- Named Best Florida Newspaper In Its Class -
VOL 20 No. 13
January 8, 2020
Pier lease offer to be discussed Friday An RFP will be issued to potential bidders if the commission rejects Mario Schoenfelder’s final lease offer. BY JOE HENDRICKS SUN CORRESPONDENT | jhendricks@amisun.com
Shivering in the New Year SARAH PARSONS | SUN
The annual Clancy’s Shamrock Shiver Charity Plunge draws a huge and colorful crowd ready to get cold and wet on New Year’s Day. Page 11.
ANNA MARIA – On Friday, Jan. 10, Mayor Dan Murphy and the City Commission will discuss Mario Schoenfelder’s final offer to lease the restaurant and bait shop buildings being built on the new city pier. The commission originally planned to discuss Schoenfelder’s offer at the regular commission meeting on Thursday, Jan. 9, which starts at 6 p.m. But Schoenfelder is currently residing at his home in Germany, and the time difference would result in him participating via telephone in a commission meeting that would start at midnight German time. Friday’s 10 a.m. meeting will allow Schoenfelder to participate in a meeting that will begin at 4 p.m. where he’s at. During Friday’s meeting, the commission is expected to accept or reject the final pier lease offer Schoenfelder submitted in writing on Dec. 22. Schoenfelder proposes to pay $8,000 per month in base rent, with the first six months of a new, 10year lease to be rent-free and an annual Consumer Price Index-based rent adjustment that takes effect after three years. SEE PIER, PAGE 19
Did a meteorite just hit AMI? Crater raises question of possible impact from space
No damage was done to the home on 84th Street in Holmes Beach BY JOE HENDRICKS SUN CORRESPONDENT | jhendricks@amisun.com
HOLMES BEACH – Part-time Holmes Beach residents Dorene Collier and AJ LeBlanc wonder if a small meteorite or some other falling object started a small fire in the backyard of Collier’s home on 84th Street Friday night. Collier and LeBlanc were in Tampa when the Friday, Jan. 3, fire occurred.
INSIDE NEWS 4 CALENDAR 7 OUTDOORS 18-19 FOOD & WINE 21 REAL ESTATE 22-26 RESTAURANTS 27 CLASSIFIEDS 29-31
“We were getting ready for a renter to come in for a few months. We pressure-washed everything that day, and everything was wet, so it doesn’t seem like it was started by any kind of brush fire,” Collier said, when speaking by telephone from Tampa on Saturday afternoon. Collier’s neighbor, Carol Whitmore, was walking her dog Friday night and reported the fire. “Our neighbor noticed some kind of fire, and the fire department came,” Collier said. “They didn’t find any signs of an electri-
cal fire, cigarette butts or firecrackers or anything like that. I asked her to go by this morning, and the pictures she sent me show this big hole in the ground. “It appears that something might have hit from out of the sky and made this hole in the ground that started this fire,” she added. “I don’t have proof of it, but I’ve eliminated everything else. There was no lightning last night, everything was wet outdoors and CAROL WHITMORE | SUBMITTED
SEE CRATER, PAGE 19
Carol Whitmore discovered this crater when she visited her neighbor’s property on Saturday.
MORE THAN 700
FRIENDS REMEMBER
birds are counted in the Audubon Society’s annual bird count. 15
Octavio Utrera. 3
Anna Maria Island, Florida
MULLETT makes tasty rillettes.
In Food & Wine. 21
The Island’s award-winning weekly newspaper www.amisun.com