White House:
Citizens for Sarasota County
Refining and redefining citizenship in Sarasota County, Florida.
Monday, August 25, 2025
The White House melts down and attacks music legend Jack White after he insults Donald Trump's "disgusting" and "vulgar" redecoration of the White House
Friday, June 27, 2025
Unprepared: We need a change of administrative culture in Sarasota
Sarasota County officials downplayed flood risk. Tropical Storm Debby exposed their failures Florida Trident
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Laurel Meadows after Debbie 2024 |
Blame game begins after feds deny Sarasota County emergency dredging of Phillippi Creek Herald Tribune
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Homeowner in Laurel Meadows |
No emergency permit: Dredging of Phillippi Creek to wait another hurricane season Florida Trident
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Berm at Cow Pen Slough |
Friday, February 7, 2025
Stop Kicking the Can Down the Road on Flooding
This piece was submitted anonymously:
Sounds like common sense, right? But here’s the problem: The county keeps allowing developers to put off proving that their projects won’t create flood issues until after the zoning has already been approved. This backward approach has led to developments that don’t take flood risks seriously until it’s too late.
And now, we have another test of whether the county will finally listen to reason. On February 12, commissioners will vote on a request to rezone 50 acres on Raymond Road, right next to the Celery Fields Regional Stormwater Facility. Under its current zoning, only five homes can be built there. If the rezoning is approved, that number jumps to 170 homes—in an area where 64% of the land sits in a 100-year floodplain.
Let that sink in. More than half the property is in a known flood zone, and yet, instead of requiring the developer to prove—before approval—that this won’t cause flooding problems, the county is poised to say yes now and worry later.
This is exactly what needs to change. If a developer wants to build in a flood-prone area, they should have to prove up front that their project won’t make things worse for surrounding properties. That’s not some radical new policy—it’s already in the county’s land development regulations. But time and again, the commission has allowed developers to defer that key flood analysis until after the increased density has been granted.
We don’t need to look far to see why this is a bad idea. Just last year, major flooding hit Sarasota, and media reports confirmed what flood maps have long shown—this area is vulnerable. The county’s own Planning Commission already voted against this rezoning, with Commissioner Donna Carter stating bluntly, “I don’t think that is a buildable property.” She even suggested the county buy the land and add it to the Celery Fields instead.
So here’s the bottom line: If Sarasota County is serious about stopping development-driven flooding, they must deny this rezoning. If the developer truly believes they can build without creating new flooding problems, then they should prove it first—not after getting approval.
Enough with kicking the can down the road. It’s time for Sarasota’s leaders to enforce their own rules and put flood safety before developer profits. On February 12, we’ll find out if they’re willing to do that.
Saturday, November 16, 2024
A WSLR show that cares about Our Changing Environment
From Tom Matrullo:
Earlier this year I was a guest on a local low-power FM radio show: Our ChangingEnvironment on WSLR.
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Jono Miller |
The hosts, Julie Morris and Jono Miller have been scouring the region to find subject matter experts to share their insights and knowledge with the WSLR community. Where else are you going to hear about local seagrasses, sea turtles, and nesting shorebirds, or how Siesta Key and East County are changing? Experts have brought listeners up to speed about local flooding, Sarasota Citizen Action Network, native landscaping, and trends in backyard fruit trees. These one-hour shows are archived and available from WSLR at https://archive.wslr.org/?
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Julie Morris |
Friday, September 6, 2024
September 11 Hearing: Siesta Key Condo Rebuilds
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Saturday, August 31, 2024
9.11 Siesta Key Demolition/Rebuild Hearing
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Thursday, August 1, 2024
About Old Miakka: An open letter to the Sarasota County Commission
An environment that has not been tamed and rubber-stamped into a profit-maximizing business plan seems somehow life affirming and reassuring. The rural quality of east Sarasota is unique because it has not been packaged into yet another sterile commodity. We need the otherness of places like this - they enrich the diversity of where we live, and remind us that Adam and Eve didn’t require sidewalks, generic house plans, or well-coiffed dogs on leashes.
Sarasota County has prided itself on individual flair - the creative experimentalism of Bertha Palmer, the Baroque extravagances of John Ringling, the public spirit of John Nolen's vision for downtown Venice.
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John Nolen Park |
When you take that away, you end up with the tedious regularity of yet another Florida residential product -- packaged, commodified and sold. For whose profit?
As a Board charged with using sound judgment and common sense in the process of deciding what is gained and lost through human construction, you might at least weigh the value of another 5,000 Pat Neal homes behind Pat Neal gates with Pat Neal names like Cielo, Milano, or Vicenzo against the irreducible uniqueness of nature -- rural life, the heritage of a 172-year-old community like none other. This balance of nature and artifice should be factored into any deliberation with so much at stake.
Frederick Law Olmsted didn’t look at 3.5 square miles of Manhattan and see dollar signs. He saw a green place that provides escape and a saving natural environment for the millions of New Yorkers who benefit from the varied delights realized in Central Park:
Mr. Neal appears to aspire to be an Olmsted in reverse: He sees green and wishes to turn it into a replication of what he’s producing all over this county, for another sort of green.
Our minds, hearts and souls need something more than infinite Nealification. Give this organically grown community of Old Miakka the honest recognition that it deserves. Because without such otherness, we - and Sarasota - will be diminished in more ways than we can imagine.
Tom Matrullo
Saturday, July 27, 2024
Dark Money, / Alex Coe / Red Tide
SCAN is about planning methodology as practiced in Sarasota County. Part of that "practice" involves the enormous sums of money that flow into our campaigns - especially during County Commission races, as that Board has the final say over land use and rezone decisions.
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Cathy Antunes |
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Alex Coe |