Poll Workers wanted

The Supervisor of Elections (SOE) office could use folks for election night help to check in poll workers who will be returning ballots at offices/drop off sites.

The SOE will also need poll workers for future elections. They're having orientations in April to recruit additional workers.

Poll workers must attend training prior to each election and are paid $160 to $275, depending on the position assigned, for training and working at the polls.

Poll Worker orientation info

Poll Worker Guidelines

VOTE EARLY March 7- 14, 8:30 am - 4:30 pm daily!
Find early voting locations for March 17 elections here

Candidates 2020

Campaign Finance Reports 2020

Citizen Power at Fogartyville

This past Tuesday evening, Cathy Antunes spoke with Pat Rounds and Bill Zoller, both longtime advocates for sensible planning and for the public good. The topic was Single Member Voting Districts: how the new electoral structure put in place by a citizens' amendment will actually work in the 2020 election. 

Alice White District 5

Fredd Atkins

They also talked of pushback: The County immediately redistricted in order to remove potential opponents to sitting Commissioners Mike Moran and Nancy Detert, using a map fashioned by the invisible hand of Bob "Adam Smith" Waechter. 

And they noted that the County has also amended the Charter to make citizen amendments so difficult as to be essentially obsolete.

The video is here, with links to the entire evening's discussion. including a lively Q & A with those in the audience. 

Two candidates for the Board were also present: Alice White (People for Trees) is running in district 5, and Fredd Atkins, currently in district Limbo until a a federal lawsuit against the Board is resolved. This year's election holds the opportunity to change the course of Sarasota's public sector. Citizens for District Power is a new group working on getting out the vote. Have a look:

Rounds, Zoller, Antunes: Single Member Districts and Citizen Power

Single Member Voting and Citizen Power

Community activist, blogger and WSLR radio host Cathy Antunes talks with Pat Rounds and Bill Zoller about the big changes to how we vote in Sarasota County, and the reaction from the developer-controlled political operators. Rounds and Zoller describe the new non-partisan group, Citizens for District Power. (If you wish to find out more about this new group, just drop an email to Citizens4DistrictPower@gmail.com.) They spoke at Fogartyville on Feb. 25, 2020.  

The first video of the set is below. You'll find the full discussion and Q & A with the very engaged audience at Fogartyville here.

Further dimensions of the single member voting issue:

When an amendment to switch Sarasota County elections to Single Member District Voting was presented on the ballot (thanks to citizens like Kindra Muntz, Pat Rounds and many more who dedicated hundreds of hours obtaining 15,000 verified signatures on a petition that changed the structure of County elections), the pushback from developers was immediate and intense. Read about that in

The Syndicate Strikes Back.

For more on the intricate way that developer money has infected and infested Sarasota's local elections for years, here's Antunes on Dark Money.

Citizens for District Power: Feb. 25 at Fogartyville

Joining the conversation will be architect Bill Zoller, an original member of Sarasota's Multi-Stakeholder-Group (MSG) that prepared the way for sensible growth efforts in the 90s.

More about Single Member Districts:

Why Citizens voted overwhelmingly for Single Member Districts

Developers Counter-Attack

The Federal Lawsuit against the Board's redistricting

The County Commission's decision to redistrict

The Syndicate strikes back

When it became apparent in 2018 that the Citizens Amendment for Single Member District Voting could win at the ballot box, the development interests in Sarasota County spared no expense. Within a few months, the syndicate raised over $155,000 to squelch the citizens' initiative. Where'd all that money come from?

The major contributors, according to the Superintendent of Elections site are:

• The Argus Foundation (exec. director Christine Robinson)
• The Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce
• The Manatee-Sarasota Building Industry Association (exec. director Jon Mast)
• Gulf Coast Builders Exchange
• Pat Neal
• Benderson Development Co. Inc.
• Taylor Morrison, builder at Skye Ranch
• Siesta Key Chamber of Commerce

Who got the cash?

Direct Mail operators and political marketeers:

• Political Ink, inc. - Washington DC
• Strategic Digital Services - Tallahassee, FL.

What came of this?

Under the (ripped off) rubric of Stop! Stealing our Votes, the ads swarmed:

One ad used in this negative campaign was remarkable: It mounted the lie that voters should oppose Single Member District voting because it would give more power to developers (!). 

