Longboat Observer 11.01.12

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bserver O LONGBOAT

You. Your neighbors. Your neighborhood.

NEWS

Selby Gardens works with the town to preserve rare plants. PAGE 5A

OUR TOWN

Courtesy photo

Bill and Judy Carman

+ 50 years of wedded bliss Longboat Key residents Bill and Judy Carman recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. They were married July 27, 1962, in Ann Arbor, Mich., and honeymooned on Mackinaw Island, Mich. To celebrate 50 years of marriage, the couple revisited the island in June and enjoyed the annual Lilac Festival. The Carman’s also celebrated locally in July with a dinner hosted by their three sons Matthew, Christopher and Jeffery and attended by close friends. The couple has lived on Longboat for 43 years and was formerly in business at Carman’s shoes and Handbags on St. Armands for 46 years. They retired two years ago.

+ Time to turn back the clocks It’s the one day of the year that we get to turn back the hands of time. Daylight Saving Time ends at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 4, so turn your clocks back before you head to bed Saturday night.

+ Photog captures natural moments Longboat Key photographer Mary Lou Johnson’s photography is featured in a four-page article in the October 2012 Southern Boating magazine. The article is titled “Nature’s playground” and features Longboat Key as “a barrier island on Florida’s southwest coast that’s worth the voyage.” The magazine is available at Barnes & Noble and other magazine racks.

SEE OT / PAGE 20A

free • Thursday, NOVEMBER 1, 2012

DIVERSIONS

NEIGHBORHOOD

The Ballet highlights Ringling’s history in circus-themed ‘Nutcracker.’ INSIDE

Longboat Key Chamber hosts third annual triathlon. PAGE 21A

THINKING BIG

by Robin Hartill | City Editor

Right place, right time Michael Welly sat in the chair, his head covered in electrodes, as 25 top local executives read his mind. It was 2010 at one of Ringling College of Art and Design’s first corporate creativity retreats. Jane Buckman, executive director of the Longboat Key Center for the Arts, a Division of Ringling College of Art and Design, needed a subject who would agree to let Creative Mindflow founder George Pierson read his brainwaves in front of the audience. She asked Welly, general manager of the Longboat Key Club and Resort, for one reason: She thought he would do it. “I don’t think he knew what he was getting into,” Buckman said, laughing. That Welly found himself sitting there shouldn’t come as a surprise. Ask those who know him about his eight-and-a-half years at the Key Club and they’ll give you a list of the times he stepped up: He’s been a board member of the Sarasota Tiger Bay Club, the YMCA Foundation and the Longboat Key Chamber of Commerce. He has served on the Arts Center’s Creativity Council, sat through countless Town Hall meetings and welcomed community groups to the Key Club. Buckman remembers Pierson being shocked by what he saw: Welly’s theta waves — the

SAND SAVER

The Longboat Key Club and Resort’s general manager Michael Welly is saying ‘goodbye’ after eight-and-a-half years.

Robin Hartill

Lynn Weddington and Longboat Key Club and Resort General Manager Michael Welly were married during a recent trip to Italy. They’ll head to the West Coast before deciding the next step in their careers.

New management / PAGE 2A brain waves associated with a creative, dreamlike state — were “off the charts”-wide. “George was not expecting that,” Buckman said. “He was

thinking he was a big executive in tourism and hospitality and wasn’t expecting to see what he saw. He was pleasantly surprised.” Maybe the breadth of those theta waves shouldn’t have been so surprising. Love it or hate it, Welly’s creative vision for the Key Club has been at the center

of debate throughout the town for four-and-a-half years. Welly, along with about a dozen Key Club employees, many of them top management, were terminated last week in what Welly said was “anticipated” following Delray Beach-based

SEE WELLY / PAGE 2A

by Kurt Schultheis | Managing Editor

Port Dolphin sand to arrive next summer The town of Longboat Key will perform a hot spot beach project in summer 2013 to help high-erosion areas Key-wide. By next summer, the town of Longboat Key will likely have removed sand from a borrow site miles out in the Gulf where a natural-gas pipeline is being placed. Last month, Town Manager Dave Bullock announced that he has signed the offshore lease with the U.S. Depart-

ment of the Interior (Bureau of Ocean Energy Management) for access to the sand that lies under the Port Dolphin LLC natural-gas pipeline project on the floor of the Gulf. “The town has been working on this lease for some time,” Bullock wrote. “This lease secures our access to

this sand.” Public Works Director Juan Florensa said the town has until June 2013 to take approximately 300,000 cubic yards of sand for use for a future beach project. It’s expected, though, that Port Dolphin could ask

SEE SAND / PAGE 6A

File photo

Sand loss near North Shore Road is so substantial that sand that was put in front of Longbeach condominium’s seawall has disappeared at high tide in less than one year’s time.

INDEX Briefs....................4A Classifieds ........ 29A

Cops Corner....... 12A Crossword.......... 28A

Opinion.................8A Permits.............. 24A

Real Estate........ 25A Weather............. 28A

Vol. 35, No. 15 | Two sections YourObserver.com


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