Letter sent to Sarasota's Planning Director and Commissioners. The issue is the decay and distancing of planning as it is no longer live or really interactive:
October 5, 2023
Dear Matt Osterhoudt and Commissioners:
Not so long ago, county Neighborhood Services took charge of arranging Neighborhood Workshops. Staff were very involved with securing a venue, provding supplies, making sure the right people from County government were there and all else.
When did this get delegated to the developers?
Now, developers or their planning agents decide whether a workshop will be held online or in person. Since that decision, I've not heard of a "neighborhood" workshop being held in person. What's more, the entire Zoom or Meet or Teams encounter is controlled by the developer's agent, who decides what images are shown. Glitches due to loss of sound, blurry images, and more have been known to occur. Even more, the county does not require the video recording of the workshop, only audio. Recently I had the experience of trying to follow a Zoom discussion - audio only - maps, locations, stormwater design and much more were discussed, but I and any other auditor were literally in the dark.
Now on MeetUp there is what's known as a "hybrid" event:
Under the “Hybrid” tab, you can enter the physical location of your event, and also provide a link to attend the event online through a video conferencing service like Zoom. In fact, with Meetup’s special Zoom integration, you can create your virtual event link directly within the “Hybrid” tab.
The virtues of this flexibility are manifold and are discussed here:
https://www.meetup.com/blog/introducing-the-hybrid-events-feature-for-meetup-pro/
If the county wishes to still include residents in this process, please consider requiring live workshops, with the hybrid format as a further option.
Respectfully,
Tom Matrullo
