The County Commission sits in session on April 6. County Administrator Jonathan Lewis (foreground, left)
and County Attorney Rick Elbrecht face the board members. News Leader image.
UPDATE: On Wednesday, April 7, the County Commission took less than 3 minutes to unanimously delete the citizens' right to initiate Comp Plan amendments. It did this in a "public hearing" that neither laid out the purpose of expunging citizen input, nor any reason for it.
There was no discussion other than to render the suppression retroactive to Jan. 1, 2021, at the suggestion of Commissioner Moran, which effectively eliminated citizen Comp Plan Amendments in the past as well as any that might have come in the future. Partial video below:
See also this story from the 4.6.21 Herald Tribune:
On Tuesday, April 6, 2021, the Board of County Commissioners will pretend to deliberate on an ordinance that will, if approved, exclude citizens from initiating Comprehensive Plan Amendments (CPAs).
Here's the language of the Ordinance, and the proposed deletion of our citizens' right to influence thinking about future land use:
Deletion of citizen right to initiate a Comp Plan Amendment
The Board asked Michele Norton of Planning and Development why the provision was ever added to Sarasota's Code. She said she didn't know. And with that, the discussion concluded. The County Administrator has done his homework and finds that the deletion of citizens' rights will have no impact no one. At least, no one who matters.
According to this County paperwork, removing the citizens' right
to address future land use makes no difference
Much of the discussion to date has revolved around one perspective: The idea that a person who does not own land can propose consideration of how certain land can be used. *
Developers and their minions do this all the time. Bo Medred got a text amendment passed that changed the law on lands he certainly didn't own. He got the Board to approve a change in how distant from a home a dump can be. Not just James Gabbert's dump, but any dump lying within certain areas of Sarasota County can now be much closer to a home, thanks to the Medred-Gabbert amendment.
Mr. Medred had no interest in any areas other than where Mr. Gabbert desired to build a demolition plant - right next to the Celery Fields. But he framed it so as to seem as if it were a disinterested modification of the county's land use law. And it passed both the Planning Commission and the Board, paving the way for cosier dumps.
Yet when Ms. Ayech, to protect a way of life of her Miakka Community that is far older than the County itself, sought to propose a change via a Comp Plan Amendment, here's the result -- taking away our right, and pretending it makes no difference.
After Tuesday, there will be even less public input, less public power to influence or speak to future land development in Sarasota County, than there has been heretofore.
In short, there is no public conversation about the future of Sarasota County. It's decided by a private chat among a few developers and the people sitting in the seats that Pat Neal, Gary Kompthecras, Randy Benderson, Rex Jensen, Carlos Beruff and a bunch of dark money bought for them.
According to the County Administrator's memo, banishing citizens from land use amendments will move us toward the goal of making this "a great place to live."
Campaign Contributions 2020
*There are certainly many other perspectives that an open and public-minded Board might consider. A citizen might propose a CPA in order to correct certain errors in county methods or procedures. See, for example,
See the Sarasota News Leader story of April 8, 2021 about the Board action, with more background on citizen Comp Plan Amendments - a state mandated guarantee to residents of Florida instituted in 1977.
Opponents of project could pursue petition process for a new public hearing, county staff says
An engineering drawing shows details of the plans for the Palmer Transfer Station. Image courtesy Sarasota County
On Jan. 31, Sarasota County staff issued the necessary permit to the agent for TST Ventures of Sarasota, clearing the way for a waste transfer station to be constructed on property adjacent to the county’s “Quads” parcels.
The Quads are next to the Celery Fields, which has become a major tourist destination in the eastern part of the county.
As news about the permit has spread among residents who live in the area, opposition to the project has begun to mount, The Sarasota News Leader has learned.
Although planned and functioning as a regional stormwater facility for the county, the Celery Fields has become known internationally for the variety of birds seen there year-round, as well as for the number of species that winter on the property.
Among the concerns nearby residents already are expressing about the waste transfer facility site plan are whether the turn lanes for traffic entering and leaving the property will function safely and whether landscape buffering and lighting will be appropriate and adequate.
