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HOLMES BEACH – About two dozen people came out on March 20 to meet with Manatee County Commissioner George Kruse, bringing their questions for the candidate, who is seeking re-election in November.
Kruse held a town hall meeting at the Island Branch Library where he answered every question posed, discussing everything from parking and traffic to the possible consolidation of the three Anna Maria Island cities.
On the subject of traffic and making the Island trolley service more efficient during peak times, Kruse said that if there’s traffic, the trolley is stuck in it the same as any other motor vehicle. He did say that he would look into the possibility of adding additional trolleys during peak times, such as over holiday weekends and spring break to help reduce the amount of time spent waiting for transportation that may be too full to accept more riders.
When the new Cortez and Manatee bridges are built, Kruse said he hopes that there will be an express lane – a third lane for emergency and transit vehicles.
“You’re not going to reduce the want of people to go to the beach, you have to get them out of their cars,” he said, adding that with the current situation, one lane in each direction, people won’t want to sit on a bus in traffic instead of in their vehicles. The way around that would be to have a dedicated express lane for those people to bypass congestion on the way to the beach. Kruse said he’s spoken with Florida Department of Transportation representatives about including an express lane in the design for the new bridges but hasn’t received a definitive answer.
BRADENTON BEACH – Rather than partnering with an outside vendor as planned, commissioners are now considering city-managed paid parking lots throughout Bradenton Beach.
The city had put out a Request for Proposals (RFP) on Feb. 9 to “Provide the City with a complete parking management and enforcement system that is capable of handling the current parking environment at six (6) municipal locations, a public street, and a future 7th site.”
Two bidders – Beach to Bay Investments and SP Municipal Parking – submitted proposals to the city by the Feb. 29 due date.
Representatives from both entities laid out their cases for approval at a March 19 city commission work meeting. A decision was deferred to the March 21 commission meeting where a choice between the two was expected to be made.
Instead, neither one of them was chosen. On March 21, Mayor John Chappie recommended having the city oversee paid parking without a vendor.
“The more I looked over two really impressive applications – each with a lot of plusses – I thought why have that third person? We’re talking about 75 parking spaces. I’m recommending we deny both of these and look at doing it in-house,” Chappie said.
The RFP 2024-04 went out for bid to provide paid parking in areas that included all of Bridge Street, an after-hours parking lot to the east and west side of the police department, the city hall parking lot, the area around the pickleball court on Highland Avenue (with free passes to pickleball players), the shared parking lot with Silver Resorts at First Street North, Gulfside parking spaces near the Anna Maria Island Moose Lodge and future options at the Tingley Library, if the building is raised to create parking.
ANNA MARIA –The Anna Maria Charter Review Committee is propos*ing six potential charter amendments for city commission consideration.
The five-member volunteer com*mittee completed its comprehensive review of the city charter on March 21 after the members voted unanimously in favor of each of the six proposed amendments to be included in a final report prepared by City Attorney Becky Vose.
The committee will meet for the final time on March 28 at 11 a.m. to review the final report compiled by Vose. At least one committee member will then present the recommended charter amendments to the city commission during its April 11 meeting. The commission will then accept, reject or modify any or all of the proposed amendments. Any proposed amend*ments supported by the commission, including those introduced by the commission, will be placed on the November ballot for Anna Maria’s registered voters to accept or reject.
The application for commissioner by business owner and former Manatee County records manager Deborah Scaccianoce was approved by the commission and she was sworn in at its March 21 meeting.
She filled the vacant seat left by former Commissioner Jake Spooner. Spooner, a local businessman, ran unopposed in 2023, but resigned in December citing the state’s financial disclosure requirement.
Bradenton Beach resident Gary Michniewicz was the other applicant for the commission seat. The deadline for applications was March 13.
Scaccianoce is the co-owner of Double Deez Chicago Style Hot Dogs in Holmes Beach.
She addressed the commission prior to the nomination.
“My family has been a part of the Bradenton Beach area for the past 45 years. It’s been my permanent home for almost 12 years. My brother was the chief of police here, Sam Speciale. In the 80s, my father worked for the planning board. We’ve been around a very long time,” she said.
Scaccianoce said over the years she’s watched Bradenton Beach grow and develop.
