PelicanPress SIESTA KEY
AN OBSERVER NEWSPAPER
FREE • Thursday, SEPTEMBER 20, 2012
Volunteers scour Siesta’s shore during annual cleanup. PAGE 5A
OUR TOWN
SPORTS
DIVERSIONS
COMMUNITY
Leaves change colors in Jackie Peters Cully’s upcoming exhibit. INSIDE
best laid plans
Alec Zec starts his final season with the Rampage. pAGE 19A
by Alex Mahadevan | News Editor
County discusses Comp Plan Sarasota County staff will meet with two developers to start working out kinks in the 2050 Comprehensive Plan. Staff will also update construction-fee data.
Photo courtesy of Catherine Luckner
The rumors about Sarasota County’s plans to cut 1,200 pages from the 2050 Comprehensive Plan were partially true. The 1,300-page document, adopted in 2002 to guide future development, might slim down, but it would be to fit on the screen of mobile technology, explained County Administrator
Randall Reid during a County Commission growth workshop Sept. 18. Although Reid said staff recommends cutting 80% of the document, that portion would be moved into a separate volume. The goal is to create an application or electronic document with hyperlinks that can
recall parts of the 1,000 pages taken from the plan when a pertinent sentence in the reduced Comp Plan is clicked. The meeting was meant to start a dialogue with commissioners about making the plan easier to understand, in compliance with new state requirements and shift focus toward
implementation of its policies. What followed was a free-form discourse that highlighted some new ways to focus on redevelopment. The discussion ended with updating the base of development fees that have remained untouched for five years.
SEE CUTS / PAGE 6A
+ Lost and found The Siesta Key community rallied together over the weekend to reunite a lost dog with his owner. Found running loose in the dark Friday night along Midnight Pass Road and Beach Road, Siesta resident Catherine Luckner rescued the dog. Luckner soon spread the word through email to her friends in hope of helping the finding the lost dog find his way back home. The dog was taken to the Animal Services Center, where he was given some TLC and reunited with his family a day later. Luckner noted that pets often go missing on Siesta Key and that they may want to start a missing pet hotline.
SURF’S UP Courtesy photo
+ Best buds Kindergarteners at The Out-of-Door Academy had their annual Buddies Picnic Friday, Sept. 14, at the lower-school campus. Members of the class of 2013 and the class of 2025 were matched up as buddies for the year and spent the afternoon getting to know one another. This year, there are 24 kindergartners and 53 seniors, all of whom are taking part in the buddy program. The tradition of lunch and playing on the playground is a prelude to convocation Friday, Sept. 21, when the seniors will be celebrated for their leadership.
Rachel S. O’Hara
Mark Weeks laughs as Caiden Woodworth, 5, raises his arms up in the air victoriously Saturday, Sept. 15, during Hang 10 for Autism on Siesta Key Beach. This was Caiden’s second year participating in the event. For more photos, see page 12A.
safety island
by Alex Mahadevan | News Editor
Crosswalk construction starts this month A Florida Department of Transportation project aimed at improving pedestrian safety on Midnight Pass Road has evolved from raised medians to six crosswalks. Five members of the Sarasota County Fire Department walked into St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church Sept. 17, and they left content. The process took longer than a year, but the Florida Department
of Transportation will start work on new safety features for Siesta Key roads. The six crosswalks that will be constructed on Midnight Pass Road will each include yellow flashing pedestrian signs but won’t have raised “pedestrian is-
been parked behind the church. The emergency personnel Chapman mentioned came in to look at the crosswalk plans to make sure they wouldn’t affect their jobs. When the project, which was awarded to a contractor with a $190,827 bid June
lands” in the middle lane. “My concern is to make sure these guys are happy,” said Fire Safety Inspector Richard Chapman, who remained at the FDOT open house after his younger colleagues left in a fire truck that had SEE CROSSWALKS / PAGE 2A
INDEX Briefs....................4A Classifieds ........ 26A
Cops Corner..........9A Crossword.......... 25A
Opinion .............. 8A Real Estate........ 20A
Sports................ 15A Weather............. 21A
Vol. 43, No. 8 | Two sections YourObserver.com