bserver O
SARASOTA
Happy Fourth of July!
You. Your neighbors. Your neighborhood.
SNAPSHOTS
Birthday benefit provides rockin’ party atmosphere. PAGE 5A.
OUR TOWN
SPIRIT OF AMERICA
DIVERSIONS
Gianni Damaia acts like a kid again in ‘Over the Tavern.’
See inside for The Observer’s annual July 4 special section.
stop signs
INSIDE.
by Robin Roy | City Editor
Katz questions sign numbers With 3,878 new signs placed in Sarasota County in the last six years, Jonathan Katz took to the streets to prove his point.
Rachel S. O’Hara
Tyesha Brown, 14, and Jaime Weill, 13
+ Girls Inc. girls get crafty for sale Five stores on Main Street helped support Girls Inc. by allowing the girls to sell their crafts, such as flips-flops, purses and bumblebee pins, from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 25. The stores also gave 10% of all purchases made that day to help support Girls Inc.Credible, a summer camp fashion club that focuses on inner beauty, self-esteem and healthy body image. About 10 girls from Girls Inc.Credible helped sell the creations inside Lotus, Main Street Traders, Simply Spoiled Boutique, Picobello and Stitch Boutique. Case manager for Girls Inc., Sue Schell, bought an entire outfit at Lotus because she knew the proceeds would benefit the organization. “I’d do anything for Girls Inc.,” she said after picking out her new outfit.
Thursday, JUNE 30, 2011
To fight what he sees as an outof-control problem in Sarasota County, a critic of sign pollution could have gone the traditional route and called his government representatives. But Jonathan Katz believed that turning to new media would add emphasis to his argument. “There has been an astronomi-
cal increase in the number of signs,” he said. From 2005 to 2010, the city and county have erected 3,878 new signs, most of them for traffic control (see box). Katz has been taking photos of signs for the past two years, and he felt the best way to make his argument that there were too many
New sign placements City of Sarasota Sarasota County
2005 43 813
2006 69 750
of them was to make a YouTube video. He enlisted the help of his daughter’s babysitter to create the video using the dozens of photographs he has taken. The video got city leaders’ attention.
2007 78 649
2008 38 657
2009 28 439
2010 26 288
“From time to time I had noticed it (the signs),” said Commissioner Terry Turner. “I had been sensitive to sign pollution, but that video caused me to say, ‘This is a bigger problem than I
SEE SIGNS / PAGE 2A
SUMMERTIME SWING Rachel S. O’Hara
Samantha Sargent, 4, enjoys playing on the swings on a recent weekend afternoon at the Laurel Park playground.
ON THE VERIZON
Loren Mayo
Dr. David Sax and Anna Heider
by Robin Roy | City Editor
Telephone poles at center of concern
+ Skin-care soiree offers vital info
Because 12 Golden Gate Point property owners have yet to consent to a free Verizon service upgrade, the company has not removed its deteriorating wooden poles in that community.
University Park Dermatology and Med Spa held an event June 23, at Saks Fifth Avenue, to bring community awareness to skin health, from skin-cancer detection to skin-care health and beauty. Dr. David Sax was the speaker for the event.
Golden Gate Point residents have spent about $4 million during the past two years to beautify their neighborhood. Streets are now covered with brick pavers and lined with fresh,
SEE OUR TOWN / PAGE 7A
colorful landscaping. But in the center island of the community, a trail of old, sawedoff telephone poles remains, and the residents want to know why. “This is the last piece that we
can’t finish,” said Denise Watermeier, president of the Golden Gate Point Association. A major part of the improvement project was placing all utilities underground.
Verizon had installed its Fios fiber lines for phone, cable TV and Internet services. When the project began about
SEE POLES / PAGE 2A
INDEX Briefs....................4A Classifieds......... 12A
Cops Corner....... 10A Crossword.......... 11A
Opinion.................6A Permits.................9A
Real Estate...........8A Weather............. 11A
Vol. 7, No. 34 | Two sections YourObserver.com