PelicanPress SIESTA KEY
Happy Hanukkah!
AN OBSERVER NEWSPAPER
FREE • Thursday, december 13, 2012
NEWS A second-floor fire forces Peppertree condo evacuation. PAGE 3A
OUR TOWN + Six babies crying, 12 nurses working According to Kim Savage, Sr. communications editor for the Sarasota Memorial Health Care System, six babies were delivered and 12 nurses were working in the labor and delivery unit on 12/12/12. Savage also mentioned that as of press time, six more babies were expected to be delivered before midnight at Sarasota Memorial Hospital.
SCHOOLS
DIVERSIONS
ODA students present sounds of the season. PAGE 1B
sand standoff
Holiday cookie recipes flavored with history. INSIDE
by Alex Mahadevan | News Editor
County OKs beach project design Sarasota County engineers and a private design team estimate construction will take 27 months. The design pencils are back to scribbling plans for the Siesta Key public beach renovation after a three-month standoff about cost estimates and add-ons. Sarasota County commissioners approved the 60% design phase of the project, which currently has a $21.5 million budget,
and compressed a construction timeframe that stretched to 2024 down to roughly 27 months. In September, county staff stopped the design team, Kimley Horn and Associates and Sweet Sparkman Architects, from further work on the plans so it could collect public input on proposed
Handy, man
alternatives, according to an email from Sarasota County Project Manager Curtis Smith. “Our beach is a golden egg that has brought a lot of people revenue,” said Siesta Key Association President Catherine Luckner, who spoke to the board about the urgency to proceed with the project. Commissioners also voted, with Commission Chairwoman Christine Robinson dissenting,
to borrow against future surtax dollars for any costs greater than the $7.5 million already appropriated for the project. “The caveat there is the program will be very tight going forward,” said Sarasota County Director of Financial Planning Steve Botelho. The surtax program, also called the economic stimulus
SEE BEACH PROJECT / 2A
by Yaryna Klimchak | Staff Writer
Neighborhood Nostalgia + I want to ride my bicycle The Unitarian Universalist Church of Sarasota is helping Sarasota put the pedal to the metal by sponsoring a bike and bike-part collection from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 15. The event will take place in the UUCS parking lot and is co-sponsored by Suncoast Community Bikes, a startup nonprofit for bikes for the poor. The organization collects, repairs and distributes bicycles and bicycle parts, but donations are needed to keep the program going. For more information, call 206-6201.
File photo
+ Siesta Key condos to light the way The Dec. 18 Siesta Key Condo Lighting Contest is approaching, and holiday lights are appearing along Midnight Pass Road. Siesta Dunes Condominium, above, Beachaven Condominium and Sandpiper Beach Club won last year's competition for each respective size category.
Siesta Key Hardware has retained its mom-and-pop charm, even though it is a far cry from the lone-cash-register store it once was. This year marks 40 years since Wally Von Atzinger and his business partner, Bill Podewitz, established the store in 1972. Von Atzinger, a natural handyman, bought the store, located at 215 Canal Road in Siesta Key Village, from Podewitz after its first year of operation. He later passed it on to his daughter, Cheryl Duley, and her husband, John, who proposed to Cheryl in the store. The store holds decades of memories for the Duleys. “My dad always taught me, ‘Find something you would want to do with your life that you would do for free,’ and the hardware store is something I would have done for free,” Duley says. Von Atzinger’s wife, Nora, did the bookkeeping while his daughter helped run the store. “We weren’t supposed to know what we were doing,” Duley says. “I mean, what the heck do I know about plumbing and electrical or installing a sprinkler system?” When she first started working at the store, she absorbed all of her father’s handyman knowledge like a sponge. “I used to just follow my dad around and listen to him wait on everybody in the first year or so,” she says. She remembers a simpler Si-
SEE HARDWARE / PAGE 5A
Siesta Key Hardware has retained its mom-and-pop feel throughout four decades and under different ownerships.
Yaryna Klimchak
Above: Current Siesta Key Hardware owner Jim Hillier has implemented new technology to keep the store’s stock up to date.
Courtesy
Right: John and Cheryl Duley hold up an ad for the 20-year anniversary sale of Siesta Key Hardware.
INDEX Briefs....................4A Classifieds ........ 10B
Cops Corner....... 12A Crossword............ 9B
Opinion .............. 8A Real Estate.......... 6B
Sports................ 15A Vol. 43, No. 20 | Three sections YourObserver.com Weather............... 9B