“I’ve watched all the changes, some painful, others amazing,” she said. “I think I bring a unique perspective. I’m also a small business owner and I understand the balance we have to have with the balance of the city’s needs the balance of our residents, the balance with our commissioners and their various wards, business owners and our visitors.”
A part of the Cortez waterscape might be removed if the Florida Department of Environmental Protection gets its way.
The DEP wants a court to compel Raymond “Junior” Guthrie to demolish a stilt house he built just a short distance from the working docks in Cortez.
The legal battle over the stilt house began in 2018 when the DEP filed suit against Guthrie. The DEP contended the structure had been built by Guthrie without permission on sovereign state submerged lands and judgment was issued in favor of the DEP February 25, 2019, instructing Guthrie to dismantle the structure.
But, May 4, 2023, 12th Judicial Circuit Judge Edward Nicholas dismissed the case, citing the DEP’s failure to prosecute. However, the DEP continued pursuing fulfillment of the judge’s original order to take down the stilt house and in November 2023 the case was reopened based on the DEP claim it had not had proper notification of the court’s deadlines.
Net camps were originally used to clean, dry and store cotton nets. Their usage declined with the use of synthetic net materials more resistant to rot, according to the Florida Maritime Museum website.
Guthrie maintains the house is a historic net camp. However, it has the typical amenities of a family home, including a kitchen, bathroom, living area, water and power from a generator.
Neighbors complained that it was a party house and a nuisance.
Guthrie maintains his family had a net camp in the location and the structure is protected under the 1921 Butler Act, which awards title of submerged lands to adjacent waterfront property owners who have made permanent improvements on the submerged lands.
Guthrie was instructed by the court to justify by March 5 why sanctions shouldn’t be imposed.
Guthrie had not responded to the DEP.
Karen Bell, owner of the A.P. Bell Fish Co., 4600 124th Street Court W., has tried in the past to save the net camp. She said she had heard of the suit’s resurrection from a lawyer in March.
She said the DEP has doggedly pursued the camp’s demolition.
“They’ve warned me to the point where I feel like I can’t do anything anymore,” Bell said. “DEP has spent a bunch of money. I have tried to get help from all over the place and I am just basically giving up.”
“I don’t understand why they don’t see the cultural value of the structure. There’s so few of them left in Florida. Why would they ever want one of the last few remaining ones removed. I don’t understand it,” Bell added.
After the confusion during the last attempt at creating a canal maintenance program, commissioners agreed on one thing: it’s time to get some new surveys.
The last time Longboat Key’s canals were surveyed was in 2016. From March 24 to 31, survey crews will be on the waters of Longboat Key, conducting updated conditional surveys to figure out what is needed to get Longboat’s canals back to baseline.
Assistant Public Works Director Charlie Mopps said one of the problems that commissioners debated at the end of last year was the $17 million price tag that came with the initial cost of a canal maintenance program.
That cost was to re-baseline the town’s 81 canals to get them back to normal conditions. Hypothetically, after that would be completed, then a maintenance program would be implemented.
But commissioners worried about rushing into the baseline work, which would have been another assessment for the town. It was a tight deadline to get the program approved if it was to be on the 2024 tax roll.
Taylor Engineering and Anser Advisory, LLC presented an initial plan to Longboat Key town commissioners in November 2023, which left commissioners with more questions than answers. The plan included dividing the town’s canals into seven groups and classifying each canal based on their use.
The plan was complicated enough to stop the presentation dead in its tracks, and it required Mopps to meet with commissioners one on one before going back a month later.
With the Little Ringling Bridge now in the Project Development and Engineering phase, the Florida Department of Transportation has shared its preferred alternative to replace the twin spans between Bird Key Drive and Sarasota Harbour West.
Even as westbound traffic was backed up from downtown Sarasota to St. Armands Circle early Thursday evening, the FDOT revealed its plan to build a single bridge, choosing that over a two-bridge or a no-build option.
The latter option, over the next 30 years, would cost more than half that of a new bridge with a service life of 75 years. Afterward, the bridge would still need to be replaced, likely at a much higher price.
Selecting the preferred option now allows for further PD&E, although construction remains unfunded and the earliest work would begin is 2028.
