Hament to City: Request for Reimbursement

During the Pence visit of Feb. 28th to Sarasota, there was collateral damage. Some of us were in that traffic halted by His Nibs coming to grift Vern's supporters, on the very day he, Pence, was assigned the task of overseeing the nation's response to the Corona Virus:

The people who were unable to make their appointments on a Friday evening in season; the people who never got to work, or were unable to get home from work; the people who failed to get to their paid-for seats in theaters and concert halls; the people who needed healthcare workers who could not get to them -- these costs are incalculable. The callous contempt for the public raining down from the Trump/Pence Nightmare is beyond computation

From Gabriel Hament to the City of Sarasota:

Madam Mayor, Madam Vice Mayor, Commissioners and Mr. Barwin:

Thank you, Mr. Barwin, for directing the Sarasota Police Department (SPD) to complete the calculation of the cost associated with Vice President Pence's security detail on Friday, February 28th. As reported by the Herald Tribune and Tampa Bay Times, the objective of the Vice President's visit was to raise funds to support the campaigns of Republican candidates to the US House of Representatives. Dollars raised during the Vice President's evening visit to the Longboat Key home of Congressman Vern Buchanan were for the benefit of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). A dinner ticket came at $25,000/person.

What else came at a cost of $25,000 was the security detail bill that City of Sarasota taxpayers must now absorb.

According to the SPD's calculation, City of Sarasota taxpayers have now been hit with a $25,670 security detail bill, to be specific. 

From a fiduciary standpoint, I believe a reasonable effort should be undertaken to recover these costs and make taxpayers whole.

It is clear that the Vice President's visit served no public purpose, only a private one. 

Given the severe hardship facing the City and the City's small businesses over the coming weeks and months, returning these dollars to the City's coffers--dollars that were removed for private benefit--makes a great deal of sense to me.

The City is now designing a small business support fund which I believe will be discussed at next week's Commission meeting. 

Twenty-five thousand dollars is not an inconsequential sum; five $5,000 grants could go a long way in supporting the City's struggling business owners.

We must keep in mind that this security detail bill could have been far less or avoided altogether.

In a proactive manner, Mr. Barwin attempted to contact the office of Congressman Buchanan to request that the Vice President consider an alternate route, time (as roads were shut down at rush hour on a Friday) or mode of transportation. 

Neither Mr. Buchanan nor his staff returned Mr. Barwin's call.

I recommend that the Commission and Administration open lines of communication with both the NRCC and Mr. Buchanan and request the NRCC reimburse the City of Sarasota. 

Mr. Buchanan's spokesperson and an NRCC representative, Meredith O'Rourke, are copied.

Respectfully,

Gabriel Hament

Giving Challenge Short List

Giving Challenge 2020 offers a 24-hour opportunity for us to recognize 700 amazing nonprofit organizations in our area. Just a few:

Audubon: protecting and preserving our public lands at the Celery Fields.

Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast: preserving priceless lands and waters in perpetuity.

The Multicultural Health Institute: protecting and preserving equal healthcare in Sarasota's underserved communities.

Peace Education and Action Center: educational and resources hub for small local coalitions.

Suncoast Waterkeeper: took on Sarasota's failing wastewater system, sued and won. Our water will be cleaner thanks to this group.

WSLR + Fogartyville: protecting and preserving progressive thinking, great music and community vision.

Giving Challenge 2020 Home Page

Help two new School Board candidates

School Board Campaigns

Click here to print both School Board campaign petitions at once

Deadline: May 8, 2020

Tom Edwards

Tom Edwards has stepped up to oppose Eric Robinson for a critical District 3 seat on the School Board. Find out more about him and 

Download his petition here 
Sign, send to electtomedwards@gmail.com or fill out online:

Online petition for Tom Edwards—make sure your signature matches that on file with the Supervisor of Election

You can also mail printed petition to: 

Elect Tom Edwards, 

P.O. Box 1947, 

Nokomis, FL 34274

School Board elections are non-partisan, and still conducted at-large. That means any School Board candidate must submit over 3,000 verified petitions before May 11. 

