LONGBOAT
Observer
New commish sworn in. PAGE 2A
Longboat Key’s weekly newspaper since 1978
YOU. YOUR NEIGHBORS. YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
FREE • THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 2024
VOLUME 46, NO. 24
YOUR TOWN
Carter Weinhofer
Savannah Cobb and Stephanie Janney
Planting hope
Whenever a town clerk might be needed on Longboat Key, the office certainly has it covered now. Not to say that wasn’t the case before, but Deputy Town Clerk Savannah Cobb and Administrative Assistant Stephanie Janney recently went the extra mile to be trained to take their skills a step further. Cobb has been with the town for about seven years and was already a certified municipal clerk. But as of Jan. 2, she is now a master municipal clerk. The certification required about 200 hours of more extensive clerk training. Around the same time, on Dec. 27, Janney officially became a certified municipal clerk. The certification process takes about two years, which she began not too long after she started working for the town in 2021.
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A police officer questions Zota Beach Resort guests following a double homicide that killed a security guard and hotel manager on Aug. 4, 2017.
THE SIX-YEAR HUNT Police recently arrested a second suspect in the 2017 double homicide at Zota Beach Resort, but the case is far from closed.
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ongboat Key Det. Capt. Robert Bourque’s investigation into the 2017 Zota Beach Resort double homicide began with one sus-
pect. Now there are four. Petra Rivera
Chris Sachs, Sue Wertman, Carol Erker and Capt. Jim Curry
The grand total
The Kiwanis Club of Longboat Key raised about $25,000 for the Salvation Army’s Red Kettle Campaign. This made the club the second-highest fundraising Kiwanis club for the Salvation Army from Tampa to Venice. “Volunteers are getting harder and harder to come by,” said Capt. Jim Curry from the Salvation Army of Sarasota County at the Jan. 18 Kiwanis Club meeting. “When I come to Publix out here, I see people dancing, people saying ‘Hi,’ people knowing each other. That’s what it’s all about. It’s about the sense of community and wanting to give to those that need desperate help.” Every year, volunteers from the Kiwanis Club, Christ Church of Longboat Key and the Rotary Club of Longboat Key collect donations for the Salvation Army outside Publix at their bell-ringing station. Christ Church provided 42 bell ringers, who completed about 95 shifts throughout the bell-ringing season. The Rotary Club provided 15 bell ringers. Kiwanis Club President Chris Sachs said without the efforts of Christ Church and the Rotary Club they would not be able have raised so much money.
The latest, Latoya Hanna, was the lookout and getaway driver. That’s according to a Jan. 4 arrest warrant that says in the dark hours of that August
woman in a white rental van away from Zota Beach Resort. A Zota security guard and its night clerk lay dead, multiple gunshot wounds each, one body alongside the hotel front desk, another just a few feet away near an unopened safe. The armed robbery and two murders netted the suspects $900 from the front desk cash drawers. Factor in the costs of a hotel room, rental van and new cellphones and the profits were slim. Maybe a couple hundred dollars.
2017 morning, Latoya Hanna drove two men and a
SEE HUNT, PAGE 3A
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Petra Rivera
Gosia and Joe Pilch ready for a return during The Observer Challenge at the Public Tennis Center.
Longboat aces challenge The annual tennis tourney has turned into an international draw. PAGE 4B
All eyes on Graziano. INSIDE