- April 24, 2024
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The Sarasota Observer story about the development community gearing up against STOP was most interesting. I watched both anti-STOP videos posted by the Moving Forward group and can only conclude they don’t really understand what STOP is all about.
Ken Shelin actually writes that STOP's goal of returning to public hearings for large new projects is un-American. Really? I have to say I am mystified by that: last time I checked, the right to speak in public to our elected officials is about as American as you can get. Shelin’s presentation is filled with inaccuracies and also contains plenty of arguments about issues STOP has no position on.
Meanwhile, Chris Gallagher says “I don’t know how you could possibly make the case that public hearings lead to better buildings,” and sets up the argument that some bad buildings have gone up in spite of public hearings and some good ones without them. Nobody would dispute this. No public hearing can guarantee a good architect or a responsible developer. What a public hearing can do is give people an opportunity to express their concerns: it can increase the likelihood of a more compatible building.
Compatibility may touch upon aesthetics -- for example screening a parking garage. Generally speaking, though, public hearings are about more mundane things – like lighting, noise, location of entrances and so on. Perhaps the critics of STOP deliberately focus on these 'made-up' issues because they don’t have good arguments against the real ones.
Let’s hope we will soon have more serious discussions about these important issues: public input for new buildings, wide sidewalks, and better traffic studies. STOP works to improve the overall appearance, pedestrian safety and function of our downtown.
Mollie C. Cardamone
STOP! Steering committee member and former city commissioner
Recently, White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney proposed eliminating a number of federal programs which help fund programs like Meals on Wheels.
In his announcement, Mulvaney said, “We're not going to spend [money] on programs that cannot show that they actually deliver the promises that we’ve made to people.” Doing away with Meals on Wheels, he said, would “show compassion.”
This is insulting and false. I see first-hand how profoundly the program impacts the community. Meals on Wheels does make a difference, it does have critical results, and taking away food and human contact from vulnerable people does not “show compassion.”
Sarasota’s Meals on Wheels annually serves more than 160,000 meals to homebound seniors, veterans, disabled people, individuals recovering from surgery or coping with a serious illness, and even children. In most cases, the one meal they receive from us is all they will eat that day.
We think saving a life is a great “result.” How about you?
We fear that this proposed budget cut would leave millions of people in dire situations. For 2.4 million Americans, Meals on Wheels makes the difference between continuing to live in their homes—where they want to be—rather than moving to a nursing home.
Enabling people to remain at home averts costly health-care expenses incurred through Medicare and Medicaid. By expediting recovery from illness, injury and surgery, Meals on Wheels reduces unnecessary visits to the emergency room, admissions and readmits to hospitals, and premature placement in nursing homes.
This saves all taxpayers significant money. Current studies show that spending one day in a hospital (or six days in a nursing home) costs more than providing one person a daily meal for a year.
We encourage our friends in the community to do two things for Meals on Wheels if you believe our mission has merit.
First, help us raise funds so that we can continue to meet our mission by visiting mealsonwheelssarasota.com/donate.
Second, contact Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Bill Nelson and Rep. Vern Buchanan.
Currently, one in six seniors in Florida contends with food insecurity, meaning they do not know when their next meal will come from. The average life expectancy is rising, as is the cost of living, which will have ramifications in the years to come.
More than ever, Meals on Wheels needs financial support to meet the needs of a fast-growing senior population.
Marjorie Broughton,
Executive Director, Meals on Wheels of Sarasota County
I was stunned and disappointed by your editorial of April 13, 2017 upbraiding Sarasota City Manager Tom Barwin for his effort to encourage us to reduce harm to the environment.
If you spend a few minutes looking at NASA's Web page, you will learn that there is near-total consensus (97%) among the scientists studying climate change that global warming, and the sea rise that it is causing, have been worsened by the way humans have misused the planet which God has placed in our hands.
I appreciate the thoughtful manner in which Tom Barwin has invited us to seek ways to slow the dumping of carbon into our atmosphere and thereby to protect the life and economy of Sarasota.
To do anything less would strike me aa "Stunningly Stupid," to borrow your phrase.
William Cook, Ph.D,
Longboat Key
There certainly has been and remains a desire to expand the downtown merchant and pedestrian walkable area outward from Main Street, and the area near Lemon has always been a desirable opportunity.
Many years ago, there was major discussion concerning making a traffic loop area around the business district, and the north portion discussed was 10th Street which I believe would still work, but not the entire 10th Street as in the recent reply from our Alex DavisShaw. I think willing people can make this work if we want it bad enough.
At Fruitville Road and the railroad tracks, just west of Lime, you start the northern bypass, up the railroad right-of-way and west to where it connects with Orange Avenue just north of 10th. You then tie it into 10th and continue west to U.S. 41. You also partner with our friends of the Legacy Trail, because they eventually are going to have to put a major bridge over Fruitville.
You partner and construct it with their input to the place where the railroad splits west co-ordinating and adding their needs for their trail on the east side of the bypass-road portion, purchasing what additional footage is needed to comfortably and safely allow for road and Legacy Trail.
You also make the extension to U.S. 41 very bike-friendly with wider, safer, bike lanes which we really need to consider for all Sarasota County as we move forward, as is now being done in St. Petersburg.
This thus allows for a major safe evacuation road for our friends on the keys, takes a lot of cut-through traffic off the proposed downtown business extensions, and allows making Fruitville pedestrian-friendly.
I'm sure one can nitpick this to pieces like we seem to do with a lot of things, but it generally makes sense, So, let's instead of finding a way things won't work, find a way, as we used to do many years ago, to make it work for the betterment of the overall community.
Wells Purmort,
Sarasota
