Accountability and Access: Are we missing something?

Board of Sarasota County Commissioners

Suppose you wanted to research how one or all of our publicly elected officials voted on a particular issue, perhaps one affecting your neighborhood. Obviously you would go to Sarasota County's public database where all votes are stored and can be found through searching by issue, date, name of a commissioner, etc. 

Umm, no.

No such database exists. The various county advisory board meetings such as the Planning Commission are videotaped -- the videos can be found via this Access Sarasota Page.

County Commission meetings are stored on video here, listed in chronological order. They are not contained in a database searchable by issues, agenda items, neighborhoods, dates, board votes, names of commissioners, etc.

You can request information on Board actions (see below), but if you wanted to do an analysis across time of how each Commissioner voted on, say, the environment, or on Pat Neal's latest gated community, your work is cut out for you. 

Our public officials are accountable for their votes, but it seems the method of accounting is a bit nebulous. Needles in haystacks come to mind. Yet our officials acting all the time on matters that involve tax dollars and impact our environment, roads, safety and services; they approve large scale plans and rezonings that alter the density and intensity of our neighborhoods. 

A searchable database of Board decisions would seem a sensible asset, creating a history of how we got to where we are.

What do you think?

Tom Matrullo
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Below: Correspondence of June 4, 2020, in reverse chronological order:

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Good Morning Tom,

No, unfortunately we do not have a database that compiles that information.

If a citizen wants to know a specific vote taken by the Board for a resolution, contract, or ordinance they can send an e-mail request to: boardofrecords@sarasotaclerkandcomptroller.com  

We would then send a copy of the meeting Minutes to that citizen and they would be able to read the “board action/vote.”  

Besides this, there is no searchable database by issue or date for Board of County Commission actions.

You may also access “Meetings on Demand” online for information on agendas, packets, action agenda, official minutes, and videos here:

http://sarasotacounty.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=45

Thank you.

Blanca Montoya

Recording Secretary, Board Records Department
Karen E. Rushing
Clerk of the Circuit Court and County Comptroller
1660 Ringling Boulevard - Suite 210, Sarasota, FL 34236
www.SarasotaClerk.com

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Good morning,

I have been referred to this address (sarasotaclerkandcomptroller.com) in the course of seeking a pubicly accessible database of County Commission votes searchable by issue, date, individual commissioner vote, and Board action. (See below for prior correspondence.)

Please advise whether such a database exists, and if so how to access it. If such information is not captured in a publicly searchable database, your help on how a citizen can research the voting record of the Board of County Commissioners and its members would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Tom Matrullo

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To:  commissioners@scgov.net,
Alan Maio <amaio@scgov.net>,
"Charles D. Hines" <CHines@scgov.net>,
Michael Moran <mmoran@scgov.net>,
Christian ziegler <cziegler@scgov.net>,
"Nancy C. Detert" <ncdetert@scgov.net>,
Jonathan Lewis <countyadministrator@scgov.net>,
Jody Mann <jmann@scgov.net>

To the Board of County Commissioners and Administrator:

Please advise where to access Sarasota County's public record of all Commission votes in database form. That is, if a citizen wished to track down how the Board voted on an issue, the database that provides the date, link to meeting discussion, how each Board member voted, and Board action.

Thank you,

Tom Matrullo

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Good Morning Mr. Matrullo,

To my knowledge there is no database of this nature.  You may check with Board Records at boardofrecords@sarasotaclerkandcomptroller.com or call them at 861-5279.

Thank you,


Jody Mann

Administrative Specialist to Commissioners
Michael A. Moran, CIC, Chair - District One
Alan Maio – District Four
Sarasota Board of County Commissioners
1660 Ringling Boulevard, Sarasota, FL 34236
Office: 941-861-5398

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fI liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost. - Aristotle