Sarasota/Siesta Key Observer 6.9.22

SARASOTA/SIESTA KEY

Observer YOU. YOUR NEIGHBORS. YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.

How do you say checkmate in Hebrew? PAGE 1B FREE • THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

VOLUME 18, NO. 28

YOUR TOWN

Commission preserves EDC The business development arm moves toward an equal public/private split. PAGE 3A

Courtesy photo

Brentara Yancy with her children, Jaiden Yancy-Weeks and Breiel Smith, at a school distribution event

Food for the summer Now that school has ended for the summer, thousands of children in Sarasota and DeSoto counties run the risk of not receiving the food they usually enjoy from school meals and food pantries.

All Faiths Food Bank has returned to meet that need and started its annual Campaign Against Summer Hunger to provide groceries, hot meals and snack bags to children 18 and under while school is out.

Hot meals and groceries are provided at various schools, community centers and boys and girls clubs through July.

Snack bags can be picked up at local libraries.

Donate today at AllFaithsFoodBank.org.

Too cool for school Harry Sayer

Dogs put their best paw forward in Bazaar’s summer costume contest. SEE PAGE 4B

Rainbow lights for Pride June marks Pride Month, and the LGBTQ events and programs are well underway in Sarasota.

The city of Sarasota joined in on the support with a lighting of the John Ringling Causeway Bridge for the first week of June. The bridge sported an array of multicolored lights on each pillar across the Ringling Bay starting at sunset from June 1-7.

Project Pride SRQ has a number of events planned for June, including a car parade Saturday, June 11.

Turtle Tracks AS OF JUNE 4 TOTAL NESTS: Siesta Key Lido Beach Casey Key

2022 51 15 204

2021 59 12 121

TOTAL FALSE CRAWLS: 2022 2021 Siesta Key 53 56 Lido Beach 37 22 Casey Key 186 155 Source: Mote Marine Laboratory

Harry Sayer

Bromley was one of many cool dogs who entered the Bazaar on Apricot and Lime’s Dog Days of Summer costume contest.

A+E

Siesta dives into mini-reefs Residents begin collecting data to see how well they work.

SEE PAGE 7A Eric Garwood

David Wolff Jr. works to tie off a series of mini-reefs in Longboat Key. Similar installations have been made in Siesta Key’s Grand Canal.

Musical blast from the past.

SEE PAGE 13A

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TABS

W HAT ’S HAPPENING

SARASOTA OBSERVER

YourObserver.com

THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

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WEEK OF JUNE 9, 2022

Affordable housing town hall set

“It’s a beautiful way to connect with people all over the world. It’s an ancient tradition that we all have managed to pass down.”

Sarasota Mayor Erik Arroyo, on playing chess. Read more on page 1B

BY THE NUMBERS 16.7%

Estimated increase in city property values over last year.

PAGE 4A

34

New mini-reefs installed in Siesta Key’s Grand Canal to help improve water quality.

PAGE 7A

9-3

Results from Sarasota Sister Cities’ online chess competition with Tel Mond, Israel.

PAGE 1B

17

Sarasota Crew’s entries in the USRowing Youth National Championships this weekend.

Courtesy image

Although Sarasota rents have made larger gains than the state average over the past year, they have fallen the past two months.

PAGE 12B

Sarasota rents decrease

CALENDAR n Sarasota City Commission regular meeting — 9 a.m. Monday, June 20, Commission Chambers, City Hall, 1565 First St. n Sarasota County Commission budget workshop— 9 a.m. June 23-24, Third Floor, County Administration Building, 1660 Ringling Blvd.

A

partment rents in Sarasota declined 3% in May, according to the most recent monthly report by ApartmentList.com.

Still, the city’s median twobedroom rent of $1,840 is well above the national average of $1,320, which is lower than the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Sarasota at $1,395.

Despite the month-over-month decrease, apartment rents in Sarasota are up sharply, 32.5% over May 2021, far outpacing the

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15.3% national average increase.

Many cities nationwide also saw increases, including New York City (29.5%), Phoenix (20.5%) and Dallas (17.4%).

Sarasota’s ballooning yearover-year rent increases are not isolated in Florida.

The state as a whole showed rent growth of 25.7% over the past year. Of the state’s 10 largest cities for which the study has collected data, Pembroke Pines is the most expensive, with a median two-bedroom rent of

$2,245. Hollywood experienced the fastest growth, at 34.6%.

Rents in Orlando are up 26.6% over this time last year, and Miami is up 26.5%.

May marks the second-straight month rents have shown a month-over-month decline in Sarasota, according to ApartmentList.com data. In April, the apartment search website reported a 1.9% drop from March 2022.

A town hall meeting to discuss how the city of Sarasota is addressing housing challenges will be held at 5:30 p.m. Monday, June 13, in the commission chambers at City Hall, 1565 First St. Hosted by City Commissioner Hagen Brody, the event will include presentations from Planning Director Steve Cover and Sarasota Housing Authority President and CEO William Russell, who will discuss their organizations’ roles, current projects and initiatives, as well as how they are helping to create and encourage affordable housing.

“This is a critical opportunity for the community to hear accurate information and to address any questions about what we are doing to make Sarasota a more affordable place to live and the important efforts that are underway,” Brody said.

At their May 16 meeting, commissioners approved transmitting to Tallahassee a proposed amendment to the city’s comprehensive plan to add density to developments in the downtown district and urban edge providing those additional units were attainably priced, defined as households earning 81%-120% of the area median income. In Sarasota County, the household AMI in 2020 was $64,644, placing the attainable housing income range between $52,362 and $77,573.

Lifeguard shortage reduces pool hours An ongoing lifeguard shortage will close Lido Pool, 400 Ben Franklin Drive, on Tuesdays starting June 14.

The adjusted hours of operation will be 10 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, weather permitting.

“For the past two years, since the start of the pandemic, there’s been a drastic shortage of lifeguards throughout the country, and we’re experiencing it here in Sarasota,” said Arlington Park & Aquatic Complex Manager Emily Morris, who oversees Lido Pool. “...We’ll return to regular hours as soon as additional lifeguards are hired and ready for lifesaving duty.”

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THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

BY THE NUMBERS

Here are the sources of county funding for the EDC of Sarasota County in the 2022-23 projected budget.

Local Business Tax: $321,600 Per Capita Tax: $441,508 Tourist Development Tax: $125,000 Other (Fund Balance): $139,086 Total: $1,027,194

In addition to recruiting new businesses and industry, the EDC’s functions include serving as the licensing arm for businesses in Sarasota County.

EDC safe...for now County panel votes 3-2 to continue funding Economic Development Corp. of Sarasota County through 2023.

ANDREW WARFIELD STAFF WRITER

S

arasota County businesses will continue paying license taxes.

And for now, the Economic Develop Corp. of Sarasota County will remain a $1 million-plus line item in the county’s budget.

The two issues, unrelated but still conflated, were settled during Tuesday’s meeting of the Sarasota County Commission, handing back-to-back defeats to Commissioner Mike Moran, who wanted to both eliminate the annual tax paid by county businesses and further curtail the funding of the EDC — the county’s third-party nonprofit partner in industry recruiting and providing concierge services to businesses — by more than the one-third cut already included in next year’s county budget.