As approved by county staff on Jan. 31, the site and development plans for the Palmer Transfer Station say, “Refuse collection, mechanical equipment, trash compaction, loading areas, recycling, roof-top equipment and other service function areas shall be fully screened and out of the view from adjacent properties and public [rights of way]. The screening shall extend one foot above the height of the object to be screened.”
The site plans also note that all of the walls around the property are to be constructed 8 feet high.
The News Leader asked county staff this week whether members of the public would have any recourse if they felt the plans were insufficient. Mark A. Loveridge, manager of the county’s Land Development Division, responded in a Feb. 5 email: “There is a process to amend the [County Commission-approved] stipulations by filing a petition through the public hearing process.” However, he added of staff members, “We cannot require additional steps since construction authorization has been issued.”
A map shows the TST Ventures property (outlined in red) adjacent to the Southwest Quad owned by Sarasota County. The Celery Fields is to the north. Image courtesy Sarasota County Property Appraiser
During a Feb. 5 telephone interview with the News Leader, Tom Matrullo, one of the leaders of a group that last year represented 50 homeowner associations in the area, said he was not certain at this point whether any of the residents would want to purse the type of petition Loveridge had referenced. “There’s clearly enough public dissatisfaction, or actual anger” over the issuance of the permit, he said. Still, “We’d have to look into how that [petition process] works.”
Among their greatest concerns, Matrullo indicated, advocates of the Celery Fields are worried that if the waste transfer station is constructed as proposed, its existence could influence future county planning for the Quads.
Last year, the County Commission gave the group representing the 50 homeowner associations — the Fresh Start Initiative — the opportunity to offer suggestions about development on the Quads that Fresh Start members felt would be compatible with the Celery Fields. As they made their final presentation to the commission — in September 2018 — Fresh Start representatives emphasized the need for the commission to consider the entire area — and how it has changed over the decades — as they eventually discuss potential uses of the county property.
During the Feb. 5 telephone interview, Matrullo stressed that the residents who participated in the Fresh Start effort were not focused just on the Celery Fields. Likewise, at this point, many of them are not just concerned about the waste transfer station, he continued. “We are talking about the process by which planning occurs in Sarasota County, and that is a countywide issue.”
Commission approval in 2015
An engineering drawing in the site plans shows these details about the types of trucks that will be coming to the facility and traffic flow. Image courtesy Sarasota County
Sarasota County Property Appraiser Office records show Gabbert has owned the site — located at 6150 Palmer Blvd. — since April 2015, when he bought it for $100,000.
During the 2015 public hearing, Robert “Bo” Medred, president of Genesis Planning and Development in Bradenton — who represented Gabbert — pointed out that a waste transfer station accepts material such as yard waste from landscape contractors and construction debris from building contractors. That material then is transferred into trucks for transport to other facilities.
A waste transfer station, Medred stressed, “is not a landfill and does not accept domestic garbage of any kind.”
Medred also pointed out that an 8-foot concrete wall with “decorative precast panels,” a hedge and canopy trees would be used as buffers around the site.
County Planner Jack Wilhelm noted during the hearing that the types of allowable materials for the facility would be concrete, rocks, broken asphalt, land-clearing debris and construction and/or demolition debris.
Wilhelm explained that no long-term storage of materials would be permitted on the site. The proposed hours of operation, he added, were 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
This engineering drawing for the Palmer Transfer Station offers additional details about the traffic flow plans. Image courtesy Sarasota County
Gabbert originally planned to combine his Palmer Boulevard property with what county staff and the commissioners refer to as the Southwest Quad. At one point, Gabbert also planned a construction and yard waste recycling facility on that Quad. However, following a day-long public hearing in August 2017, the County Commission voted 3-2 to deny Gabbert’s petitions for that project. As a result, Gabbert informed county staff that he was backing away from tentative plans to purchase the Southwest Quad.
Moving forward on the other plans
On April 25, 2018, Lawrence R. Weber of Weber Engineering & Surveying in Sarasota — acting on behalf of Gabbert — formally submitted to county staff an application for the permit for the waste transfer station.