David Graham

David Graham is gathering petitions to run in School Board District 2 against Karen Rose. Learn more about David.

Download his petition here. 

Sign and send it to electdavidagraham@gmail.com, or, you can fill out his online Petition here:

Online petition for David Graham—make sure your signature matches that on file with the Supervisor of Elections.

You can snailmail printed petitions to:

Elect David A Graham

5681 Bidwell Parkway, Unit 104

Sarasota, FL 34233

Deadline for both is May 8th!

Thank you for helping our Sarasota public schools

Gruters' survey needs to buy a clue

This came via the Sarasotavoices e-list - in response to Joe Gruters' "survey" of sentiment about whether Sarasota's beaches should be reopened right away:

It is not a question of whether we re-open this or that, because we will, of course.

It is, rather, a question of "When?"

When will we know the rate of infections in our City or County or political district has dropped below the re-transmission rate?

When we we have tested a sufficient number of our citizens to understand the scope of the COVID-19 Pandemic in our neck of the woods?

When will the data indicate that a tourist destination might safely open its attractions so as to draw vectors from neighboring counties, states or nations to our shores?

When will we have an established efficacious protocol for treating COVID-19?

And, of course, when will we have a vaccine?

The survey is simply silly as it seeks a decision based upon insufficient information. 

No way to prosecute a war.

State Senator Joe Gruters jg@joegruters.com	8:14 AM (4 hours ago)

On Wednesday, the Sarasota County Commission is set to discuss opening up beaches throughout Sarasota County. As we approach that discussion, I want to know what YOU think about the issue. Please take the poll below and let me know your thoughts! Should Sarasota County open up our beaches? Click on a response below to share your position ⚪ Yes, fully open them up! ⚪ Open, but only for "essential activities" (re: walk/swim) ⚪ No, keep them closed! ⚪ Other

Got any candidates like this?

Model letter opposing SB 410

Skye Ranch off of Clark Rd. in Sarasota 

While Covid19 might have put a hold on building large housing developments like "Skye Ranch" in Sarasota County, it hasn't slowed the progress of the state legislature. 

A bill on its way to Governor Ron DeSantis's desk would hamper the ability of local governments to create their own comprehensive plans, annex land, and initiate other land use actions.

Sierra Club Florida says: SB 410 is a bill that will further weaken Florida’s already crippled growth management laws that attempt to provide for the intelligent use of the state’s lands. SB 410 passed both the Florida House and Senate and will go to Gov. DeSantis to become law UNLESS he vetoes it. 

SB 410  The bill is here. If passed, it would

• Turn growth management upside down.
• Eliminate the applicability of county-wide land use regulations to cities in the county, if the city has adopted its own comp plan. 
• Require new “property rights” element to be included in all comprehensive plans.
• Require automatic approval of utility application to use right-of-way if 14-day deadline is not met (regardless of impact on community)

1000 Friends of Florida, the Herald Tribune, Sierra, and many other organizations are asking Governor DeSantis to veto this bill - which would in part, they say, clear the way for high-density development in designated rural areas. More on this here.


>>Please call Gov. DeSantis at 850-488-7146 and urge him to veto SB 410.<<

Here's a model letter with the Governor's email address:

Dear Governor DeSantis, 

SB 410 would curtail the authority of most county governments to manage growth within their borders, making residents more vulnerable to negative impacts to their environment, quality of life, property values and tax bills. The amended bill would allow county controls to be superseded by municipalities. It could clear the way for high-density development in designated rural areas. 

Please veto this bill. 

Your name
Address
Phone 

Send to governorron.desantis@eog.myflorida.com

----

Another letter:

Dear Governor DeSantis, 

SB 410 would curtail the authority of most county governments to manage growth within their borders, making residents more vulnerable to negative impacts to their environment, quality of life, property values and tax bills. 

The amended bill would allow county controls to be superseded by municipalities. 

This bill could clear the way for high-density development in designated rural zoning areas.  

