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JUNE 2018 941.349.0194 | ISLAND VISITOR PUBLISHING, LLC
PRESIDENTS COLUMN We are always looking for greater involvement from the community, fresh ideas and new perspectives
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HAPPY HOUR
www.THELANDINGSOFSARASOTA.com
New evacuation procedures to be implemented this year if a hurricane approaches By Rachel Brown Hackney Along with significant changes in how Sarasota County will order evacuations in advance of an approaching hurricane, staff also has established a list of 17 “rally points” to aid people who cannot drive themselves to an evacuation center. Ed McCrane, the county’s emergency management chief, and Rich Collins, emergency services director for the county, addressed Siesta Key Association (SKA) residents on May 3, bringing them up-to-date on the new procedures. “We discovered that a lot of people don’t drive anymore,” McCrane pointed out as he discussed the county’s response to Hurricane Irma in September 2017. Many older residents, especially, who live well away from designated evacuation centers, he said, need some means of reaching those places. Continued on page 28
Photos from the second LRC happy hour event page
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THE DANGERS OF DREDGING
Historically Sarasotans have had a long-term love affair of damaging nature
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KIDS CORNER
Meet Gavin Bower, 7, 3rd grader at Phillippi Shores IB World School
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FDOT says it would not perform traffic signal re-timing to accommodate Siesta Promenade project By Rachel Brown Hackney The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is seeking a number of clarifications from the consulting firm Kimley-Horn and Associates of Sarasota regarding its traffic studies for the proposed Siesta Promenade mixed-use project. In a document he emailed to Kimley-Horn and Sarasota County Planning and Development Services Department staff on May 4, Nathan Kautz, a traffic services engineer with FDOT’s District One, pointed out, for example, “This development cannot count on new signal timings. Our corridors are re-timed approximately once every five years or so. There is no set schedule.” Kautz was responding on behalf of FDOT staff to the material Kimley-Horn submitted in March, when it replied to questions FDOT and Sarasota County Transportation Planning staff had provided in reviews of the latest proposals from Benderson Development for Siesta Promenade. Planned for the northwest corner of the U.S. 41/Stickney Point Road intersection, Siesta Promenade would have 414 residential units, a 130-room hotel and 140,000 square feet of retail/ commercial space, based on updated documents Benderson Development delivered to the county in March. In January 2017, the Sarasota County Commission approved a request by Benderson Development for the county to consider designating its Siesta Promenade proposal a Critical Area Plan
(CAP). Ultimate CAP approval would give Benderson more leeway with dwelling-unit density. In the meantime, the County Commission action enabled county staff to request more intensive studies than if Benderson had pursued a regular rezoning process for approximately 24 acres that long was the site of a mobile home park. The very last line in Kautz’s 1¼-page response on May 4 was, “As traffic from Siesta Promenade increases, so do the frequency” of expected traffic backups on U.S. 41 at the Stickney Point Road intersection. In its mid-March update, Kimley-Horn wrote that its analysis of road conditions and traffic counts following a February 2017 analysis “assumed signal re-timing as project mitigation, including the signal cycle length at the intersection of State Road 72/ Stickney Point Road & US 41.” While changing the timing of that signal “may make the intersection of US 41 and SR 72 seem to function better,” Katz replied on May 4, “ that would serve to throw off the rest of the signal corridor along US 41.” Katz added, “Please confirm the turn lane queues at that intersection were performed with current signal timings.”
Pool Party – Friday, June 29th at 4 pm
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