After review of the documents, county staff pointed to changes from the original plans the County Commission approved in October 2015. As a result, staff deemed the materials insufficient, providing detailed comments in a document dated June 15, 2018.
Further staff exchanges with the company ensued, county records show.
Finally, in the Jan. 31 letter to Weber, Loveridge, the manager of the Land Development Division, wrote that staff had approved the plans submitted on Dec. 5, 2018. “Construction shall take place as shown on the approved plans,” his letter states. “Deviations from the approved plans may result in a stop work order being posted.”
The document does include a number of stipulations. Many of them pertain to air and water quality, landscaping, lighting and tree protection.
James Gabbert awaits the start of the Aug. 23, 2017 on his proposed construction waste recycling plant. File photo
For example, the “Lighting” section says, “All outdoor lighting shall be designed and located such that the maximum illumination measured in footcandles at the property line does not exceed 0.2 on adjacent residential uses, and 0.5 on adjacent commercial sites and public rights-of-way. (Zoning Ordinance Section 7.5.4.)”
Regarding air and water quality, the document points out that National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Construction Generic Permit coverage is required, “and that a copy of the certified Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) must be provided to Sarasota County before site work begins.”
Further, “All tree removal shall be consistent] with the permit county staff provided, “and all required tree plantings necessary to satisfy the Tree Permit conditions shall be completed prior to final site certification.”
The Jan. 31 letter also points out, “[T]his approval requires that all other applicable state or federal permits be obtained before the commencement of development.”
The first page of the development plans submitted to county staff on Dec. 5, 2018 notes that among those are permits for signs; a general permit from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), plus FDEP water and wastewater permits; a county Utility Construction Permit; and a county right of way use permit.
On May 14, 2018, he Herald Tribune ran an editorial by former Sarasota Commissioner and current Argus Foundation executive Christine Robinson in which she appears to hold the Celery Fields -- not those in the community who love them, but the Fields themselves -- responsible for causing a "businessman" to lose "a lot of money." That would be James Gabbert, who with his eyes open sought to put a heavy industrial waste processing plant on public lands quite near an eco-tourist masterpiece of nature. The area also includes schools, more than 1,600 homes and businesses, and a fragile road system, but:
We recently saw a problem with a park and a property that cost a reputable local businessman a lot of money and shook the business community’s trust in county government.. . . The Celery Fields were created as a stormwater system to alleviate flooding and to filter water. It has turned into a park, with birds and other wildlife.. . . Typical comments were: “How can you put an industrial use next to a park?”
Did anyone else catch the irony in Argus Foundation Executive Director Christine Robinson’s opinion piece (Herald-Tribune, Business Weekly, May 14), cautioning about Legacy Trail “mission creep?”
Ms. Robinson argued that further extension of the Legacy Trail should not be considered without putting in place guarantees that there would not be any “mission creep” that might impact industrial and commercial properties abutting the trail.
She cited, as an example, the “mission creep” the Celery Fields posed on a landowner who wanted to build an industrial-materials recycling facility on land adjacent to the nature park.
Was it not the recycling businessman, in asking for an exception to the allowed zoning use of the land, who was guilty of mission creep, pure and simple?
And talk about mission creep: Ms. Robinson states that “every year, we lose industrial light warehouse properties,” in part apparently due to “residential dwellings ... being approved on or next to industrial lands.”
Well, Argus Foundation, perhaps the big problem is the mission creep of developers, who are granted exceptions to comprehensive plans right and left to take over all the available land in our county and state for whatever use they’d like.
You say that “the faith of the business community was shaken” by the zoning decision at Celery Fields? Well, the faith of the entire community is shaken every time we have to decipher another rezoning request and consider going up against developers, their lawyers and lobbyists to protect the rest of us from their mission creep.
