9 hours ago Share A vocal critic of local government played a key role in denying the request, an outcome city officials described as highly unusual.
The Southwest Florida Water Management District gave high marks to the city’s plans to build an 18-acre wetland to improve the quality of water discharging into Sarasota Bay.
In its assessment of the project, SWFWMD staff said the project’s treatment of runoff from a 5,800-acre watershed would remove a significant amount of nutrients from water entering the bay.
A report said the project was cost effective and in line with the governor’s directive to prioritize projects that will mitigate harmful algal blooms. Staff deemed the project a high priority for a $1.5 million grant.
Joel Schleicher
As the Sarasota/Charlotte County representative on the Southwest Florida Water Management District Governing Board, I’m writing to correct misleading, inaccurate statements made in the April 13 article written by Timothy Fanning on the Bobby Jones water quality project.
These inaccuracies would have been rectified had Fanning reached out to me or a district representative. Frankly the reporter made no real effort to do what’s supposed to be done – get the story right.
The district has four Regional Cooperative Funding Initiative subcommittees (commonly referred to as CFIs ): Northern, Southern, Heartland and Tampa. This is done to push the knowledge for cooperative funding requests to a more local level; for example, I have a better grasp of what is occurring in Manatee, Sarasota and Charlotte counties than I might in the Tampa and Northern districts.
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The decision comes as City Manager Marlon Brown said he will not enforce the mask mandate.
The motion was to ask the city attorney to craft the ordinance. In order for it to become law, city commissioners need to approve an ordinance two more times.
City Attorney Bob Fournier intends to have the ordinance prepared for its first reading in May.
Commissioners Jen Ahearn-Koch, Liz Alpert and Kyle Battie were in support. Mayor Hagen Brody and Vice Mayor Erik Arroyo were against it.
This story is developing and will be updated.
Timothy Fanning covers Sarasota government for the Herald-Tribune. Reach Timothy at tim.fanning@heraldtribune.com or on Twitter: @timothyjfanning. Support the Herald-Tribune by subscribing today.