According to the FDOT study, rehabilitation projects in the no-build option would likely include partial or complete deck replacement, substructure and beam repairs, and replacement of structural pile jackets plus corrosion protection to slow deterioration. Maintenance repairs would be ongoing and larger rehabilitation projects could be expected approximately every five years.
The total estimated no-build cost is $38.8 million compared to $59.1 million for the single bridge preferred option. A rejected two-bridge alternative was estimated at $63.7 million.
During the workshop held at St. Armands Key Lutheran Church, Project Manager Patrick Bateman showed a video that provided details about the project. It was not a question-and-answer, but rather an information-gathering exercise to receive public comment.
Only three residents offered that input, two in person and one via Zoom, including Columbia Restaurant and St. Armands Circle property owner Casey Gonzmart.
----------------------------------------
*Design details
The single bridge alternative will replace the two existing bridges with a single structure for all lanes of travel. The new span will include:
- Four 10.5-foot-wide travel lanes
- 11-foot-wide bus lane in both directions
- 5.5-foot-wide bike lanes
- 14-foot-wide shared use path in both directions
These pirates plundered the booty and "arrrr" putting it toward a good cause.
Meals on Wheels Plus of Manatee hosted Tropical Nights on March 23 at the Grove Ballroom.
Captain Jack Sparrow greeted guests, as the event’s theme was “A Pirate’s Life.” Eye patches, scarves and stuffed shoulder parrots were the must-have accessories for the evening.
The Tropical Ave Band provided the music, and the silent auction provided the action. Diamond earrings, a yacht trip and an eight-day European stay were up on the block, along with ABC 7’s Bob Harrigan. The package was called “An Evening with a Meteorologist.”
“We raised over $200,000 last year,” CEO Maribeth Phillips said. “We would love to do that again.”
Meals on Wheels Plus delivers over 300,000 meals a year. The Food Bank of Manatee, one of the Plus programs, has distributed more than 3 million pounds of food into the community.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Tropical Nights. Phillips said there were people in the ballroom who have attended at least 25 of them.
A 52-year-old Sarasota man was killed Sunday night when the pickup truck he was riding in crashed on Fruitville Road, the Florida Highway Patrol said.
Investigators say the pickup, driven by a 49-year-old woman from Myakka, was traveling east on Fruitville Road, east of Spring Brook Farm Road at about 7:20 p.m.
The pickup traveled off the road onto the paved shoulder. The driver overcorrected to the left, traveled back across the travel lanes, hit a guardrail and overturned on the north shoulder.
Neither occupants were wearing seat belts; both were ejected from the pickup, troopers said.
The man was critically injured and taken to an area hospital where he later died. The woman sustained minor injuries.
Cyndi Herschberger and her family came home from spending the day boating on the water and saw the crash right in front of their house. Herschberger said the truck was smashed and investigators were combing the area. She tried to keep her grandkids from seeing the scene.
“It was pretty severe wreckage. There was stuff all over the yard. I don’t know, I guess when it flipped, things flew out of the back of the truck. You know, they had people laying on the ground. It was pretty traumatic. It was very traumatic actually,” said Herschberger.
Herschberger said she was thinking about the families of those involved.
“Weighing heavy on us and we were sending out our prayers to them right now because that’s really what it boils down to,” said Herschberger.
Additionally, Herschberger said Fruitville Road is dangersous and is encouraging everyone to be careful.
“The speeds are very high that people are driving at, there’s a lot of accidents on this road and I just want people to pay a little closer attention to what they are doing when they are out here,” said Herschberger.
This was one of four fatal crashes happening across Sarasota and Manatee counties over the weekend, according to FHP.
I read Sarasota County Commissioner Mike Moran’s March 25 guest column regarding United Way and Planned Parenthood with much dismay. I read it again to make sure I understood him clearly.
Moran made various arguments, but it all seemed to come down to his opposition to Planned Parenthood. He stated it was “uncovered” that United Way’s 211 service provides referrals to Planned Parenthood, as if it was a secret.
Why would it be? Abortion remains legal in our state, along with birth control, Pap tests, cancer screenings and numerous other health services provided by Planned Parenthood.
Is United Way supposed to suppress knowledge of local resources because Moran doesn’t like them? What is Moran afraid of – that people (women) might make up their own minds about the type of help they need?
Suppression of the truth is for cowards and communists.
Molly F. Henry, Sarasota
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