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Longboat Key | Opinion

The Colony Beach and Tennis Resort has been closed for almost a decade.
    By
  • Matt Walsh
  • January 31, 2018
The greater legacy

The Colony represents the future of Longboat Key. We urge the Silent Majority not to squander this opportunity.

  • Longboat Key
  • Opinion
Dave Bullock and Juan Florensa
    By
  • Matt Walsh
  • January 31, 2018
They set the standard

Bullock and Florensa raised the bar of public service.

  • Longboat Key
  • Opinion
The Colony has been closed since August 2010.
    By
  • Observer Staff
  • January 24, 2018
Colony conversation continues

Too big, too dense, just what the town needs. The opinions on the Colony Beach & Tennis Resort redevelopment are as varied as the neighborhoods on Longboat Key. This week, we publish letters in response to last week’s editorial, ‘Make Longboat Special.'

  • Longboat Key
  • Opinion
    By
  • Matt Walsh
  • January 17, 2018
Make Longboat special

They’re back, and doing it again. Longboat Key’s ardent anti-development, anti-traffic forces are stoking their constituents to kill Unicorp National Development’s latest redevelopment proposal for the Colony Beach & Tennis Resort property.

  • Longboat Key
  • Opinion
Clockwise from top left: Gil Waters in victory after the opening of the new Ringling Bridge, August 2003. Waters and city engineer Alex Davis-Shaw. Waters and his wife, Elisabeth. “The Old Coots Lunch Bunch.”
    By
  • Matt Walsh
  • January 10, 2018
Tribute to a visionary

For nearly 60 years, Gil Waters was a force in Sarasota. Thanks to his passion, vision and determination, we have the ‘Gil Waters Bridge,’ the Van Wezel and FCCI Insurance.

  • Longboat Key
  • Opinion
    By
  • Matt Walsh
  • January 3, 2018
THE WORD: 20-GREAT-TEEN!

Despite the World of Trump, Washington and the national media, we can continue to turn the tide with our own decorum and the push for economic freedom and prosperity.

  • Longboat Key
  • Opinion
    By
  • Matt Walsh
  • December 27, 2017
We’re Main Street; not ‘mainstream’

The national news media have smeared all of journalism, while the media tech giants admit they ‘are destroying how society works.’ Whom can you trust? Some of us still place a high value on credibility, reliability and trustworthiness.

  • Longboat Key
  • Opinion
    By
  • Matt Walsh
  • December 20, 2017
At the time of Christ’s birth

It's a story that crosses religions and faiths.

  • Longboat Key
  • Opinion
Eric Garwood rang the bell at Longboat Key's Publix for the first time this season.
    By
  • Eric Garwood
  • December 16, 2017
Ringing in the holiday spirit

A stint for the Kiwanis Club at the Salvation Army kettle puts a jingle in the season.

  • Longboat Key
  • Opinion
    By
  • Matt Walsh
  • December 13, 2017
Find a way to say yes

This time, the next step in the Colony saga is for real. As Longboat’s P&Z board weighs Unicorp’s plans, it also should consider the alternative: more of the same.

  • Longboat Key
  • Opinion
Longboaters having fun and supporting a cause at the Lawn Party
    By
  • Matt Walsh
  • December 6, 2017
In the end, well worth it

Every year, the Lawn Party organizers fret and worry about how they’re going to pull it off. It’s a miracle — of American generosity, volunteerism and capitalism.

  • Longboat Key
  • Opinion
    By
  • Matt Walsh
  • December 6, 2017
Dec. 7, 1941

Longboat's Pearl Harbor hero

  • Longboat Key
  • Opinion
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.
    By
  • Matt Walsh
  • November 29, 2017
Unfair for 155 years

Sen. Bill Nelson laments how the Republicans’ proposed tax reform is unfair. Duh. The U.S. tax system has never been fair. But we’ll take the corporate tax cut over no cut.

  • Longboat Key
  • Opinion
    By
  • Matt Walsh
  • November 29, 2017
Make them pay — with their own money, boot them out

The rules need to be the same across the board.

  • Longboat Key
  • Opinion
    By
  • Matt Walsh
  • November 21, 2017
What drove the Pilgrims to America?

'Their desires were set on the ways of God and to enjoy his ordinances.'

  • Longboat Key
  • Opinion
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