Moran has been on a six-year crusade against EDC funding, dating back to a debate with former EDC leader Mark Huey regarding tangible return on taxpayer investment, primarily in the form of job creation.

“It was a fundamental disagreement to the point where he showed me documents from national EDCs that EDCs can’t be measured, and I just fundamentally disagree,” Moran said. “I’m not interested in giving a million dollars for concierge services. I want Excel spreadsheets and results, and until I see that, I’m not going to be supporting this.”

Moran and Commissioner Christian Ziegler were on the short end in opposing both a motion to maintain the business license tax as is rather than reduce or eliminate it — a vote in the morning session — and a motion to maintain funding of the EDC at two-thirds of previous levels, which highlighted the afternoon.

Both were OK’d by 3-2 margins.

Ziegler and Moran argued that the business tax, small though it is (less than $200 for most businesses), was an unnecessary burden, and that the EDC, which will receive more than one-third of its projected $1.03 mil-

lion in public funding for fiscal year 2022-23 from that tax, had not yet demonstrated in measurable terms its value for the taxpayer dollar.

This even after EDC President and CEO Lisa Krouse and Vice President of Business Development Services Erin Silk highlighted multiple course alterations within the organization demanded by county commissioners for several years.

“It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since our last budget presentation,” Krouse, who joined the EDC 11 months ago, told commissioners.

“I think it’s safe to say that we have turned the ship, although I would readily concede that it’s not perfect, and it hasn’t been easy, and that there’s a lot of work still to be done.”

File photos

‘A MIRACULOUS TURNAROUND’

For Moran, the issue is about numbers, such as projected job creation of more than 5,000 that never materialized but has been used by prior EDC leadership to pitch continued county funding. It’s also perhaps personal, as pointed out by Commission Chairman Alan Maio, who reminded Krouse that former EDC board members would scream at Moran in public settings when he dared challenge its effectiveness.

While hard feelings might linger, Maio also said the EDC has made the kind of progress in the past year he wished had begun four years ago.

“I have to tell you, cutting down one-third (of county funding) after that effort for me is enough for now,” Maio said. “This has been a miraculous turnaround.”

Maio described the 2021 decision to reduce the county contribution to the EDC by one-third beginning this fiscal year — with the threat to phase-out all funding by 2025 — was the wake-up call the organization needed, even though it had begun to right the ship prior to the pandemic under interim CEO and former Longboat Key Town Manager Dave Bullock, who took over in 2019.

“We can dance all around this, but those substantive changes were made in an expanded board, a dif-

FY 2023 ANNUAL PLAN: $1,603,998 Business License Fee Tourist Development Tax Other Interest/Fund Balance $1 Per Capita Investors Event Revenue Fee for Service Other Revenue In-Kind

PUBLIC 64% PRIVATE 36%

Sarasota County Commissioner Mike Moran has advocated for elimination of the county’s business license tax and defunding the EDC of Sarasota County.

ferent board, a board with a different attitude,” Maio told the panel.

Ziegler admitted the EDC was making progress but contended he had heard such promises before, and now, despite improvements made under Krouse over the last 11 months, it is too little too late.

“Maybe four years ago if they said, ‘We’re going to pivot, and we’re going to change,’ maybe that could have in my mind saved the organization at that time. But that didn’t occur, and now we’re hearing the same promises that I did four years ago,” Ziegler said. “It’s still the same pitch, and I just can’t find a way in my mind to justify giving a million dollars toward these efforts with that historical knowledge.

“That has nothing to do with the team. The team’s outstanding, and I think the team listens. I think they communicate well. I think they’re accessible, and I think they’re sharp.

But again, we’ve got to decide: Is this a good use of a million dollars of taxpayer money? I’m just not getting there right now.”

FUNDING IMBALANCE

Despite the EDC’s presentation and the praise, Moran still wants data that reflects a viable return on investment. Much of the EDC’s work is intangible: serving as the county’s business permit arm, hosting site visits, allocating Covid-related CARES Act funds on behalf of the county, and marketing the county to new businesses and relocations. As a private entity, it can also perform tasks a government cannot.

Among the deliverables Moran and Ziegler want is a commitment by the business community to increase private contributions to the EDC, which had set a goal of equal funding from the public and private sectors. County funding makes up 64% of the EDC’s budget.

“It’s always been the goal to be 50-50,” Commissioner Nancy Detert told Krouse. “What year do you envision that happening?”

“I honestly I don’t see it happen-

ing next year, but I think within the next two years, we can do it,” Krouse responded. “We’ve moved the needle. We were at 70% (county funding) when I walked into the seat 11 months ago, and now we’re at 64, so the business community has rallied behind us.”

Ziegler asked why the organization had yet to achieve balanced funding.

“To be perfectly honest, it starts with leadership,” Krouse said. “I think there was a real lack of confidence in the organization. I don’t think the messaging was very clear or the value proposition was very clear.”

Ziegler compared Krouse to EDC leadership of the past.

“Your openness and your honesty is very refreshing,” Ziegler said.

“When I filed to run for commission four years ago, I had lunch with someone, and they basically told me, ‘Don’t even think about touching the EDC.’ It was almost like a borderline threat because it was so closed off and so closed down. That immediately created red flags, but this honesty and this openness and your willingness to really address the issue in an open forum like this at a public meeting is very refreshing and very appreciated.”

Still, Ziegler held out support.

Commission Vice Chairman Ron Cutsinger reminded commissioners the EDC has addressed every concern after the decision to cut funding by one-third this year and possibly more later. It has new leadership, a new staff, a new board of directors and a demonstrated willingness to cooperate with county government.

“I understand the history here. It’s unfortunate. Over a long period of time, a lot of money got misspent,” he said. “But at this point, we’ve got a new staff, we’ve got a new board, we’ve got a new leader, and we see a report coming back to us of really doing what we asked. We are cutting the budget by a third, but it will give them an opportunity. They’ve got another year to come forward and see where this goes.”

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THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

Sarasota property tax value to increase by nearly 17% over 2021

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Property values in the city received a big boost this year.

2018-19: $10.2B 2019-20: $10.7B +6.4% 2020-21: $11.4B +7.5% 2021-22: $12.2B +6.4% 2022-23: $14.6B +16.7%

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hen she started with the city of Sarasota Finance Department a dozen years ago, Kelly Strickland recalls the appraised tax values of residential and commercial properties in Sarasota were declining year over year.

Thus were the ad valorem revenues that resulted in the throes of the Great Recession.

A consistent upward trajectory in the range of 6% to 7% over the last four years, though, is expected to spike by 16.75% as budget season approaches, per the latest projections by the Sarasota County Property Appraiser’s office, something Strickland, the city’s finance director, said she has never seen.

“The first year that it went positive, we didn’t know what to do,” Strickland said. “We had been in such a cut mode forever. This is the highest that I have seen the values increase in my career.”

Over the next several weeks, it will be up to City Manager Marlon Brown and the City Commission to balance the windfall and the needs of city government against those of the taxpayers, all with a backdrop of rising inflation.