A PROPOSED RACE TRAC GAS STATION ACROSS FROM SUN-N-FUN AT THE SOUTHWEST QUADRANT OF FRUITVILLE ROAD AND EAST ROAD IS BACK DESPITE BEING DEFEATED TWICE BEFORE – IF YOU’RE OPPOSED TO STRIP COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT IT’S UP TO YOU TO STEP UP AND STOP THIS
That’s Right!!! Here they come again!!! For those of you who may be new to east of I-75, in 2002, the Board of County Commission approved an ILW (Industrial Light Warehouse) rezoning on 35 acres located on the south side of Fruitville Road, just west of East Road. In exchange for ILW zoning, the eight property owners at the time agreed to “Perpetual Covenants & Restrictions" in a Resolution to forever forbid certain commercial uses on the property, in lieu of preparing a Critical Area Plan (CAP) for this area. The restrictive covenants and agreements forbid the following:
"Restaurant, fast food restaurant, delicatessen, bar, or tavern for on premise consumption of alcohol, automotive service stations or truck stops and similar uses, Convenience stores, with or without the sale of fuel. General retail store for single occupant exceeding a minimum of 100,000 square feet of continuous floor area within a single building,"
The County Commission was adamant Fruitville Road, east of I-75, would not be stripped out with intensive commercial uses as was done on the west side of I-75. Think University Parkway.
Despite these restrictions, the current Owner Attorney Bill Saba who purchased out of foreclosure a portion of the 35 acres is back once again trying to create strip commercial development along Fruitville Road. This time he is attempting to remove the “Perpetual Covenants & Restrictions” on just the corner parcel of Fruitville Road and East Road to put up a RaceTrac Gas Station. A brief history of their previous shenanigans is as follows:
1. In 2013 as part of a Rezoning Petition No. 13-10 for a small parcel within the 35 acre Fruitville Industrial Park, Attorney Bill Merrill representing Saba tried to convince the Board of County Commissioners to remove the restrictive covenants and agreements with no public input, but the County Commission said no.
2. In 2015 Attorney Bill Saba hired Attorney Bill Merrill and Land Planner Bo Medred (think Gabbert Transfer Station in the Celery Fields) to file Rezone Petition No. 15-11 to again attempt to remove these “Perpetual Covenants and Restrictions” restricting commercial uses the Owners had entered into with Sarasota County. This petition was denied because the citizens of east County stood up and objected to the strip commercialization along Fruitville Road east of I-75 and because the Commission felt it should live up to County commitments.
3. RaceTrac has employed Lawyers John Patterson and Michael Siegel of the Shutts & Bowen Law Firm to make this new attempt in spite of the fact that it was Nora Patterson, wife of John Patterson, who as a member of the County Commission, insisted on the restrictions in the 2002 rezoning.
If Attorney Saba is successful this third time, other land owners will also request unrestricted commercial zoning on their properties. Citizens and property owners east of I-75 have managed to fight strip commercial east of I-75 on Fruitville Road for years. And through the efforts of ever vigilante neighbors, we have been successful. But this type of strip commercial zoning will only continue moving east towards Lorraine Road. You and only you can make a difference.
Please take the time to show up at the scheduled neighborhood workshop on Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 6:00 pm at the Shriners Sahib Temple located at 600 North Beneva Road and let Attorney Saba and RaceTrac know we citizens do not want strip commercial development on Fruitville Road. RaceTrac filing here. -- Steve Stottlemyer 941-724-4835.
The history of today’s flooding is a long one, and goes back
many years.My neighbor lady farmer’s
grazing land is flooded today because the Kolter Artistry development currently
under construction at Palmer Boulevard and Iona Road depended on engineers who
did not listen to residents of the neighborhood.
These 412 acres of open estate rural land (1 home per 10
acres) are now zoned for 2.5 residences per acre. The elaborate site plan features lakes,
paths, and palms. It graciously allows
water to dump on neighboring farms.
In bringing Palm Beach to Palmer Boulevard, Bo Medred
succeeded in drowning out the voices of neighboring farmers.
After a long struggle, Bo won over the hearts and minds of
the Sarasota County Board of County Commissioners and Artistry became a reality.
Then Bo Medred teamed with Donald Neu, who would have a
future prominent role in rezoning the adjacent Worthington property from OUR to
dense residential. The entire Iona/Palmer lands would then be developed by
Kolter Homes.