Urban sprawl does not belong in rural lands. Deforestation destroys critical habitats, open space and quality of life. The creation of Impervious surface causes storm water run off pollution in water resources and increases the heat island effect.   

Overdevelopment is in fact the #1 cause of climate change and sealevel rise in Florida. 

Florida's citizens pay three times for over-development, through loss of our natural heritage and environment, the cost of infrastructure and then again to clean up the mess developers leave behind. 

Please protect our state and citizens by veto of SB 410.  

Sincerely, 

Your name
Address
Phone

Send to governorron.desantis@eog.myflorida.com

Turner gains Sierra endorsement

Terry Turner has gained the endorsement of the Manatee Sarasota Group of the Sierra Club.

Here's a recent editorial by Turner in the Herald Tribune, and the Sierra Press release below:

Sarasota County death rate is double state level - SNL

...about 1,000 tests were conducted in the past couple of weeks, with about 10% to 11% showing positive results. 

From today's Sarasota News Leader:

The death rate in Sarasota County for those testing positive for the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, is close to 7%, compared to less than 3% for the state of Florida, Lynette Herbert, public health services manager for the Florida Department of Health in Sarasota County, reported during the April 15 Suncoast Continuum of Care meeting. 

That data is “concerning to us,” she said.. . . . 

Moreover, Herbert pointed out, the hospitalization rate for those in the county testing positive for COVID-19 is more than twice the state average. The county figure is 32%; for the state, it is 14%, she added.

This box on the Florida Department of Health’s COVID-19 ‘dashboard’ site as of the morning of April 15 offers more Sarasota County COVID-19 statistics. Image from the Florida Department of Health

County elected officials have failed to take rapid intelligent steps, say critics:

New Sarasota COVID-19 test site to open at undisclosed location

"You were elected to solve difficult problems" - LTE in HT

All Talk, No Action in protection for the homeless - Seidman, HT

Time to hire new commissioners? 

Help new candidates get on the ballot

"You were elected to solve difficult problems"

LTE 4.15.20 Herald Tribune

County, city must care for the most vulnerable

Kudos to Carrie Seidman for her April 12 column, “All talk, no action to protect homeless.” The failure of our city and county government officials to provide housing to protect and care for the unhoused is a moral failure and disgrace. We live in a community with plenty of money and resources, and with many people who care.

Our wonderful nonprofits are reliable partners in helping with this crisis, but many of these resources are no longer available because of the shutdown due to COVID-19.

We are all in this together. So, this means, Sarasota city and county officials, it is your job to lead, and take action now.

You were elected to solve difficult problems, not to talk about them forever. The only question is, are you up for the challenge?

For all of us, but especially for the most vulnerable among us, I hope so.

Bridget Mary Meehan, Sarasota, Florida

In Covid19 crisis citizens help, elected officials fail the homeless

All Talk, No Action in protection for the homeless

Carrie Seidman's Easter Sunday editorial points to the abject failure of Sarasota County and the City of Sarasota to mount any sort of coordinated,, effective response to the Coronavirus crisis now affecting the homeless as well as everyone else here.

Andrea Buscemi posted this regarding Streets of Paradise, a citizen group helping the homeless during the Covid19 pandemic:

Good morning everyone! Feeling disheartened by this? Well there is something you can do!

COVID 19 has shut down a lot of our homeless friends resources for food. Some volunteers had been trying to fill that void by providing meals 7 days a week.

We have been so lucky to have some help but we are still coming up short. Below is a list of items we desperately need to continue feeding our friends 7 days a week. Also please know we are following the strict guidelines set forth during this stay at home order to keep ourselves and our friends safe.

If you wish to donate you can go to www.streetsofparadise.org and mention “for food supplies” in the “notes” portion of the donation. Thank you all so much. You can also donate via Facebook by visiting the Streets of Paradise Inc. page.