Per the June 1 county estimate, the total property value in the city was $14.6 billion, up from $12.5 billion last year. As the final tally due July 1 is historically expected to be only

marginally different, that means an additional $5 million in the city’s coffers, as long as no adjustment is made to the property tax rate to offset the difference.

The Finance Department begins building the budget every January in anticipation of the June 1 estimate from the county. The budget will be based on the final July 1 figures.

“There’s usually not that much of a change from June to July, so we were very excited when we saw these numbers,” Strickland said.

Excited because, for the city, it means additional revenue. For the residents facing higher property tax bills, probably not so much.

“The city manager is very much aware of what the economy looks like today and the issues that people have, Strickland said. “We’re just looking at different situations that might be best for the city and its citizens.”

The budget process begins with the capital improvement program portion, then in March is opened up to city departments to submit their financial requests by April.

Finance then meets with each of the department heads to discuss their submissions. Once the ad valorem revenues are calculated, city commissioners receive a workbook on July 5. Budget workshops are

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SARASOTA OBSERVER

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THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

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Longboat Key property values have also experienced double-digit gains over 2021, with the combined valuation reported by the appraisers’ offices in Sarasota and Manatee counties up 13.5% to $7.34 billion.

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Should commissioners decide it, the property value windfall might provide an opportunity to return some municipal functions to prepandemic levels.

“During Covid, we asked the departments to cut as much as possible, and we’ve been working on shoestring staffing since,” Strickland said. “As the times have gotten better, our sales tax revenues are coming in, so departments are asking for more personnel to get those people back where they had either frozen positions or eliminate positions.

“Now gas is just way up there, so that’s an increase in costs. Another increase we were able to fund is a lot of our IT projects. We’re moving toward being a ‘smart city,’ and processes are moving to the cloud.

That’s an expense that hits our operating budget, and it doesn’t qualify for the capital dollars that we have that are specifically for capital projects. So that’s another push from

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THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

Diana Corrigan calls it a career at St. Armands Circle After serving more than 22 years as executive director of the St. Armands Circle Association, Corrigan is looking forward to being a visitor.

ANDREW WARFIELD STAFF WRITER

T

File photo

“It was really us falling in love with St. Armands in the first place that brought us to Sarasota. Little did I know that it was going to be my career.”

— Diana Corrigan

NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT

In her letter, Corrigan wrote, “We’ve come a long way, baby!!!”

It was a long way from those first interviews in the SACA office in what is now the Wells Fargo building just a block removed from the Circle. As a staff of one, when Corrigan was introduced to her office she found a word processor and a rotary dial princess-style phone.

“I said to my husband, ‘I think I made a mistake,’” she said. “But they really had such faith in me. They told me to just get what I need, and they gave me the wings to fly. It wasn’t just me that accomplished all this.

Unless you’ve got amazing horses to run with, you can’t get it done, and I’ve always had Triple Crown winners with me every step of the way.

“I’ve been blessed.”

Chief among those accomplishments: working with the city of Sarasota to build a parking deck and with the state of Florida — Ringling Boulevard is State Road 789 — to make safety improvements on the approach to and through the circle, allowing heavy pedestrian and vehicle traffic to coexist.

The changes made to both safety and streetscapes – sometimes at the same time – have only added to the charm of the Circle, Corrigan said.

“The atmosphere on St. Armands is just another one of the reasons why we fell in love with it. When you walked around during season, it sounded like a mini-United Nations because there were people from all over the world,” she said. “It was

just quaint, and it was charming, and it was just beautiful to be outside. It looks different today than it did then because of the projects that we’ve done, but that special feeling is the same today as it was back then.”

After two decades of serving the merchants there, Corrigan leaves the SACA better than she found it, along with an office fully equipped with a real computer and modern phone system. Now she can love St. Armands the way everyone else does: as visitor and customer.

The Corrigans aren’t going anywhere except to travel. Her church is there, so she’ll be there often.

“I’ll be able to come to the Circle and won’t be looking around saying, ‘That was supposed to get done over the weekend’ or ‘What happened with that?’ she said. “I’m actually going to be able to walk around the Circle and not have people say, ‘Hey, I really need to talk to you about this.

“When we would do special events on the Circle, and especially when we did our Smooth Jazz series, I would watch people out there dancing and having wine and having a great time and look at some of my board members who were working with me and say, ‘I’m looking forward to that. I really, really am.’”

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in properties sold in 2021 Working with Lin and Maurice has been such a pleasure…My experience with Lin and Maurice has been exceptional. They took the time to really listen to my needs and timetables while managing expectations. No pressure, no hard sell. Just a genuine desire to make such a big purchase the absolute right one for their buyer.

I would certainly encourage anyone looking to buy in the Sarasota market to talk with Lin and Maurice. You will not be disappointed. – Kathleen L. Lin and Maurice are the most incredible Realtors we have ever worked with! This is the second house we have sold with them and will definitely work with them on another. They are so professional, understanding, attentive, helpful and honest.

We highly recommend them to everyone we know. – Lana and Ronni T. ®

Call Team Dunn to see one of these extraordinary homes or discuss your real estate goals.

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destination, and you’re going over the John Ringling Bridge, and you’re coming to this beautiful, charming little island. Then, a block-and-ahalf away is the Gulf of Mexico, so you can’t duplicate that.

“There are so many unique stores that you don’t find any place else, and it’s that charming atmosphere while walking around, and then you’ve got that beautiful park right in the center of it all.”

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he next time Diana Corrigan visits her beloved St. Armands Circle, it will be as a visitor for the first time in more than two decades.

In a heartfelt letter to merchants, former board members and other friends of the Circle, Corrigan last week announced her resignation as emeritus executive director of the St. Armands Circle Association, relinquishing her duties on Tuesday to successor Rachel Burns after an 18-month transition.

She wrote that she was looking forward to spending time in retirement with her husband, Richard, albeit 22 years later than planned.

It was in the late 1990s when the couple closed their business in upstate New York, sold their homes and intended to move to Virginia. In the interim, both of their children moved to Florida, altering their destination southward. They were in Sarasota staying with one of their children when they happened upon St. Armands Circle.

“We got there a little early, so we drove over the Ringling Bridge, and as soon as we got to St. Armands, we looked at each other and said, ‘This is the place. This is where this is where we need to move,’” Corrigan said.

Move here they did, but her retirement didn’t last long. Having been involved in her community in Syracuse, New York, Corrigan wasn’t quite ready to call it a career. Two months after arriving, she saw an ad for the merchant association’s executive director position.

“I applied and met with the interview committee twice, and the rest is history,” she said. “It was really us falling in love with St. Armands in the first place that brought us to Sarasota. Little did I know that it was going to be my career.”

It was a career that has brought numerous improvements to St. Armands, largely from the creation of the St. Armands Business Improvement District, which has applied additional property tax dollars paid by the merchants to several projects over two decades.

“You can go any place and go shopping or whatever, but the one thing we have at St. Armands you can’t recreate is the physical plant,” Corrigan said. “It is this beautiful island

YourObserver.com

SARASOTA OBSERVER

|

THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

7A

Siesta residents begin gathering data from canal project OBSERVER STAFF

Sarasota & Lakewood Ranch’s FAVORITE MED SPA

STAFF

N

ot long after the Siesta Key Association installed 34 new mini-reefs to restore canal waterways, water samples and scientific data were gathered for the first time in late April as part of the Grand Canal Project.

