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You. Your neighbors. Your neighborhood. FEBRUARY2013
sarasota
ASOLO REPERTORY THEATRE | FLORIDA STUDIO THEATRE | RINGLING MUSEUM OF ART SARASOTA BALLET | SARASOTA OPERA | SARASOTA ORCHESTRA
SPECIAL Look inside for the Arts Calendar, a monthly guide to cultural events.
OUR TOWN + Have band, will travel Local musicians looking for a regular gig are in luck. The Sarasota Farmers Market Music Committee is seeking musicians of all styles, to play each Saturday at the market, which takes place from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Interested performers should call (727) 420-1613.
+ Duck, duck goose Teddy Jordan and siblings Kaylie, Kristina and Adam Schay, lived out a real-life version of the childhood game “Duck, Duck, Goose” Sunday, Jan. 27, at the We Love Israel Streetfair and Marketplace. Children played with several barnyard animals as part of the event.
DIVERSIONS
NEIGHBORHOOD Native American Festival teaches culture and tradition. PAGE 1B
front-of-the-line
gulf gate We explore the area’s culinary world.
by Roger Drouin | City Editor
First Street to undergo facelift The street will get wider sidewalks, underground utilities, brick crosswalks and lush landscaping.
First Street business owners spent the last year observing the city finalize streetscape projects to improve both Main Street and North Palm Avenue. They wondered when their street would get similar attention. Now they have their answer. A $1.6 million First Street improvement project could start as soon as fall. Merchants say, until now, the city has overlooked the lesstraversed street north of Main Street when it comes to sidewalk maintenance, rusted lampposts and aging utilities. According to Rebecca Hopkins, longtime manager at Florida Studio Theatre, it got so bad that it was unsafe for people to walk from the city’s new public parking garage on Palm Avenue to the performing-arts venues on First Street. “There is a kind of divide once you hit this end of downtown,” Hopkins said. But, the project to add new wider sidewalks and plant lush landscaping will put First Street on the same aesthetic level as Main Street and Palm Avenue. In addition to the wider sidewalks and new landscaping, the project will add brick-paver crosswalks, new decorative lampposts and underground
Yaryna Klimchak
J.P. Knaggs, owner of Bijou Café, and Rebecca Hopkins, managing director of Florida Studio Theatre, lobbied the city for First Street improvements, such as wider sidewalks and new decorative lampposts. power utilities. City officials are also exploring the possibility of building two new roundabouts on First Street, to make it a more pedestrianfriendly corridor. The pair of roundabouts, one at First Street and Cocoanut Avenue and the other at First Street and Pineapple Avenue, would be similar in size to roundabouts that opened in June on Ringling
+ Leading ladies Applications are currently being accepted for the Giving Matters Youth Philanthropy Leadership Award, in Memory of Lois B. Green. The annual award recognizes a female high school student, in grades 10 to 12, who gives her time and talents to the community. Applications may be submitted until Friday, Feb. 1. The winner will be announced by March 29 and will receive a $1,000 prize to be awarded as a $500 scholarship to the winner’s choice of a postsecondary educational institution and a $500 contribution to her choice of a local non-profit organization.
FREE • Thursday, JANUARY 31, 2013
Boulevard downtown. Those roundabouts cost $1.3 million total to construct. “We don’t have funding for the construction of the (First Street roundabouts) now,” said City Planner Steve Stancel. “But we are looking to see if roundabouts make sense.”
Long-awaited facelift
get as much foot traffic as either Main Street or Palm Avenue, the two-block stretch slated for wider sidewalks and lush landscaping is home to FST, Bijou Café and the Sarasota Opera House. It also acts a direct route from the RitzCarlton, Sarasota to downtown. Businesses were happy to hear that after years without seeing
Although First Street doesn’t
STRATEGY SEEKING
SEE FIRST STREET / PAGE 2A
by Roger Drouin | City Editor
Camp shows complexity of the homeless issue A homeless population staying on Central Avenue illustrates the city’s difficulty in trying to find a strategy to deal with an increasing homeless population.
Roger Drouin
Ray Seymour, an out-of-work handyman, has been applying for jobs.
For years, Ray Seymour, a 52-yearold out-of-work handyman and tree trimmer, has been one of the homeless people camping on the sidewalk in front of the Rosemary Cemetery. Seymour has been looking for work — he filled out four job applications one day last week.
“We cool out here,” said Seymour, sitting next to his friend, Kevin Gardner, 54, who is also homeless. “We don’t get in trouble.” The group in front of the cemetery along Central Avenue, however, has
SEE HOMELESS / PAGE 2A
INDEX Briefs.................... 4A Classifieds..........11B
Cops Corner........11A Crossword...........10B
Opinion................. 8A Real Estate...........8B
Sports.................19A Weather..............10B
Vol. 9, No. 13 | Four sections YourObserver.com