Items needed:

~Granola bars
~Water
~bread
~meat and cheese for sandwiches
~peanut butter
~Jelly
~chips
~mustard
~mayonnaise
~sandwich bags

All items can be dropped off at your convenience to:
3044 Bay St., Sarasota FL 34237

I'd like encourage everyone to join the Streets of Paradise volunteers group to stay current on volunteer opportunities available to help the homeless community in Sarasota.

Cathy Bryant, Greg Cruz, Devon Oppenheimer, and Angel Mendoza Williams are some of the amazing volunteers who lead and organize this group. You can reach out to them with more questions.

Streets of Paradise has ongoing efforts to help feed the homeless.

New: LTE 4.15.20 regarding Board inaction.

Argus District 5 Sarasota Candidate Forum 4.9.20

Three candidates for the District 5 seat on the Sarasota County Commission address questions from the Argus Foundation on a variety of issues. 

District 5 is generally the southernmost district, including much of North Port.

The candidates in alphabetical order are Ron Cutsinger (R), Chris Hanks (R) and Alice White (D). Argus executive director Christine Robinson asked the questions.

The zoom session has not been edited in any manner, but simply replays the video posted by Argus to YouTube.

Questions for District 5 Candidates from the Argus Foundation

BOARD of Sarasota County Commissioners POLICY AGENDA 2020:

Top Priorities 

• Future of County Administration Location j
• Medical Examiner / Coroner / Emergency Services Building
• Mote Funding: If, When, How
• Affordable and Workforce Housing
• Solutions to Ensure Wastewater at AWT Standards
• Modern Mobility/Transit

High Priorities 

• Bay Park Conservancy 

• Sports Tourism Development Strategy: Goals, Best Practices, Report with Options, County Role and Direction 

• Progress on Design and/or Funding for “Gap” Roads 

• Road Resurfacing: Service Level, Direction and Funding Increase Decision 

• Stormwater Policy and Management: Direction, Project Priorities and Funding Mechanism 

1. Here [above] is the County Commission board policy agenda for 2020. This was set by the commission at their December 2019 retreat.  Do you agree with this list? What do you think is the most important issue for the county and what would you specifically do to tackle that issue?  What is the most important issue for your district and what would you do to tackle that issue?

2. Businesses have been shut down or severely scaled back due to COVID-19.  Do you believe county government has a role in jumpstarting the economy when we open back up for business?  Why or why not? If you do, what would you do to jumpstart the economy?

3. What is your opinion of CRAs (Community Redevelopment Agencies), and how well you think they have worked in Sarasota County?  Would you expand this program in other areas of the county? If so, how many areas? If so, how would you make up for the loss in tax revenue to the general fund?  If not, what can be done to help blighted areas of the county?

4. What is your opinion of the county property tax rate and what area of the county budget do you think we spend too much on, what area too little on? 

5. Give the county a grade on their relationships with the municipalities?  What would you do to further improve the relationships?

6. Water Quality.  There are many aspects to it - Septic to sewer, stormwater run-off, advanced wastewater treatment, agriculture, old infrastructure, fertilizer run-off, sewer spills, red tide, etc.  What area of water quality do you think the county should be focusing its attention and funding on and why?

7. Do you believe the county has kept its promises to North Port with the extension of the Legacy Trail?  What would you do as a county commissioner to ensure that the Legacy Trail extension to North Port is completed expeditiously?

8. What is your opinion on growth?  What, if anything, should be done to stop or control it?

9. According to the county, in fiscal year 2020, Sarasota County will spend $9,011,146 in budgets to Health and Human Services, 12th Judicial Court Administration and the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office for mental health and supportive services. Of the local mental health and supportive services Sarasota County funds, the county's contribution represents approximately 24% of the total $36,984,582 spent. The remaining funding is contributed by multiple partners, including Federal and State grants, local philanthropic organizations, private donors and insurance.  What is your position on the proposed mental health care district in Sarasota County- would you create it, what should it look like, and would you increase taxes to provide more money for the district?

10. Transportation is an important issue in Sarasota County.  The county is coming up with a modern mobility plan. What do you think of eliminating SCAT routes in favor of modern mobility?