Sarasota's esteemed business leaders were not above this level of public disinformation - i.e., fake news.

Pretending to oppose the very interests that in fact you are working to advance is known in the world of strategic digital media as "astroturfing." It might also be called bullshit.

What did the Syndicate find so frightening about single member districts? Did the possibility that citizens might choose their representatives based on real knowledge of who their candidates were and what they stood for scare them because it meant the Syndicate would cease to control the major planning, zoning, financing and infrastructure decisions facing Sarasota County?

The thought of having an Board that wouldn't rubber stamp Pat Neal's roads, Benderson's fake critical area plans, or Gabbert's special exceptions must have been terrifying, because they paid and paid and lied and lost. The citizens Amendment won all five districts and virtually every precinct, including precincts that are supposed to be heavily Republican:

After working for more than a year to collect enough signatures to get the proposed Sarasota County Charter amendment on the ballot, leaders of the Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections (SAFE), won 59.84% of the 193,439 votes cast on that measure - Sarasota News Leader

Argus et al were not pleased. It wasn't long before the County, with the aid of a fictive mapmaker who turned out to be disgraced political operative Bob Waechter, concocted fictive reasons to redistrict all five districts. Conveniently along the way, the Hail Mary Waechter Map to Save Mike eliminated two prospective candidates known to have considered opposing Moran in District 1.

And that in turn brought a Federal lawsuit, accusing three Commissioners -- Detert, Maio and Moran -- of racist motives to carve minorities out of Moran's district. The suit is expected to be heard this spring.

 ~ Stay Tuned ~

Screenshots from Sarasota County's Supervisor of Elections site:

The Case for Single Member Districts - Kindra Muntz

Click images to enlarge:

A conversation about zoning: How it works and how it can fail

A conversation about urban planning, transportation, commuting, and about how zoning works and sometimes doesn't. With Cathy Antunes and Andrew Georgiadis, in Sarasota, FL. Antunes often writes about development, growth, and dark money at The Detail. Georgiadis is an urban planner with Plusurbia. They spoke on Feb. 6, 2020 at Fogartyville.

Video courtesy of Critical Times SRQ

More on transportation:

How Transportation And Infrastructure Became Political Footballs - an interview with Charlie Zelle, the Minnesota Commissioner of Transportation.

Questions raised about legislation revising impact fees

Letter to State Rep.Margaret Good from Sarasota citizens regarding a new bill revising how impact fees are defined and administered. One of the bill's sponsors is State Sen. Joe Gruters of Sarasota. In part it would require counties to create a new bureaucracy to administer, review, and approve such fees on developers. Text of the bill which is still pending.




To: The Honorable Margaret Good;
From: Dan Lobeck, Glenna Blomquist
Date: 02/05/20

Dan Lobeck and I have reviewed this pending legislature (related to HB 637 and SB 1066). Following please find relevant comments:

One problem is that it limits impact fees to “public facilities” defined (by reference to another statute) as “major capital improvements, including transportation, sanitary sewer, solid waste, drainage, potable water, educational, parks and recreational facilities.”

While the bills then add, “and includes any fire and law enforcement facility”, it is not clear if the word “including” in the referenced statute is meant as a limitation or as providing for examples. If the former, Sarasota County’s impact fees for libraries, courts and administration facilities would be rendered illegal. (Case law would need to be researched on statutory construction of the word “including” in the absence of “but not limited to”).

Also potentially problematic is that impact fees would be limited to “infrastructure,” that is the “construction, reconstruction, or improvement of a public facility …” and (again under the above referenced statute) “major capital improvements,” thereby potentially preventing impact fees from being spent on school buses or mass transit, as they are today.

The requirement that impact fees be based on local data gathered within the past 36 months (apparently on a rolling basis) imposes a burden on local governments to gather that date every three years. However, if done right that is not an entirely bad idea, as Sarasota County has long based its transportation impact fees on outdated national data from the last recession (which the County then seeks to apply through a methodology to local conditions) which understates trip length and frequency.

Truly local data, if done correctly, may be more reliable, although that could be subject to manipulation to keep the fees artificially low.