September 2016 - Worthington Development is approved for an
additional 156 homes adjacent to Artistry.
When neighbors objected to the change of rural lands to a
planned development, Mr. Neu reinforced his view that, “This land is ripe for
development.”
In protesting the Worthington rezone, neighbors
spoke about stormwater concerns, understanding that Artistry had already upset
the apple cart. In August of 2016,
Janice Lauterbach was already experiencing unusual flooding in her front yard,
eliminating grazing land for her cattle.
She chastised the Palmer Place (a.k.a. Artistry) developers and
engineers for not understanding how the drainage really works. “If you
think your stormwater drainage plan is working, well then, someone forgot to
tell gravity,” she said.
The County and developer have obligations not to ruin the lives and
livelihoods of neighboring residents.
That my neighbor has to relocate her farm hurts. When developers rule and neighbors’ voices go
unheeded, the fate of a neighborhood is sealed in the blink of an eye, or an
evening in the chambers.
Bo Medred brings a silken slipperiness to certain terms of art that are supposed to possess precise, clear meanings in the world of Sarasota planning and zoning.
For example, he regularly extends and distorts the technical meanings of terms such as MEC ("Major Employment Center") and “Industrial.” In presentations he repeatedly claims that “industrial” uses can be found all around the site at Apex and Palmer. Of course this leaves out the birds and people at the Celery Fields. But it also fails to articulate a crucial distinction: The industrial parks near the Apex/Palmer intersection are zoned for clean, light Industry - ILW. The dump is not ILW. There is nothing light about 15-ton concrete blocks being pounded into silica particulates -- and he must ask for a Special Exception to allow it.
MEC involves a coherent ordering of mixed uses -- offices, hi-tech workspace, commercial, perhaps some ILW, and residential (apartments, townhomes and so forth) in a campus-like setting to attract clean large-scale employers.
An industrial waste processing plant employing 8-15 people fails to meet this definition on every count.
Medred cites an MEC land use designation as the slender thread allowing him to ask for his rezoning. But that designation was set in 1981 - another age - to introduce a heavy industrial plant into a pristine area that already has issues with traffic. He is inviting us all to pretend nothing happened in this area since 1981, when in fact today a great deal is there, and none of it comports with heavy industrial use - or with its economic promise:
We have clean, light industrial parks whose owners do not want the traffic, noise, and filth of a demolition waste facility near them.
We have the Celery Fields - a park, preserve, recreation and birding area, and highly successful and visible eco-tourism spot. This is now the dominant feature of this doorstep to an evolving East county. Developers hoping to create new environments to the East will rely on this area to present the beautiful gateway to their creations.
Just a few steps to the West of Mr. Gabbert’s proposed site, under the rare and very narrow passage under I-75, is the Packinghouse District. This retail, and nightlife area is a valuable complement to what’s coming East of the highway.
To the north at Fruitville and Coburn will be the Fruitville Initiative, a large MEC that plans a linear park all along the north cell of the Celery Fields - imagine the synergy of this neo-traditional mixed use community and the natural beauty at its park-like edge:
"Riverwalk" at the North Edge of the Celery Fields
Clearly this adds up to a tremendous economic opportunity - for business, retail, tourism, and real estate -- if this is done well. In what universe does it make sense to jeopardize all this prospective good for the sake of an industrial project that could easily be done elsewhere?
Come out on Wed. August 23 to let the County know that while it might be silent, our voices will be heard.
There are two sides to the Celery Fields Stormwater Management Facility:
First, it is an engineering success - an award-winning system to manage floodwaters that in 1992 proved more powerful than 100 homes on Phillippi Creek.
Second, it is a work of environmental genius. Somehow when those wetlands were restored, and the muck rose into our mound, nature took off. The transformation was magical: the birds came. Who knew Mount Celery and 220 species of birds, in open air, with a vista that rivals anything in Florida, would command such mad devotion?
"Mt. Celery"
The County enhanced what nature began - Audubon and Parks created a green cover, with trees and trails, to which people flocked in droves.
One might ask why anyone would wish to compromise all of this. But there were those three pesky parcels of public lands at the intersection of Apex and Palmer, sitting ignored since 1997.
