Circle officials bemoan lack of service

Provide garbage cans with lids on them and prune the palm trees.

The St. Armands Landowner’s Merchants and Residents (LMAR) members don’t think they’re asking too much of the city to perform these two basic tasks.

And, although city Public Works Director Todd Kucharski doesn’t disagree, he said there’s no available funding to trim the trees or replace the trashcans at this time.

“I simply have no money budgeted for it,” Kucharski said.

The city eliminated available funds for both services more than a year ago, and LMAR members said the Circle is headed down a slippery path. Specifically, rodents living in the overgrown palm trees could begin making thier way down into the Circle to rummage through the garbage inside the open trashcans.

Kucharski urged LMAR members to lobby the commission to request annual palm trimming when the commission discuss its upcoming budget this summer.

Kucharski also noted that the commission directed staff to investigate tree trimming around the city after it was pointed out that dead palms falling off the trees could be considered a public safety hazard.

“Emphasize in a letter you need an increased level of service,” Kucharski said.

St. Armands Circle Business Improvement District (BID) Chairman Marty Rappaport said the BID would address levels of service on the Circle at its next meeting to see if its board can work more closely with city officials to address service issues.

“The problem is we don’t know the level of service has been cut until it’s too late and now the palms are causing us problems,” Rappaport said, adding that he and others are frustrated because the city has helped pay for Circle projects, such as enhanced medians, that it now isn’t maintaining.

Noting that 65% of those who visit Sarasota come to the Circle, Rappaport said, “It seems to me the city has to look to a certain extent at what areas they are getting a benefit from and realize they are cutting areas that help our local economy.”

St. Armands Circle Association President Diana Corrigan called the city’s lack of funds after it’s helped create more infrastructures “totally illogical.”

“We have all these things (the city) has done and now (the city) doesn’t have the money to maintain it,” Corrigan said. “Now the city doesn’t look beautiful because they don’t have the money to put in. If you invest money to build something, it’s illogical not to have money set aside to maintain it.”

The hour-long conversation evolved into a discussion on how both commercial and residential districts are going to have to operate in the future moving forward to counteract a reduced level of service from the city.

“BIDs and DIDs are obviously the wave of the future to attack the lack of city funds and attain a level of service we want and feel we deserve,” Rappaport said.

When Rappaport suggested residential communities in Sarasota should start forming organizations that tax themselves to get the level of service they want, it was mentioned the Circle’s homeowners association is in the early stages of creating such a district.

Rappaport and others suggested if the city and the commissioners don’t start putting dollars for basic services in tourism-prone areas of the city, they are going to start losing visitors they depend upon each season.

Corrigan said the lack of service would create a negative impact in the coming years unless something is done.

“If the city doesn’t invest here or even just maintain (the Circle), then when Benderson builds its mall out east, it’s going to kill downtown and St. Armands Circle,” Corrigan said.

Rappaport suggested the city should create a referendum that allows the voters to decide whether they are willing to pay more in taxes to keep or increase the current level of city service.

City Purchasing Manager Mary Tucker urged the group to band together with other commercial and residential groups to talk to the commission about the issues they are facing at a future meeting.