bserver LONGBOAT
Merry Christmas!
YOU. YOUR NEIGHBORS. YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
WISH LISTS
IT’S A WRAP
BLACK TIE
Key people sound off on their hopes for the town. PAGES 5-12A
OUR TOWN
FREE • THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2013
See our favorite standout photos from the past year. INSIDE
costs and benefits
Longboaters remember their favorite gifts. PAGE 17A
by Robin Hartill | News Editor
Town leery of county’s 911 offer A Sarasota County offer to take over the town’s 911 dispatch services would save money, but commissioners worry the town will sacrifice its level of service.
Molly Schechter
Dr. Curt Peihler, Harold Ronson and Dr. John Whiteclay Chambers II
+ Lecture offers new view of war A Dec. 7 presentation at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens’ Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day event gave the audience the bottom-up view from the men, women, minorities and others who fought in World War II versus the top-down view of traditional history with its focus on presidents, diplomats and high-ranking military officers. John Whiteclay Chambers II, Ph.D., distinguished professor of history at Rutgers University, presented. Hosts were Curt Piehler, Ph.D., director of Florida State University Institute on World War II and the Human Experience, and Longboat Key resident Harold Ronson, who serves on the institute’s advisory board. Approximately 75 people attended Chambers’ presentation featuring images and audio recordings from the Rutgers University Oral History Archives and the FSU institute.
The Longboat Key Town Commission remains wary of a proposal by Sarasota County to take over Longboat Key’s 911 dispatch services. Town staff continues to analyze an offer extended to the town in March. But the town, which has until the year 2015 to accept or decline the offer, faces a big decision.
“You will have to decide at the end of the day whether the offer and the level of service extended to the town by the county is an acceptable level of service for the community,” Town Manager Dave Bullock said to commissioners at their Dec. 11 regular workshop. Commissioners aren’t sure the county will be able to match the
town’s level of service. They said it’s a deal-breaker if the service can’t be matched. Longboat Key’s Police Department prides itself on dispatching officers to calls that Bullock describes as “the snake in the toilet” cries for help. The county doesn’t offer a level of service that dispatches officers to remove a snake from the
house, get cats out of trees or help elderly women turn on their fuse boxes. Although the county said it’s willing to dispatch officers for those calls if town staff provides a detailed list of what it expects, the commission is hesitant a larger agency can pull off the at-
SEE DISPATCH / PAGE 13A
RINGING IN THE SEASON
Courtesy photo
Carol Fischbein, Bill Colton and Joan Webster man the Salvation Army kettle outside the Longboat Key Publix. Every year, Key residents and town employees are always there — with bells on. It’s known as the most lucrative bucket in all of Sarasota County.
NO BOUNDARIES + Turtle Watch T-shirts available ’Tis the holiday season, not the turtle-nesting season. Still, Longboat Key Turtle Watch is ready for nesting season, which begins May 1. In preparation, T-shirts for the 2014 season are available now at the UPS Store in the Centre Shops, 5380 Gulf of Mexico Drive, Suite 105. Shirts are available in adult, youth and toddler sizes. Cost is a $15 donation.
SEE OUR TOWN / 16A
by Kurt Schultheis | Managing Editor
ULI committee focuses on town center Town staff is working with business owners on a town center concept, while also tackling ideas for Gulf of Mexico Drive and Bayfront Park. The Urban Land Institute Implementation Advisory Committee wants Key residents to think outside the box — or at least outside the boundaries of existing roads. At its Dec. 17 meeting, the committee agreed to support a town center concept near the
Longboat Key Publix that would include a community center, but it didn’t want its vision limited by the current configuarion of Bay Isles Road and Bay Isles Parkway. During the discussion, the committee reviewed recent renderings of a town center that were drawn up by Sarasota architect
Gary Hoyt. The renderings, which were created at the request of Town Manager Dave Bullock, depict a town center both with the current office buildings in place and a town center without some buildings.
SEE TOWN CENTER / 13A
Sarasota architect Gary Hoyt drew renderings for town center concepts.
INDEX Classifieds......... 29A Cops Corner..........4A
Crossword.......... 28A Neighborhood.... 17A
Obituaries.......... 16A Opinion.................8A
Real Estate........ 26A Weather............. 28A
Vol. 36, No. 21 | Two sections YourObserver.com