Our View

Thursday is likely to be a turning point for the credibility of Longboat Key Town Manager Bruce St. Denis.
He will make his case for going forward next March with a referendum question seeking up to $45.2 million in bond financing for two combined beach projects — to renourish the town’s entire beach (where necessary) and to install breakwater structures at the critical north end.

To make the case, St. Denis will present town commissioners with a comparative analysis of the costs, advantages and disadvantages of four scenarios:

1) Combined bond referendum in March to fund the beach renourishment and installation of protective structures on the critical north end;

2) Separate referenda for the two projects on the March ballot;

3) Separate referenda — one in March for the north end; the other in March 2012 for the entire beach;

4) Combined bond referendum in March 2012 for the entire beach and the north end.

In addition, St. Denis will have Bob Dean, University of Florida professor emeritus in coastal engineering, one of the state’s foremost experts on beach erosion, address the commission on erosion-control alternatives.

There’s no telling how the commissioners will respond. But here is what is likely to emerge:

St. Denis will do what commissioners have wanted — show them authoritatively that the town’s renourishment and hot-spot practices are the most cost-effective approach and that waiting until 2012 for bond referenda could cost taxpayers as much as $8 million more than they might otherwise need to spend.

Beach discussions, commissioners have shown, can be sleep inducing. But this discussion — at 1 p.m. at Town Hall — would be worth your attendance.

To view a PDF table of sand scenarios, click here.

+ Parking on St. Armands
Sarasota city commissioners voted correctly last week not to remove parallel parking spaces on St. Armands Circle on the leg of John Ringling Boulevard leading to Lido Beach.

This is one of those never-ending battles — parking and traffic on St. Armands Circle. It will always be thus.

That is, unless …

First, to think the commissioners were even contemplating eliminating any parking slots around St. Armands defies common sense. Such a move could not possibly improve anything.

Parking is in short supply to begin with. Longtime St. Armands merchants will tell you St. Armands Circle actually could use 1,000 more parking spaces. To eliminate any parking places merely would exacerbate a traffic situation about which so many people already complain. Cut the number of parking slots, and you’ll end up with even more potential shoppers clogging the Circle and side streets looking for a place to light.

That scenario is not only annoying for shoppers and St. Armands residents, but it’s bad for the economy.
Anything that drives away shoppers because they’re frustrated by a parking hassle will result in fewer dollars moving through the economy and fewer sales-tax dollars flowing into city coffers.

An obvious answer is a parking garage. In fact, a long-range St. Armands plan shows a parking garage behind the Columbia Restaurant — on city property.

But true to Sarasota form, a few residents whose homes would be near the garage have squelched the garage with your standard NIMBY protest.

They shouldn’t have such power. This is the classic special-interest effect — a tiny few benefiting at the expense of the many.

Imagine the alternative: a three-deck, architecturally attractive garage (versus the unattractive existing parking lot). With the supply of parking increased, more shoppers (and traffic) would come to St. Armands.
But at least with a garage, there would be someplace to put the cars, thus ameliorating increased traffic.

And with more shoppers, more consumer spending is likely to occur. And this benefits almost everyone.
Merchants have greater sales and profits, more money that will flow back into the economy — either to reinvest to upgrade their stores; to save in a bank, which uses those funds to lend to other growing businesses; or to spend themselves on goods and services that also keep the economy humming. Let’s not forget, either, the slice of this spending that would go toward taxation and public services.

Many, many people win in this scenario while only a few lose (those few who don’t like the parking garage).

This should be all too obvious.

Indeed, Sarasota city commissioners recognized several years ago they needed a downtown parking garage to keep people coming to fuel one of the city’s most important economic engines. St. Armands Circle is no less important.

In the private sector, businesses try to maximize and grow their most valuable assets. Instead of focusing on parallel parking slots, commissioners might step back and look at the bigger picture. Sarasota’s economy needs every boost it can get these days. Wrangling over small matters is missing what should be the bigger issue: That is, figure out how to make the most of one of the city’s most prized jewels. St. Armands Circle should have a parking garage.
 

Alfred Ginewsky: Quite the charmer
He had a twinkle in his eyes and a mischievous, dry wit that made you think he had to be a real, live elf. Maybe even a leprechaun. He was short enough to be both. And he could charm any woman in his presence with witty compliments that would make them giggle and blush, “Alfred, you little devil, you.”

He loved it, and they loved it when he bussed them on the lips.

Alfred Ginewsky was not a household name in Longboat Key and Sarasota’s political and social scenes.
He didn’t crave the spotlight. But he was indeed a special person. Anyone who knew Ginewsky in any degree would tell you that.

Ginewsky, a longtime Longboat resident until a few years ago, died this past weekend. He was 95.

All of us have lost a great role model on life in our latter years.

Ginewsky and his longtime partner, Mimi Edlin, have been two of this area’s biggest supporters of charitable and cultural causes. Before he became too ill this year, they were everywhere, at every event — the two of them full of energy and life, Edlin in her colorful, trademark hats, and Ginewsky, always dapper, sporting bright bow ties that he tied himself and sports coats equally brilliant. (How cool is that: 90-year-old Ginewsky at a wedding on the beach in his yellow jacket and tie, wearing tennis shoes and no socks?)

He could keep you in stitches with his stories and quick one-liners. A couple of years ago, he showed up at an event with an arm in a sling. Asked the obvious question, he said it was a tennis injury. You thought maybe he fell trying to run down a shot.

“I threw the ball up to hit a serve,” he said, “but when I looked up to hit it, I was leaning so far back I lost my balance and fell over backward.” He joked about his being old. But God love him, Ginewsky was out there, engaged, living life, his wit overflowing.

When he and Edlin moved to their condominium at Sarasota Bay Club, he would take guests on a tour.
Once, standing outside the master bedroom, Ginewsky pointed to the room and told the female guest he was escorting in a straight, deadpan tone: “That’s the busiest room in the house.” His eyes twinkled, and ever so slightly, he grinned at his own clever humor.

We cannot forget this picture, one of the final times we saw Ginewsky out on the town. Edlin and Ginewsky’s night at the ballet had ended, and the diminutive, cute couple walked to their Toyota Camry. Edlin opened the door, and Ginewsky climbed in. Off they went, with Edlin driving and Ginewsky sitting in the right rear seat, like royalty being chauffeured back to the castle.

Why that little devil. What man do you know who can persuade his partner to chauffeur him home? Alfred Ginewsky was indeed quite the charmer. He showed us — in his quiet, humble, charming way — how to live right and how to live to the fullest.