Sentinel: Detert helped Rick Scott devastate Florida unemployment

Note: Confirmed by an Orlando Sentinel editor: In the April 6 editorial below, "she" is Sarasota County Commissioner Nancy Detert, who when a state Senator co-sponsored a disastrous unemployment bill:

Meet the lawmakers who helped Rick Scott gut Florida’s unemployment system | Editorial

By ORLANDO SENTINEL EDITORIAL BOARD

ORLANDO SENTINEL |

APR 06, 2020 | 1:07 PM

Rick Scott instigated the movement a decade ago to deny unemployment to the unemployed, but he couldn’t have done it without help.

Republican lawmakers were squarely behind the the newly elected governor’s agenda in 2011, passing a sweeping unemployment compensation law designed to punish workers who lost their jobs — “slackers and malingerers” as one state senator [Nancy Detert] put it at the time.

She [Detert] perfectly summarized the contempt some felt for the unemployed, which led to the overwhelming passage of a law that:

• reduced the number of weeks someone can collect unemployment to as few as 12,
• required workers to prove they had contacted five potential employers each week,
• expanded the types of fireable offenses that disqualified an employee for benefits, and
• cut benefits if an employee received severance pay.

Workers also were forced to apply for benefits online, which was bad under the existing computer system and calamitous today under the one Scott’s administration replaced it with.

As others have observed, it was a system designed to help business by failing workers, those “slackers and malingerers.”

Read the entire April 6th editorial here.

Detert was also explicitly referenced in a March 23, 2020 Sentinel article entitled: The workers who sustain us during the coronavirus crisis deserve Florida’s respect:

We’ve built a rigged economy, particularly in Florida, where people in this ongoing crisis are among the most essential workers, alongside police and firefighters and doctors and nurses. 

How has this state treated them before now? 

Our lawmakers have been dead-set against a meaningful increase in the minimum wage, prompting a successful campaign to get a $15 an hour minimum wage on the ballot this fall. 

They refused to do anything about businesses failing to offer paid sick leave, and then passed a law that stopped communities like Orange County from doing something on their own. 

Dist. 3 Commissioner Nancy Detert

Over the course of a decade, they skimmed nearly $2 billion from a fund that was supposed to provide money for affordable housing.

In 2011, urged on by then Gov. Rick Scott, they stacked the deck against workers trying to collect unemployment benefits. The Legislature cut the number of weeks unemployed workers were eligible for unemployment — to as low as just 12 weeks, depending on the unemployment rate — and made it easier for employers to deny benefits. All this while keeping one of the worst weekly benefits in the nation — $275 max. A Republican state senator at the time, Nancy Detert, said she wanted to be rid of “slackers and malingerers.”

More on Florida's appalling unemployment predicament:

Herald Tribune 5.25.12: Nancy Detert with Doug Holder sponsored the unemployment bill 

And from Lloyd Dunkelberger in the Florida Phoenix 4.7.20:

FL Senate Democrats urge changing eligibility date for jobless workers denied help because of a broken benefits system

Dirty water, dirty politics and a whole lot more: April Critical Times

Critical Times 4.1.20



- Download the entire free issue of the April Critical Times here -

There's a lot in it - local vouchers schools, city elections, candidates for the County Commission, Transition Sarasota, composting, abolishing corporate personhood, New College Merger, 2020 Florida Legislative Session, more...

No April Fool

Here is Gov. Ron DeSantis's Executive Order EO 20-91, which shuts down the non-essential, after defining it rather broadly:

A helpful summary is offered here by the Herald Tribune.


Sarasota County -- with one of the oldest citizen demographics in the nation -- has this Covid-19 page. So far, we don't see anything new from the county's last public guidance.


For a comment on a former Florida Governor's medieval agenda, see this citizen post from Dren Greer.


Kidding aside, some prudential thoughts on keeping safe in a time when erring on the side of caution can go astray amid the endless rolls of toilet paper.


See also: The latest edition, digital only, of Critical Times is here.