A service station with a convenience store at that corner might be intrusive, but at least would serve residents of the 2000 homes now on East Palmer, whose gated communities have no nearby places to run for milk or coffee.
These communities also have no simple access to Fruitville Rd., other than to drive west on Palmer and make a right at Apex.
Someone looking at the developing area should have seen what was coming. When the County put the public parcels out to bid in 2015, someone needed to say, "Putting intense uses on these public lands at Apex will create issues for Palmer Blvd. traffic, and potentially have impacts upon our pristine Celery Fields.”
But they didn't.
When Bo Medred brought in James Gabbert’s proposal for a 16-acre demolition waste processing plant, the record does not reflect that anyone at any level of Sarasota administration -- from Planning, Zoning, Parks, Land Development, Tourist Development, Visit Sarasota, the EDC -- said a word.
But one man certainly saw this coming -- the same man who is trying to bring us the dump: Bo Medred.
Bo Medred
At the Planning Commission hearing on June 1, 2017, late in the evening, Mr. Medred said this:
I did do a lot of those developments on Palmer Boulevard on the south side. It was very controversial at the time because the south side of Palmer Boulevard is moderate density residential, two to five dwellings units. The north side is semi-rural, one unit per two acres. And so when I did a number of those developments that were -- these folks lived in,that was an issue at the time. The other issue was that we knew Palmer Boulevard was going to be their primary access.
They -- that MEC, [edit's note: Major Employment Center] those industrial uses existed far in advance and the planning for the MEC existed far in advance of those residential developments, and so that was -- if they use Palmer Boulevard, that is their access that traverse through the middle of the MEC. (6.01.17 Planning Commission Transcript p. 286)
In short, Medred, a professional planner, told Sarasota residents who bought homes in gated communities which he had helped develop that they should have observed due diligence, and then they'd have known that industry -- heavy industry -- even a giant loud concrete-pulverizing dump -- was coming down the road.
This is outrageous. the Gabbert-Medred proposal to locate a giant industrial waste processing facility on public land at Apex and Palmer ought to have been vocally critiqued with strong objective analysis by every relevant land and economic steward, adviser, planner and Sarasota public official paid to practice good stewardship and due diligence for the people of Sarasota County.
Instead, when "Bo and Jim" brought the dump idea to the County, you could have heard a pin drop in Okeechobee. Yet when people who bought into Medred's planned development objected to being trapped into a damaged real estate market on Palmer Boulevard, Medred blamed them for failing, you know, that diligence thing.
The Sarasota County Commission has set aside an entire day on August 23rd to hear testimony regarding the siting of a Construction/Demolition Waste Processing Facility at Apex Rd. and Palmer Blvd.
On June 1, the Sarasota Planning Commission unanimously voted No on all three elements of the Gabbert/TST Ventures proposal to amend the Critical Area Plan; No to Rezoning to Industrial Light Warehouse (ILW) and No to a Special Exception that would allow an open air waste processing facility on a 16 acre site adjacent to the Celery Fields.
The Planning Commission's No vote to Mr. Gabbert's requests does not mean the battle to prevent the sale and development of lands next to the Celery Fields is over. Mr. Gabbert has spent thousands of dollars and a few years on this matter to ensure he gets his dump developed and located where it suits him. A number of Sarasota County Commissioners' risk much by voting against Mr. Gabbert's proposal due to the campaign donations they have received from him. The Commissioners' risk their careers if they vote in favor of this dump. We need to make it clear, one more time, that the Celery Field belongs to the stakeholders of Sarasota, not to Mr. Gabbert and his proposed dump.
In this email we have included:
important upcoming dates, we hope you will join us
County Commissioners' email addresses and phone number so you may contact them to voice opposition to this proposal
Tips on speaking at the August 23 meeting
a Donate Now link for expenses that are accruing in order to fight the dump proposal. Any donation is appreciated and will be used wisely to stop the development of this dump via marketing and legal fees.
