural light, screened porches, a garden and a sensory room on each floor, which will allow individuals to put on specific music or calming colored lights.
The ribbon-cutting will be held from 9 to noon at 1625 S. Osprey Ave.
SMH's new health care facility is forward-thinking - and game-changing
While most Sarasotans were brining a turkey, last-minute shopping for forgotten Thanksgiving dinner ingredients or headed to the airport, I was getting an exclusive tour of Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s new mental health care facility, the Cornell Behavioral Health Pavilion, which will have its grand opening to the public Dec. 1.
For months on my daily walks, I’d been watching this gleaming, three-story, glass-heavy building on S. Osprey Ave. take shape, imagining how the finished product might change the trajectory for a person with acute mental health needs.
Just across the street is the building this facility will replace – SMH’s Bayside Center for Behavioral Health, a dark, cramped, former nursing home where my son had a not-so-great experience not long after our arrival in Sarasota in 2010.
Needless to say, I was hoping for a vast improvement.
Terry Cassidy met me in the sun-filled, expansive front lobby, looking as happy as I’d seen her since she became executive director of Bayside in 2018. She admits she would never have taken the job if there hadn’t been the promise of a new, state-of-the-art psychiatric center in the offing. Five years and $74 million later (including a $10 million gift from Target CEO Brian Cornell and his family), it is here.
“I get goosebumps every time I walk in,” Cassidy says.
Sarasota Bay’s water quality has begun improving, though threats remain from warming sea temperatures, stormwater runoff, and the potential wide-ranging environmental impact of more than 200 million gallons of polluted waste released from the Piney Point phosphate plant in 2021, experts say.
Five Sarasota County water bodies on FDEP draft list noting improved water quality
County’s investments in wastewater treatment facilities cited as major factor.
During Oct. 24 remarks to the Sarasota County Commission on a related topic, the director of the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program announced that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) had determined that the water quality had improved “substantially enough that we are no longer considered impaired for nutrients in any part of the open waters of Sarasota Bay.”
He added, “Sarasota Bay, Roberts Bay, Little Sarasota Bay, Blackburn Bay and Hudson Bayou are on the draft ‘de-list’ list, which is good news.”
Neighborhood Workshop participants express concerns about potential abuse of proposed county policy and regulations allowing voluntary condo demolition and reconstruction on Siesta
Speakers talk of need for steps to ensure residential density on barrier island does not increase.
During an approximately hour-long, Nov. 20 Neighborhood Workshop hosted by a Sarasota County planner, Siesta Key residents voiced continued concerns about potential abuses of a proposed county Comprehensive Plan amendment that would allow for voluntary demolition and reconstruction of condominium complexes built before Jan. 1, 2000.
Planner Everett Farrell pointed out that to the approximately 18 attendees that, on Sept. 12, the county commissioners provided further guidance for the drafting of the proposed amendment, as well as a companion amendment to the county’s Unified Development Code (UDC), which contains all of the land-use and zoning regulations. The drafts he presented that evening included revisions based on that guidance, he noted.
During the workshop, Mark Spiegel, one of the founders of the Siesta Key Coalition — which has been focused on preventing construction of high-rise hotels on the barrier island — advocated for language in the amendments that would necessitate evidence of underlying structural damage before a condominium complex could be demolished and rebuilt.
Otherwise, Spiegel pointed out, a developer could buy out residents and construct a new complex with units to rented out to tourists, akin to a hotel.
As Farrell had explained, the proposed amendment to the Comprehensive Plan — which guides growth in the community — would allow the owners of any pre-2000 complex to tear it down and then rebuild the original number of units, regardless of any current zoning restrictions on the property in regard to residential density.
Commissioner Smith calls for more ‘freeboard’ in new home construction on Siesta Key, but board majority opposes implementation of stricter county standards
Commission must approve new FEMA flood maps by late March 2024
During a Nov. 14 discussion that he had requested, Sarasota County Commissioner Mark Smith expressed concerns about new Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) maps that he believes could put new barrier island homes in jeopardy from storm surge.
However, three of his colleagues made clear their hesitation to approve a stronger measure than the Florida Building Code allows. Commissioner Neil Rainford, especially, cited the extra expense that property owners would have to shoulder if the County Commission were to require a higher elevation for homes in the county’s flood zones.
As The Sarasota News Leader reported in late September, a county staff report provided to the board members in early August explained that the preliminary new FEMA maps would remove about 19,000 parcels with 2,400 structures from the county’s Special Flood Hazard Area.
Numerous changes would affect Siesta Key, the report noted. Specifically, for those parcels, the preliminary information showed that the Base Flood Elevation would be lowered by 4 feet in the county’s AE flood zone. The county website says the AE zone includes areas subject to a 1% annual chance of inundation. “Mandatory flood insurance purchase requirements apply,” the website notes.
During a Nov. 14 presentation to the commissioners, Matt Osterhoudt, director of the county’s Planning and Development Department, explained that, since the August report was written, FEMA had issued what is called a Letter of Final Determination regarding the updated Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRM). That occurred on Sept. 27, he said.
Accordingly, county staff has scheduled a Dec. 12 public hearing for the commissioners to adopt those maps. After the commissioners approve the related ordinance, Osterhoudt added, it would be forwarded to the Florida Department of Emergency Management for final review and then to FEMA for final approval. The new FEMA maps have to go in effect as of March 27, 2024, he said.
Sarasota County Commissioner Neil Rainford has won the support of his colleagues in directing staff to provide the them a full list of county advisory boards and lists of people serving on more than one board.
During the Nov. 14 regular commission meeting, Rainford pointed out, “It’s come to my attention” that multiple individuals hold seats on more than one county advisory board.
First, he said, he believes it would be worthwhile for staff to review all of the boards and councils, to determine whether the county has “the right make-up of advisory boards; maybe some are not as utilized.”
He added that he understood such a review had been undertaken in the past.
During the Nov. 14 discussion, in addressing the issue of persons serving on more than one board, Rainford pointed out, “We have such a large population. Obviously, we’ve experienced significant growth in the past few years. … I think that giving opportunities to different individuals on boards would be a great opportunity.”
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