bserver O SARASOTA
You. Your neighbors. Your neighborhood.
FREE • Thursday, OCTOBER 18, 2012
DIVERSIONS
NEIGHBORHOOD
A tour of a Siesta Key home designed by Ben Baldwin. INSIDE
OUR TOWN
Emily Ervin
Tykes stride through the finish line at world championships. pAGE 1B
SPECIAL SECTION INSIDE
Woman power
by Roger Drouin | City Editor
NEW CHIEF IN TOWN In Ocean City, Md., Bernadette DiPino became the first woman on the SWAT team and trained hundreds of other officers in community policing.
Courtesy photo
+ Overnight Success Local teen and Miss Heart of the USA pageant competitor Emily Ervin recently saw success with an overnight food drive she organized. To benefit All Faiths Food Bank, Emily passed out paper bags in the Wellington Chase neighborhood and asked for non-perishable donations. The next day, the 13-yearold collected 65 bags filled with 375 items, weighing a total of 366 pounds. The Miss Heart of America pageant encourages community service, and Emily will compete for the national title next month in Orlando.
Rachel S. O’Hara
Courtesy photo
Sydney Fagin’s sculpture, “Dancing with the Torah”
+ KobernickAnchin resident gets hands-on One of 90-year-old Kobernick-Anchin Pavilion resident Sidney Fagin’s handmade sculptures was celebrated recently at the retirement complex. The self-taught sculptor began making his clay creations 10 years ago, and his most recent sculpture, “Dancing with the Torah,” was dedicated at a special ceremony Tuesday, Oct. 9. The celebration also honored the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah.
Bernadette DiPino, Sarasota’s first woman to lead the police department, will manage a police force of 174 sworn officers.
Ten years ago, when David Massey was getting ready to retire as police chief in Ocean City, Md., he chose a short list of police officers within the department he wanted to apply for the job. One of those candidates was Bernadette DiPino, then a lieutenant with the Ocean City Police Department. “I picked her out and encouraged her to apply,” Massey said. It couldn’t have come as much of a surprise for DiPino, because, years earlier, Massey tapped a young DiPino, along with a few other officers, as potential leaders in the department. “She wasn’t picked because she was a female, she was picked because she was an achiever,” Massey said of DiPino, who Tuesday was named as the first woman to lead Sarasota’s Police Department as its police chief. DiPino rose in the ranks during her 25 years with the Ocean City Police Department, from a narcotics officer all the way up to chief of police, in 2003. DiPino became the first female SWAT team officer, lieutenant and, eventually, first female police chief in Ocean City. “I saw her come up as an officer, first in narcotics,” Massey said. “I
SEE CHIEF / PAGE 2A
rosemary district by Roger Drouin | City Editor
City sees catalyst project for parcel Nearby property and business owners said the outcome of the vacant land’s development will have a huge impact on the Rosemary District’s future growth.
Photographer Barbara Banks can see a city-owned parcel of vacant land from the window of her photography studio on Fifth Street. Last week, an unlocked gate
swung in the wind, and tall grass grew along a fence surrounding the parcel. Banks would like to see something built on the vacant lot to bring more foot traffic and pro-
mote small businesses in the Rosemary District, a small commercial area six blocks north of Main Street that was quickly becoming a hot spot for restaurants, art studios and boutiques
— until the recession hit. Although Banks would like to see “anything that will bring people into the neighborhood,”
SEE LAND / PAGE 6A
INDEX Briefs.................... 4A Classifieds..........10B
Cops Corner........14A Crossword.............9B
Opinion................. 8A Real Estate...........2B
Sports.................17A Weather................9B
Vol. 8, No. 50 | Four sections YourObserver.com