SCANNING Sarasota PLANNING

excellent discussion of threatening bills bubbling in Tallahassee - one is HB 479 - it would pre-empt localities from controlling their own water resources. SB 840 would castrate local efforts to cope with impacts of large developments. Carrie Seidman  is joined by  Manatee County Commissioner George Kruse Bradenton Times editor Mitch Maley  Mark Hebden of Save Florida Home Rule!   Mitch Maley:  "An engaged community cannot be bought"

The recent flood presentation by Steve Suau at Selby Library drew an overflow crowd. It has also generated media coverage.  Suau said he's still gathering data and should finalize his report and recommendations in early November, but what he had to say got a lot of attention.  So far, we have the stories published below. Ramon Lopez at WSLR News : Sarasota hydrologist has an idea. And what to do next. ======== Kerry Sheridan at WUSF / NPR: A YouTube video reveals a dike breach during Debby that caused mysterious Sarasota flooding :                                                                      ======= = Carrie Seidman at the Herald Tribune: Opinion: We know why Sarasota flooded during recent storms. How will we handle future ones?                 ...

  SCAN, Overdevelopment,  and The Silencing of Community This is the transcript of a talk given by Tom Matrullo at the Unitarian Universalist Center in Sarasota on September 21, 2024. It’s a real honor to be invited to speak to you today In the coming weeks, we anticipate a parade of developer proposals as unpopular and potentially damaging as any we have seen in years. The Board has scheduled a series of controversial land use hearings, and what makes them controversial is that they require changes to elements of our Comprehensive Plan. The proposals will impact - in some cases severely - iconic and beloved places including Siesta Key Village to the West, Old Miakka to the East, and the Celery Fields in the middle. To understand how it is that our planning Code can tolerate ruptures of the Comp Plan proposed by Randy Benderson, Rex Jensen, Pat Neal and DR Horton, we must go back some years to see how a highly sophisticated system of rigorous planning was dismantled - first a...