Mini-reefs, or manmade structures installed under docks to attract and house juvenile fish and plant life, have been funded through community members and grants.

“Most of the mini-reefs we recently installed were in the Commonwealth area,” project leader Jean Cannon said. “And most of the minireefs have been installed on residential docks by members of the Siesta Key community.”

In addition to the mini-reefs, the Siesta Key Association has also added vertical oyster gardens on docks throughout the canal. VOGs, made of recycled oyster shells from local restaurants, also provide housing for juvenile fish, which in turn attract larger sea animals.

Both mini-reefs and VOGs help to attract life that filters water naturally. The progress of the two units will soon be monitored by video devices to study fish colonization, and water samples are being tested. Scientific study has been a recent focus for the project to measure its efficacy.

While residents on Siesta Key have purchased mini-reefs to be installed near their homes, the Grand Canal Project has benefited from several grants since the project began in December 2020. Most recently, Sarasota County awarded funding for the project through the Sarasota Neighborhood Initiation Grant.

Throughout the project, the Siesta Key Association was joined by other communities, students and volunteers, including from Out-of-Door Academy.

“We have been borrowing some of the measuring tools from Venice and

Beauty is our Business Eric Garwood

Anna Maria. I think it’s important that we have our own,” Cannon said.

“These digital tools will cost around $7,000, and we’re working on getting those, but we’re using the borrowed tools for now.”

Not only are other communities assisting in the project, but through what Cannon named the Blue Water Coalition, Siesta Key, Anna Maria and Venice groups have collaborated to maintain healthy waterways.

Water salinity, oxygen content and pH are a few of the measurements being analyzed. Not only are the measurements useful in attracting oysters and additional ocean life to the mini-reefs, but they could also assists in the broader goal of a cleaner, more free-flowing waterway.

Cannon said the Siesta Key canal flows with the tide one way in and one way out, which has caused sediment to become stagnant and muddy the water. But if mini-reefs attract oysters and worms, the problem could be solved naturally.

Mini-reefs can be purchased through an online order form on the Siesta Key Association website.

Going forward, Cannon said two additional priorities will be education and creating more revenue sources for more mini-reefs, VOGs and food to maintain marine life.

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David Wolff Jr. works to tie off a series of mini-reefs in Longboat Key. Similar installations have been made in Siesta Key’s Grand Canal.

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YourObserver.com

THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

OPINION / OUR VIEW

SARASOTA/SIESTA KEY

2 steps forward, 1 back None of the combatants in the trenches of Florida’s property insurance crisis is celebrating the results of the special legislative session. Winners: Consumers and insurers. Losers: Plaintiff lawyers, contractors.

DeSantis made it clear that it was in Sprowls’ interest to side with the governor and not the trial bar.

WINNERS & LOSERS

MATT WALSH

T

here’s that old saw you hear in the halls of capitals: “If no one is happy, then it must be good legislation.”

To an extent, you can say that about the property insurance legislation adopted in the special legislative session two weeks ago in Tallahassee. None of the dayto-day combatants in that world — Florida-based insurance companies, international reinsurance companies, insurance agencies, trial lawyers, roof contractors and independent insurance adjusters — is doing a happy dance over the outcome.

PLEASED POLITICIANS

About the only ones pleased were Gov. Ron DeSantis; Sen. Jim Boyd, primary author and chief advocate of the legislation; and most of the GOP lawmakers who voted for it.

DeSantis is pleased because he needed a big win to counter his Democratic opponents in the November elections. As a politician would, he spun it as “the most significant reforms to Florida’s homeowners insurance market in a generation.” That’s a bit of a stretch — especially to those legislators and governors who were in Tallahassee after the 1992 mega-disaster of Hurricane Andrew, after the $50 billion damage from the 2004-2005 hurricanes and after Hurricane Charlie Crist’s policies committed Florida taxpayers to carrying the risk for a $36 billion catastrophe and made taxpayer-owned Citizens Property Insurance the largest insurer in Florida.

DeSantis’ hyperbole aside, Boyd has good reason to be pleased.

Boyd, longtime owner of a Bradenton insurance agency, knew intimately the gravity of the situation. If the Legislature failed to act, the hemorraging patient — Florida’s property insurance companies, in particular, and the Florida real estate market — wouldn’t make it out of the ER. What’s more, after seeing how Speaker Chris Sprowls denied the House from considering Senate legislation in the most recent regular session, Boyd was not all that optimistic heading into the special session.

Nonetheless, he took the approach of asking lawmakers to back reforms that were even bolder than what the House rejected in the past two sessions.

To Boyd’s surprise, all of his provisions in the legislation prevailed — a rare and major legislative victory and credit to Boyd, who said, “I had hoped my colleagues would realize the importance of this issue.”

Clearly, let’s just say, Gov.

From purely a legislative standpoint, Florida’s lawmakers passed what typically comes out of this process: something for everyone, always less than perfect. Rarely do they go as far as they could or should, and this was one of those occasions. Lawmaking is all about compromise and making deals.

As always, there are winners and losers. From the perspective of creating a framework for a thriving, competitive, consumer-friendly property insurance market, you can say the Republican lawmakers tipped the scales in favor of consumers and insurance companies.

Yes, consumers. While all assessments say consumers won’t see their property insurance premiums go down immediately or for the next 12 months, any time legislation can reduce lawsuits, that is consumer-friendly.

Lawsuits add to the cost of everything, and those costs are always passed on to customers. (See box: Why the new laws benefit consumers and insurance companies.)

That’s why Florida’s homeowners insurance premiums are so outrageous. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that when more than 100,000 damage-claim lawsuits are sucking in more than a $1 billion a year in legal fees and roof replacements, insurance companies can’t and won’t just absorb those costs.

In fact, here’s what most Floridians don’t realize: The Office of Insurance Regulation determines insurance rates, and those rates are based on the insurers’ costs, to which, by the way, the insurance companies’ management must attest under oath are real — or go to jail if they lie.

As Locke Burt, founder, chairman and CEO of the Ormond Beachbased Security First Insurance Co., puts it: “Every time you get a free roof or hire a lawyer, that goes into your rates. If you want the price to go down, you have to address the cost drivers. … Cost reduction under law must be passed on to the consumer.”

That was the intent of Boyd’s legislation, and that’s why the losers in the session were the plaintiff attorneys, contractors and public adjusters.

You’ve probably already heard members of the trial bar rail about how the new legislation is anticonsumer. That’s how they couch any law that creates barriers for lawsuits or makes it tougher for lawyers to win high legal fees, which the new legislation does.

Anti-lawsuit is anti-consumer in their book.

Likewise, you probably also know roofers and contractors don’t like the legislation. The Restoration Association of Florida has filed two lawsuits in Leon County to negate certain provisions that surely will cut into the lucrative niche of automatic roof replacements.

