Letters to the Editor

+ If you want change, add parking spaces
Dear Editor:
I have been a resident of  Sarasota for more than 50 years. I cannot imagine anyone wanting to make any changes to downtown Sarasota. 

I feel it has as much charm and beauty as any city in the United States.

If the City Commission wants to do something constructive and sensible, it should remove the unwanted parking meters!

I am sure local government officials can find money for something else. For example, all of us know that putting more parking spaces at Siesta Public Beach would be a great idea. To do otherwise is stupid and illogical.

Putting decorative parking spaces with curbs in the beach parking lot is just foolishly putting good money to waste! Anyone with an ounce of intelligence knows that.

Besides, those decorative changes would remove space for much-needed parking. That would be the equivalent of saying to people, “Just stay home; don’t dare to go to Siesta Beach. We don’t want  you to find a parking spot and enjoy a nice day, because it is supposed to be there for the pleasure of government officials.”
Joan Mastrandrea
Sarasota

+ Call it the ‘little orphaned south end’ 
Dear Editor:
I recently drove on the new Honore Avenue extension from 17th Street to Clark Road, admiring, in astonishment, all the magnificent landscaping, the lovely roundabouts and the stately iron fencing between elegant pillars on a road not-so-well-traveled.  

Then, when I reached Stickney Point Road and the bridge over which thousands of cars pass each day on their way to Siesta Key, I once again considered this miserably unattractive approach to the No. 1 beach in America. 

While waiting for the stoplight or for the bridge to open, one has plenty of time to view the worn-out bits of mulch, the total lack of vegetation on the median and palm trees desperately needing nutrition. The only color comes from little ground-cover flowers. 

I know I live on the “unpreferred” south end, as opposed to the “preferred” (Realtor ad talk) north end, of Siesta Key, but keep in mind just how many cars come onto the Key from the south end to get to America’s No. 1 beach.

By the way, when I was down at Turtle Beach recently, a tourist asked me, “So this is the No. 1 beach in the U.S.?” Oops! 
Franklyn Skidmore
Siesta Key

+ Dorfman wrong about Main Street
Dear Editor:
I am sorry to tell Richard Dorfman, but Main Street is drab (Feb. 15 guest column).

We have been vacationing here for the past five years and have seen no change for the better on Main Street. If it weren’t for the special events held downtown, the streets would be empty, or nearly so.

The Selby Public Library/Sarasota Opera area is lovely, and Burns Square is great. In fact, Burns Court is funky. Main Street is just old and unappealing. Without some updating for Main Street, I think Dorfman will be waiting a long while for, as he said, “the time when our sidewalks are overcrowded with shoppers, etc.”  
Elaine Gallinaro
Cape Cod, Mass.