Longboat observer 3 5 15

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LONGBOAT

Observer Longboat Key’s weekly newspaper since 1978

DON’T FORGET:

Turn your clocks forward an hour on Sunday.

YOU. YOUR NEIGHBORS. YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.

FREE

VOLUME 37, NO. 31

THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2015

Park estimate: $3.9 million

INSIDE SEASON magazine SPRING 2015

SEASON

Bayfront Park concept plans draw sticker shock from town manager. PAGE 6A

THE OBSERVER ’S GUIDE TO TH E ARTS AND SO CIETY

SiGNING OFF

HIS OWN

MUSIC DANCE THEATER ART BLACK TIE

TERMS

Your spring guide to arts and social events.

Jim Brown prepares to strike the gavel on his final days as mayor.

EUGENIE CLARK 1922-2015

PAGE 3A

Tak Konstantinou

Clark swam upstream in scientific community Eugenie Clark founded what is now Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium 60 years ago as a onewoman operation.

Peacocks ruffle feathers again KURT SCHULTHEIS

Eugenie “Genie” Clark needed help with the heavy gear when she made her second-to-last dive last year. It was her 92nd birthday, and she was battling lung cancer. She sat in a plastic chair in the waters of the Gulf of Aqaba while fellow divers helped her gear up. After she was underwater, she needed no assistance. “The minute she went into the water, she was as graceful as a ballerina,” said Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium President/CEO Michael Crosby, who

Longbeach Village resident James Braha has been charged with reducing the neighborhood’s growing peacock population since 2011. But the birds are no match for Braha or any other licensed trapper in the state. “The birds are pooping all over my driveway,” Braha said. “I’m supposed to be in charge of this problem and there’s nothing I can do. I yell at the peacocks and throw things at them but they don’t go away. They just multiply. There’s no way I would take this job again.” Braha estimates there are 85 to 100 peacocks in the Village. And

SEE CLARK PAGE 4A

SEE PEACOCKS PAGE 7A

MANAGING EDITOR

TIE

Have you heard the mating calls? The Village’s most notorious birds are growing their flock. OBSERVER STAFF

ROBIN HARTILL

BLACK

SARASOTA BALLET

Attendees celebrate the ballet’s 24th season.

INSIDE

EARLY VOTING BEGINS SEE PAGE 15A

2015 MUNICIPAL ELECTION


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