WINNERS NOT THRILLED

But even as the losers try to color the legislation as bad for Floridians, some of the winners — insurance

I

Commission — three staunch, conservative, political newcomers in James Satcher, George Kruse and Kevin van Ostenbridge, along with Vanessa Baugh — is a new generation of Republicans. They are disrupting the establishment with aggressive policy making, and the resulting clashes often seem personal.

In the end, voters will decide this summer and fall whether they approve when longtime incumbent Republicans Carol Whitmore, Misty Servia and Democrat Reggie Bellamy come up for re-election.

Inside the county administration

Friedrich Hayek

“Road to Serfdom,” 1944 President and Publisher / Emily Walsh, EWalsh@YourObserver.com

HOW THE NEW INSURANCE LAWS HELP CONSUMERS AND INSURERS Here’s a snapshot of changes in Florida’s property insurance statutes that benefit consumers and insurers: CONSUMER BENEFITS n My safe Florida home: $150 million from general revenues for free hurricane mitigation inspections and matching grants to retrofit single-family homes valued at $500,000 or less. Applicants may receive up to $10,000. n Required policy renewal: Insurers cannot refuse to issue or renew a homeowner’s insurance on residential structures that are fewer than 15 years old solely because of the age of the roof.

Insurers cannot refuse renewal on roofs at least 15 years old if an authorized inspection shows the roof has five or more years of useful life. n Insurer claims handling: Property insurers must conduct an inspection of a property related to a claim within 45 days of receiving proof of loss statements. Insurers must notify policyholders of their right to receive any detailed report generated by an insurer’s adjuster that estimates the amount of the loss. The report must be provided within seven days after the policyholder requests the report or seven days after the completion of the report.

company representatives — are not all that thrilled. In a webinar June 3 during which a panel of insurance company executives, their lawyers and lobbyists shared their assessment of the special session, no one was smiling.

Many panel members commended DeSantis, Boyd and Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg (he triggered the special session). And Fred Karlinsky, co-chair of Greenberg Traurig’s insurance regulatory practice, spread good cheer at the start of the session: “What they did was transformational.” But from there the tone proceeded to go down. More-common refrains among the panel members were: “A baby step”and “a good first step.”

Always direct, Bob Ritchie, owner and CEO of Tampa-based American Integrity Insurance, said: “[T]wo steps forward, one step backward. … A thumbs down from a reinsurance perspective.”

Wesley Todd, founder and CEO of Tampa-based CaseGlide, developer of litigation management software, characterized the legislation as throwing everything at the problem, except at the one problem everyone knows and that matters most: one-way attorney fees.

ELIMINATE 3 ISSUES

One-way attorney fees are the lung cancer of property insurance.

State law requires insurers to pay legal fees for the insured party if the insurer loses in court and/or settles out of court. But if an insurer wins, it doesn’t have its fees covered.

So, if you’re a plaintiff’s attorney, there’s little risk of not being paid.

And that drives the insurance

Executive Editor and COO / Kat Hughes, KHughes@YourObserver.com

INSURER BENEFITS n 25% rule: The Florida Building Code will no longer require the complete replacement of roofs when damage reaches 25% of the roof. n Rare & exceptional fees: Lawmakers reinstated the practice of using a multiplier to increase attorney fees in what the courts deem “rare and exceptional” cases and when there is “competent, substantial evidence” justifying the multiplier.

After a 2017 Supreme Court case, courts applied the multipliers to just about every lawsuit, driving up the legal fees awarded in disputes. This reverts Florida to what is used in the other 49 states and is expected to lower legal fees. n Assignment of benefits: The bill prohibits the right to obtain attorney fees in lawsuits to parties other than to the person named on policies. For instance, homeowners may still sign assignment of benefits to a contractor, but that contractor will no longer be able to recover attorney fees in suits against an insurer.

This is expected to curb the number of assignment of benefit lawsuits, which account for about 25,000 of the 100,000 lawsuits filed in 2021.

companies nuts. If they had a magic wand, they would wave it to eliminate three issues that stand in the way of curing the property insurance patient: n One-way attorney fees n Assignment of benefits (when consumers turn over the management of their claim to a contractor or lawyer) n The 50% below market rates of the state-owned Citizens Property Insurance.

The special session addressed the first two in ways that will help curb attorney fees and curtail the filing of damage-claim lawsuits. But as Brandes said in his Senate floor speech: “… [G]et rid of one-way attorney fees; get rid of assignment of benefits like North Carolina and Texas have done. You do those two things on the litigation side, the world will change overnight. Florida will become a competitive market again, and we will end the scourge of litigation… .”

For lawmakers to have the courage to go that far and create what would be an all-out war with Florida’s trial attorneys, they would need the support and encouragement of their constituents.

But for that to occur, insurance companies have another huge obstacle. They must reverse the perception that the trial bar has mastered: painting insurance companies as the big, bad, moneygrubbing profiteers – exactly what you can say a small group of plaintiff lawyers and contractors have gamed the system to become.

Manatee shows how disruptive transitions are hard t seems as if everyone in Manatee County is talking about it: the discord among and behavior of Manatee County commissioners and the controversies swirling about County Administrator Scott Hopes.

If you look at this from 30,000 feet, what you see is this: classic disruptive transitions.

Organizational transitions are always hard. They’re especially hard for the long-time incumbents who are losing power and having to adjust to the new people in charge.

Welcome to the whirling world of Manatee County government.

The new majority on the County

“If we are to build a better world, we must remember that the guiding principle is this — a policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy.”

building, Administrator Scott Hopes is illustrating what occurs when a business brings in a CEO from outside after the longtime CEO (Ed Hunzeker) has left.

It’s often ugly. Indeed, the turnover occurring in county government is a predictable and common outcome, especially when the new leader has the A-type, entrepreneurial, business-owner characteristics of Hopes.

Such leaders are accustomed to making fast decisions with little or no consultation or thinking to inform everyone involved or seek buy-in beforehand. Clashes and

frustrations always erupt. This has been especially so with Hopes and Angel Colonneso, Manatee’s clerk of courts, comptroller and auditor.

Hopes has a choice: be a forceful, autocratic, “I’m large and in charge,” outspoken leader (they don’t last long), or the leader of a team that collaborates, communicates and is in alignment with the mission.

Hopes would do well to remember what many county administrators have learned: Working well with the comptroller can keep him and county commissions out of trouble.