We hope you can join us on August 23 and if you can't, please continue emailing or phoning the County Commissioners' to voice your opposition to the proposed location of this dump. Your testimony is needed and will go on record and presented in the packet given to the County Commissioners' prior to the August 23 meeting.
The Board of County Commission Meeting begins at 9 a.m., located in the Commissioners’ Chambers.
Mr. Medred will present the TST Recycling Dump project to the BOCC for the following:
Proposed Land Use Change for: Critical Area Plan Amendment Rezone Petition No. 17-01 to Rezone approximately 16 acres from ILW (Industrial Light Manufacturing/ and Warehousing) with Stipulations and OUR (Open Use Rural, 1 Unit to 10 Acres) to ILW with Amended Stipulations, and Special Exceptions No. 1765 to Allow a Recycling Facility in ILW Zone District.
We will have up to five (5) minutes to speak during public comments to the board.
A technician is available to presenters throughout the public hearing. Speakers may bring printed materials set to landscape to display on the document camera no larger than 12" wide by 8.5" high.
If you wish to speak, look for speakers' cards. The cards are available on either side of the chamber as you walk in. Fill out the card fully, then take the card and leave it with the clerk seated to the right of the dais.
If you are interested in speaking and are unsure about what you wish to say, please view some topics for consideration below.
QUALITY OF LIFE:
traffic congestion with introduction of new truck traffic to dump
diminished air quality
impact to home values
road safety
impact to Tatum Ridge Elementary children commuting by bus or by parent
impact to local neighborhood traffic commute times
ENVIRONMENT:
pollution will harm threatened and endangered birds, fauna, insects, fish and wildlife of park will be in harm's way with location of dump
integrity of Celery Fields Regional Stormwater Facility will be impacted by additional burden of "filtering" fugitive airborne concrete particulate and leaching of dump materials
birds listed as threatened or endangered remain fragile in numbers
noise pollution will mask bird calls, birds use their calls to find mates
COUNTY GOVERNMENT:
County failure to recognize changes to the area using antiquated zoning and land use designations going back one quarter of a century
failure to recognize value of Celery Field's eco-tourism as a growing and sustainable revenue tax base for the county
failure to protect the investment of county dollars ($30 Million +) invested to build the Celery Fields Regional Stormwater Facility, observation mound, bird walks, park trails and preserve area
failure to adhere to Sarasota's Zoning Mission Statement that Zoning's fundamental purpose is to protect a community's health, safety and welfare.
The Palmer East Group has been working exhaustively since January, 2017 as a group (and individually, some of us began working much earlier) to stop the threats to the Celery Fields.
The Palmer East Group has established a legal defense fund under the management of the Meadow Walk and Enclave homeowners associations. An attorney and a professional land use planner have been retained to defeat the waste site proposal. Donations have ranged from $50 to $1,000, and come from businesses, homeowners associations, and individuals. Your investment of $25, $50, $100, or more is much-needed ammunition in this fight.
An urgent threat looms as James Gabbert—via his company, TST Ventures, LLC—has petitioned Sarasota County to allow the construction of a 15-acre construction- & demolition-debris processing facility on Celery Fields lands. Mr. Gabbert has invested "hundreds of thousands" to ensure his dump will be developed, we appreciate any amount to help with expenses to fight this horrific threat to the Celery Fields and local neighborhoods and businesses.
EMAIL THE SARASOTA COUNTY COMMISSION PRIOR TO AUGUST 23: and let them know you oppose the sale and development of county owned lands next to the Celery Field, especially the proposed dump.
Emails to the Sarasota Planning Commission: Michael Moran - mmoran@scgov.net
CALL THE SARASOTA COUNTY COMMISSION PRIOR TO AUGUST 23 AT
(941) 861-5344. Give your full name and where you live or phone number. Be Polite! Let the receptionist know you are opposed to the sale of surplus land for Mr. Gabbert's dump.
If you have received this email, it is because:
1) you signed up to receive Celery Field information 2) you are a friend of one of the activists who contributed to this email 3) you signed a Celery Field petition.
If you no longer wish to receive email from Save Our Celery Field, simply respond with "Delete Me" in the subject line.