The composition of the local committees is unfairly loaded to those favoring lower impact fees, with most seats reserved for contractors and other business representatives and only one for the general public. (In Sarasota County, this would not much change the makeup of the Public Facilities Financing Advisory Board, which mainly advises on impact fees, as it is typically loaded with development interests and their allies).


===

News about the bills from Joe Gruters (Sarasota) and Nick DiCelglie (Pinellas):

Florida House panel OKs bill overhauling local government impact fee levies

The bill would require local governments segregate impact fee revenues into accounts for each improvement category, calculate impact fees with data no older than 36 months, create seven-member committees to review how fees are allocated and exclude costs from fees that don’t meet a revised definition of infrastructure.

Tighter restrictions on impact fees are one step closer to House passage

Some lawmakers expressed reservations about the current language and cautioned they may vote it down if it makes it to the House floor if some concerns aren’t addressed. That includes fears about the fiscal impact to local governments as they are faced with additional administrative burden when levying fees.

Have your say with the EPA - but hurry! Feb. 4 deadline

Citizens at Mote Marine Wave Center for EPA hearing on Kampachi Farms Inc.

Didn't make the EPA hearing on Jan. 28? You still can participate.

Sierra Club and many other environmental groups opposed to Kampachi Farm's proposed operation off the coast of Sarasota County are asking members to email their public comments in opposition to the proposed fish farm to the EPA before FEB 4th   Contact info below!


Comments accepted through: 02/04/2020

You may comment on the proposed action in writing, using Email, FAX or mail.
Submit comments to:
Email: R4NPDES.Kampachi@epa.gov
Fax: 404-562-9772

Mailing address:
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – Region 4, Water Division, NPDES Permitting Section, ATTN: Kip Tyler, 61 Forsyth Street S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30303-8960

More organizations opposed to this proposal:

Friends of the Earth, 

Center for Food Safety, 

Center for Biological Diversity, 

Citizens for Sarasota County

Food & Water Watch, 

Hands along the Water

Healthy Gulf, 

Institute for Fisheries Resources, 

National Family Farm Coalition, 

Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, 

NY4WHALES, 

Ocean Conservation Research, 

Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, 

Sanctuary Education Advisory Specialists LLC, 

Sierra Club Grassroots Network 

Are you a registered Voter in Sarasota for 2020?

Getting ready to Vote in 2020

Sarasota County Elections Chief reminds everyone to check their voter status now or get registered to VOTE BY FEBRUARY 18 for the upcoming March 17 Florida Presidential Preference Primary vote.

The details:

Voter Registration Deadline Nearing for March 17 Presidential Primary

The last day for a person to register or to update his/her party affiliation to be eligible to vote in the March 17, 2020, presidential preference primary is Tuesday, February 18, Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Ron Turner has announced.

Turner recommends that voters confirm before the February 18 deadline that they are registered to vote and that their voter registration information is current. A voter may check his or her voter eligibility at SarasotaVotes.com. Just click on “Voter Information” in the main menu and then on “Voter Lookup” and follow the easy instructions. New paper voter registration applications and party changes must be completed, signed and returned in person to an elections office or postmarked by the February 18 deadline. Applications submitted electronically before midnight on February 18 through RegistertoVoteFl orida.gov will also be accepted.

Applications are available at all three elections offices in Sarasota, Venice and North Port; at public libraries, military recruitment offices, and public assistance offices, and may be downloaded at SarasotaVotes.com. Voter registration applications may also be submitted through any driver's license or tax collector’s office that issues Florida driver licenses or Florida ID cards.

For more, see this Sarasota News Leader update.

From SarasotaVotes.com:

- Polls are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on election day -
IMPORTANT: You must vote in your precinct on election day.

Call or visit us at any of the three elections offices listed here:
(open 8:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m. daily Monday-Friday)

SARASOTA
Terrace Building
101 South Washington Blvd
Sarasota 34236
Tel: 941.861.8600

VENICE
R.L. Anderson Administration Building
4000 Tamiami Trail South
Venice 34293
Tel: 941.861.3760

NORTH PORT
Biscayne Plaza
13640 Tamiami Trail
North Port 34287
Tel: 941.423.9540