— MW

Managing Editor / Eric Garwood, EGarwood@YourObserver.com Sports Editor / Ryan Kohn, RKohn@YourObserver.com Staff Writer / Andrew Warfield, AWarfield@YourObserver.com Digital & Engagement Editor / Kaelyn Adix, KAdix@YourObserver.com Copy Editor / Shawn Candela, SCandela@YourObserver.com Editorial Designers / Melissa Leduc, MLeduc@YourObserver.com; José Valle, JValle@YourObserver.com A+E Editor / Spencer Fordin, SFordin@YourObserver.com Black Tie Editor / Harry Sayer, HSayer@YourObserver.com Director of Advertising / Jill Raleigh, JRaleigh@YourObserver.com Sales Manager / Penny Nowicki, PNowicki@YourObserver.com Regional Digital Director / Kathleen O’Hara, KOHara@YourObserver.com Senior Advertising Executive / Laura Ritter, LRitter@YourObserver.com Advertising Executives / Richeal Bair, RBair@YourObserver.com; Beth Jacobson, BJacobson@YourObserver.com; Jennifer Kane, JKane@YourObserver.com; Honesty Mantkowski, HMantkowski@YourObserver. com; Toni Perren, TPerren@YourObserver. com; Brenda White, BWhite@ YourObserver.com Classified Advertising Sales Executive / Lexi Huelsman, LHuelsman@ YourObserver.com Sales Operations Manager / Susan Leedom, SLeedom@YourObserver.com Sales Coordinator / Account Manager Lori Downey, LDowney@ YourObserver.com Digital Fulfillment Specialist / Emma Burke, EBurke@yourobserver.com Director of Marketing / Robin Lankton, RLankton@YourObserver.com Director of Creative Services / Caleb Stanton, CStanton@YourObserver.com Creative Services Administrator / Marjorie Holloway, MHolloway@ YourObserver.com Advertising Graphic Designers / Luis Trujillo, Taylor Poe, Louise Martin, Shawna Polana Digital Developer / Jason Camillo, JCamillo@YourObserver.com Director of Information Technology / Adam Quinlin, AQuinlin@YourObserver.com Chief Financial Officer / Laura Strickland, LStrickland@YourObserver.com Controller / Rafael Labrin, RLabrin@ YourObserver.com Office and Accounting Coordinator / Donna Condon, DCondon @YourObserver.com

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SARASOTA OBSERVER

MARKET WATCH

THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

9A

GEORGE RAUCH Retirees, who represent the largest block of wealth in this country, receive almost no yield on bonds, so they have been buying highdividend-yielding stocks, driving up stock values. With interest rates going up, there will now be selling pressure as investors switch out of stocks into higher-yielding bonds.

Best of times, worst of times More than a line from Dickens, it’s our economic situation today.

“I

|

t was the age of wisdom; it was the age of foolishness” starts Charles Dickens’ 1859 novel, “A Tale of Two Cities.” There could not be a better description of where we find ourselves. It is the best of times for the economy, with the stock market hitting recent all-time highs, but the worst of times for government economic leadership. Our economy is full of innovative and creative ideas displaying more commercial wisdom than ever; our growth is hampered only by the foolishness of our government’s policies.

One must ask how the economy is helped, the future advanced, and public welfare promoted by shutting down a significant percent of domestic oil and gas production and creating trillions of unnecessary dollars out of nowhere that will do nothing but produce a high rate of inflation for years. The incompetence of our central government’s policies might both crush the

economy and destroy existing constitutional government, which has sustained this country for almost 250 years. This mess started with forcing interest rates to unrealistically low levels. This has created two problems: one in the public sector and one in the private sector that’s a result of the mess in the public sector. n Low interest rates for the government are self-serving and encourage the government to borrow more. The cost of interest on our $30 trillion of public debt already exceeds $400 billion annually.

Each percentage point increase in the cost of interest adds $300 billion to the cost of servicing the debt annually. The government has suppressed interest rates to make it easier to make payments on its debt, not because it loves the people in the country it serves. n These uneconomically low interest rates created malinvestment in the private sector, a result of companies borrowing money at abnormally low interest rates. Abnormally low interest rates also drove investors out of bonds, which paid almost no yield, and into stocks.

Isn’t that switch a good thing for everybody who likes income?

It’s a double-edged sword. Bondholders will now receive more income, but it is done at the expense of the taxpayer. With government debt exceeding $30 trillion, each 1% increase in the cost of interest costs the public $300 billion in interest payments. In 1980, the Fed increased its key rate to 20%. Inflation peaked at 14.8%.

Should we reach that percentage of inflation and the Fed funds rate is 20%, that would add a staggering $5.6 trillion to our annual budget, almost doubling the entire current budget now estimated to total $6 trillion. Interest payments alone will dominate the federal budget.

What can the government do about this?

The government is responsible for every bit of it. It started with the government flooding the market with cash. Inflation is caused by too much cash in the market. Adding trillions to the spending stream created huge demand and left producers unable to meet demand. That is an example of the current inflationary cycle. The United States was an exporter of petroleum products.

We are now an importer, and we are at the mercy of world demand, which is being disrupted by war in Ukraine.

How do we get out of this situation?

The resolutions are bankruptcy or inflation. The government talks about keeping inflation low, but that’s misleading us, again, as it would love to have 6%-8% inflation sustained over several years. It would eat away at the real “principal amount” of the debt. Five years of 8% inflation would reduce debt

by a third, making the “principal amount” less than $20 trillion.

It’s mentioned above that the market is overpriced. If the market was selling at an average price, what would that be?

To determine the historical average price of the Dow, one needs to determine the average dividend yield on the Dow. The average long-term dividend yield is 4.1%. If the market were selling at the 4.1% yield, the Dow would be 15,400 points instead of 32,500. The market is yielding 1.9%.

How would one assess the current position of the United States in economic and world affairs, and how might that affect the stock market?

One has to take into account that this country is in trouble politically, economically and militarily. While our mortal enemies, Russia and China, build and train their militaries, we are holding classes on how to treat each other “civilly” and taking our eye off the ball on China’s military innovations. That ignorance is likely to lead to catastrophic consequences. Politically, we’re spending billions of dollars pushing agendas helping children decide if they are really males or females and other confusing and distracting subjects. These interferences create a disorderly society, and they are dominating the national agenda.

Rising interest rates, escalating oil prices, years of inflation, and investors switching into the bond market for higher yields represent a set of obstacles to overcome if the market is going to move forward.

It is hard to fathom any set of circumstances in the next 12-24 months that mitigate other than a continuously depressed market pushing stocks well below present values.

Caveat emptor!

George Rauch, Longboat Key, is chief executive officer of Bradentonbased General Propeller and a former Wall Street investment banker.

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YourObserver.com

THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

COPS CORNER

SARASOTA OBSERVER

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1

WATER UNDER THE DOOR 9:10 a.m., 26th Street Property damage: Police responded to a property owner who called to document damage left behind by a disgruntled tenant who allegedly left a shower running intentionally in an effort to flood the bathroom. The owner discovered water running under the door, put towels on the floor to capture the water and turned off the shower. The property owner told police she was involved in a rent dispute with the tenant, who had packed several personal items and left the residence before the flooding was discovered.

The officer advised the owner that having not seen the tenant leave the water on and with no witnesses to the incident, the matter should be referred to civil court.

MONDAY, MAY 30

CURIOUS ONLOOKER 6:30 p.m., Fruitville Road at North Lime Avenue Unleashed dog: While working an accident scene, an officer was made aware of a stray dog at the same location being detained by a civilian.

