Sarasota Livin'

Many things going on in Sarasota. The ever popular School Ave Project made it another step towards reality. It has been a very "unusual" process with very emotional positions to consider. Glad I am not on the City Commission cause this one is hard.

• 130 affordable housing units managed by Habitat for Humanity in cooperation with Sarasota Memorial Hospital -- that is a good thing.
• Very mad neighborhoods ... this is a bad thing.
• City staff not getting listened to -- usually a bad thing..

The Michaels Development Co. -- rebuilding Sarasota Housing Authority Properties -- It could be a great deal. The developers comes up with the money. Seems no money needs to come from the housing authority (good thing -- it is broke). I guess the City and County will have to pony up some money or at least float bonds.

In other county news we had a battle between Sarasota County and the Cities of Venice and North Port..

Yesterday was a huge day for the citizens of the County and of the cities of North Port and Venice. The BCC voted unanimously to delay putting the charter amendment to referendum in November... a momentary disappointment. They voted instead to agree with the cities to a 6-month moratorium on the cities' annexing of county lands and some other provisions. The cities and the County will have until 12 January (4 months) to have EXECUTED Joint Planning Agreements for the future. The 12 January date was chosen because, failing to have executed agreements, it gives the County 60 days to go ahead and place the charter amendment on the ballot for the scheduled 13 March election for Cities of Sarasota and Longboat and for some special districts. I suspect that vote will be unanimous at that time. Meanwhile, the cities have a huge hammer hanging over them to encourage them to work in good faith. These agreements with the cities must be voted on this coming Monday... if the agreements are unsatisfactory, then the BCC will vote to place the amendment on the ballot on Monday for 7 November.

Another fun one the Reds have won a new ballpark. not with my vote I like parks but only the green kind..