The pit bull or pit bull mix had been wandering without an owner approximately one block north of Fruitville Road. It was friendly, appeared in good health and was wearing a collar, but no tag was found. An Animal Services officer took possession of the pooch.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1

A LONG JOY RIDE 9:16 a.m., North Geneva Road Suspicious vehicle: An officer on patrol was investigating possible trespassing in a parking lot when a suspicious unoccupied vehicle was discovered. An individual sitting in his own vehicle next to the empty vehicle said he had been there for 30 minutes and saw no driver. The vehicle was locked and had no keys inside, and the license plate was removed. The windshield was cracked on the right side but appeared

More Than A PLAN...

drivable. Upon investigation, it was confirmed the vehicle was stolen from North Carolina. The vehicle was processed for latent prints with negative results. There were no cameras nearby to get possible video footage of the incident. The vehicle was removed and the owner was notified.

TUESDAY, JUNE 2

STALKING IS NO YOKE 9:14 p.m. North Shore Drive Dispute: An uninvited ex-boyfriend was accused of harassing his former girlfriend while she was at a sleepover at a friend’s house. Police were dispatched to the home after the harasser had left but not before he attempted to redecorate the exterior of the home with the ageold prank of egging. Prior to police arrival, the resident cleaned up the eggs, and the mother of her friend explained to police that because her daughter is a minor, she declined to press charges. Undeterred, the officer advised the egg-tossing stalker’s mother that her son should contact the officer to be advised that, should he return to the property, charges may be pursued.

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THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

The backyard, overlooking Sarasota Bay and Longboat Key beyond, features as its centerpiece a resort-style swimming pool, a spa, waterfall, in-pool bar, sun lounges and sunshelf.

Built-in sun lounges are part of the outdoorliving experience.

Courtesy photos

The home at 3021 Bay Shore Road in Indian Beach/Sapphire Shores sold for $12 million.

Bayfront home’s selling price: $12 million Hurricane-safe home goes for third-highest price in Sarasota.

ERIC GARWOOD MANAGING EDITOR

A home perched on Sarasota Bay’s coastline but built to withstand a hurricane sold recently for $12 million, the third-highest-priced sale in the city of Sarasota.

Hugo Gagliardi of Luxio Real Estate was the selling agent of the home at 3021 Bay Shore Road in Indian Beach/Sapphire Shores. Sherri Mills with the downtown office of Michael Saunders & Co. represented the buyers, who according to public records were Daniel and Lauren Henson.

The five-bedroom, five-and-onehalf bath home offers more than 7,100 square feet of living space on

0.41 acres. The new home was engineered out of concrete, with 47 pilings sunk 35 feet below ground.

While the interior is being finished for the new owners’ specifications, Gagliardi said Italian-made doors, tile from Spain and German-made kitchen appliances add to the home’s style and decor.

The backyard overlooks Sarasota Bay and Longboat Key and features as its centerpiece a resort-style swimming pool, spa, waterfall, inpool bar, sun lounges and a sunshelf.

The land on which the home was built was assessed for 2021 with a $1.17 million value. The built-upon valuation is not yet posted on the Sarasota County Property Appraiser’s public-documents section. The parcel was vacant since the 2019 tax assessment, records show.

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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

Homeward bound Jnana Wilson Cooper isn’t just a founding member of the Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe; she’s more like family.

Photos courtesy of Sorcha Augustine

Jnana Wilson Cooper, shown at the WBTT 20th Anniversary Celebration in 2019, is excited to come home.

SPENCER FORDIN A+E EDITOR

H

e was always there as a presence in her life, perhaps even before she was born.

And to hear Jnana Wilson Cooper tell it, Nate Jacobs knew her before she knew herself. Now, 35 years after she was a student in his kindergarten class and 20-plus years after she became a founding member of the Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe, Cooper is coming home to perform for the first time in the Donelly Theatre, the stage her talent helped build.

“To see it now and remember where we’ve come from? It’s kind of mind-blowing,” says Cooper, who will perform her special concert on June 13. “It was Nate’s vision, and we went along with his vision.

“But I don’t think that we knew that it would turn out to be this big and this awesome when we first started.”

Cooper, who last performed with the WBTT at their 20th anniversary show in 2019, can’t help but take a mental journey through the years when asked about Jacobs. Her parents knew him from church, and she wound up knowing him as a kindergarten student at the Westcoast School for Human Development.

Jacobs was fresh out of college at that point and says he was still figuring out how to chart his own career.

The future theater founder was working at the school founded by his mentors, Henry Porter and Cynthia Porter, and moonlighting as an actor at the Asolo Repertory Theatre.

Each and every day, he began finding his own talent while nurturing the talent of his students.

“I came in to teach art, and I stayed longer and longer,” says Jacobs. “I did one year and said, ‘I’ll stay another year.’ It ended up being 12 years. And

while I was there, that school provided an incubator for me to discover the gift I had with young people. For me, it was like a sixth sense.

“I saw it as clear as day: That one should be singing, and that one right there has the ability to dance. I was just like the guru pulling out the talent out of these kids. It was amazing to the church and the church members and the parents of these kids. So that’s where the orbit of me founding this theater company began, because all of them were still children.”

Jacobs began thriving as an actor and was so taken with the abilities of his students that he looked for new ways to showcase his talent. He started wondering why there was no local community theater seeking to develop the talents of young African American children. And that’s when it hit him: If it was going to happen, he’d have to build it himself.

“I was doing this thing with kids of color in the school, but I didn’t see that anywhere else in the city. That began to bother me,” says Jacobs. “I began to ask questions to the theater community of Sarasota, and they were looking at me like I was from Oz. You know the sitcom ‘Mork and Mindy?’ I was Mork.”

Cooper, for her part, was growing up and thinking about the next steps of her life. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be a performer at first and was studying at Manatee Community College to figure out what would come next. Jacobs, at first, asked her if she’d be willing to help with administrative tasks at the office.

She was only too happy to help.

But then fate intervened.

A PUSH IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

Jacobs, who incorporated the Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe in 1999, got an opportunity to stage his first shows in Sarasota at TheatreWorks.

But he was short-staffed and needed

IF YOU GO UNBREAKABLE: AN EVENING WITH JNANA WILSON COOPER When: 7:30 p.m. June 13 Where: Donelly Theatre (1012 N. Orange Ave.) Tickets: $35 adults, $15 students and active military Info: WestcoastBlackTheatre.org

performers he could trust to nail their roles no questions asked. Jacobs says that when he held his first auditions, nobody showed up for two hours.

Then came Teresa Stanley, whom he had worked with at the school since she was about 12 years old.

The next person to come in, Tsadok Porter, was the daughter of his mentors.

“It was the three of us and a musician and a friend of mine in the studio, and I thought, ‘OK, I need a few more people to do what I’m trying to do,’” he says.

“I got on the phone and called Jnana, and she said to me, ‘I don’t sing like those other girls.’ She was still a beginning singer, but she always did my narration work because she was so good at expressing words.

“I actually kind of forcefully told her to come over. She and another girl, Apphia Campbell; I said, ‘Girl, come over here to this studio. You can do everything I want you to do.’ Jnana came because she respected me and trusted me, not because she wanted to at that moment.”

Henry Porter II became the final founding member of the company, SEE WILSON, PAGE 14A

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THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

Wilson FROM PAGE 13A

and the troupe’s first play was “The Cotton Club Cabaret,” part musical revue and part history lesson of the Harlem Renaissance.

Cooper realized she wanted to be a performer, full stop.

“You grow up and you’re finding yourself. That’s where I was,” she says of her mindset before that first play changed her perspective.

“I knew who I was the whole time.

What am I finding, trying to be all deep? Young people try to be extra.

It wasn’t even that deep at all. It was there the whole time.”

And if you ask Jacobs, the rest was predestined or divinely ordered.

Jnana Wilson Cooper became one of the rocks on which he built his theater company, and for more than a decade, she was ever-present as the WBTT found its legs.

Cooper’s siblings, Earley Dean and Kristin Wilson, also performed for WBTT, and Dean is still active with the troupe.

But the success of the company was never a foregone conclusion, says Jacobs. There were many years when they had to fight to make their voices heard.

Though the early years were difficult, says Jacobs, one thing was constant: Cooper wasn’t just an outstanding performer; she was a fierce advocate for everything WBTT aspired to be.

“She protected what she did,” says Jacobs. “There was a lot of pushback to a black theater organization introducing itself to Sarasota. We weren’t embraced with welcoming arms like we are now. We were not the popular WBTT, but Jnana was one of those young people who is resilient. She endured sometimes hearing people being nasty and disrespectful to me.

“She endured the ups and downs and the in-betweens and rehearsing in closets. She was the one that stood with me during those eras and always brought excellence to the stage whenever she performed. And I said to her, ‘I will never forget you.’”

Cooper, meanwhile, was growing up and falling in love. She married her husband, an engineer, and

Nate Jacobs, Jnana Wilson, Teresa Stanley and Tsadok Porter in the WBTT’s Cotton Club Cabaret show in 2000.

Courtesy photos

Jnana Wilson Cooper is coming back to where it all began.

ultimately left Sarasota to move to Michigan in 2013. Cooper stresses that she was not ending her performing career; she was just pausing it to raise her children. Now, her first-born daughter, Gabriella, is 10, and her second child, Elisha, is 6.

She’s not sure if either one has been bitten with the performance bug, but she says she can see the faint ember of their talents if they choose to pursue it.

Cooper, coming home for her onenight performance, says it will be humbling to look out into the audience and see faces that she’s literally seen since she’s a child.

“It will be an honor,” Cooper says.

“It will be a time to let them know that things that were sown into me did not go to bad soil. It’s humbling to know that people still remember me and still want to see me. It blows your mind because you think these people forgot about me. Out of sight, out of mind. But no, I made an impact.”

Not only did she make an impact, she also built bonds that will last a lifetime. Jacobs says Cooper is like a daughter to him, and Cooper says she’s eternally grateful to have met him as a child.

A few months ago, she says, she was sent a link to a New York Times article featuring Jacobs and WBTT, and she was just thrilled to be part of

Jnana Wilson, Tsadok Porter and Teresa Stanley in 2007’s WBTT production of “Dreamgirls.”

the journey.

“You made it, Nate!” she says. “It’s weird that we call him Nate because forever he was Mr. Jacobs. He moved from our teacher to friend. It was so exciting to read.

“He still mentioned us; that’s what

I love about him. There are so many things, but I appreciate him for never allowing people to forget who helped him. ‘You see me a lot, and I’m the face of the company, but it was a lot of people who helped me to get here.’

He never forgets about the six of us.”

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YourObserver.com

SARASOTA OBSERVER

The play you see in previews might not be the play you see on opening night.

Douglas Carter Beane, the playwright behind “Hood,” says that despite putting years into penning the script, the play is still a work in progress all the way until the first curtain.

“The fact that we’re not down there in Florida at this particular moment screaming in hallways and shoving new pages under people’s faces is a sign that things are going very well,” says Beane of the creative process before previews begin.

Interestingly, he says, the most collaborative part of the theater-making process is the time between previews and the opening curtain. “Hood” will be in previews June 3-10, and the actual production will run June 11-26.

In those first performances, Beane will be watching for audience reaction when making his edits.

“When a writer does his work in the preview process, it’s the first time it’s seen by an audience that dictates what the show is going to be,” he says. “Something that you think is hilariously funny and just leaves people staring at it incomprehensively, then you know to cut it. Something that may seem slightly funny turns out to be a bigger laugh.

“If people are very moved by something, that can reshape the scene. So with (Director Mark Brokaw’s) guidance and the choreographer’s guidance and our musical director’s guidance, we’ll all be working on that together. This is total collaboration time.”

Lewis Flinn, Beane’s husband and the lyricist and composer behind “Hood,” has a much more poetic way of describing the creative process during previews.

“Our job is to build the boat,” says Flinn. “Then, it’s Mark’s and the cast’s job to make it sail. And then producers decide the path it’s on. But right now we’re just focused on building the boat and to make sure it’s not leaking.”

Beane, without missing a beat, adds, “Or the rats aren’t jumping off.”

Photo courtesy of Sophia Marquart

Anthony Chatmon II and Billie Aken-Tyers rehearse to bring “Hood” to the stage.

Timely & timeless Douglas Carter Beane and Lewis Flinn, the married couple behind Asolo Rep’s ‘Hood,’ chat about their creative process and collaborative partnership.

SPENCER FORDIN A+E EDITOR

T

he material has been marinating for 1,000 years. You know it even if you don’t know it.

And that’s where the challenge comes in for the creative team behind “Hood.” Douglas Carter Beane, the playwright behind the Asolo Repertory Theatre production, is attempting to bring the story of Robin Hood into the current day.

His husband, Lewis Flinn, has the task of writing original songs that will only burnish the existing legend.

“Hood” last saw the stage in Dallas in 2017, but it’s been tweaked a bit in the intervening years. The script is a living and evolving creature, says Beane, who recently joined Flinn and the Observer on a call to discuss the upcoming production.

“If you’re really good at what you do, it can be timely and it can be timeless,” says Beane, a five-time Tony Award nominee. “The stories we’re basing this show on have been around since the 1100s. They were ballads. There was no one author; there are several different people who would make up these stories. I would say, except for one throughline of our show, every one of them was one of those original stories.”

“Hood” has had a long gestational cycle since being created at

the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. It had iterations at the Royal Academy of Music in London and a Shakespeare Festival in Scranton, Pennsylvania, before having its run at the Dallas Theater Center. But then came a turbulent political time in the United States, and then came the COVID-19 pandemic.

Inevitably, some of the play had to change. Beane says that before the pandemic, the play might have come to the stage pretty much the way it had been written. But Flinn was able to use the time between productions to make the play more musical, adding flourishes that just weren’t possible the first time around.

“When we were writing at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, it’s not a musical program,” says Flinn. “So none of the actors were singers at all. None wanted to be.

None pretended to be. The challenge was to write songs that non-singers could sing and still sound good. Even though it’s since gone on to professional productions, and I’ve put a lot of arrangements into it, it has a score that is, in my mind, sort of for the everyman singalong.”

Flinn allows that there are no “Sondheimian intervals” in the music, but he says the songs have influences ranging from Celtic sources to Kurt Weill, folk rock and soul. And that’s part of the charm of the material, Beane says: It can adapt itself to a number of tones.

Beane says he was encouraged to write “Hood” after reading bedtime stories to his children; they loved the tales of Robin Hood even though they were a thousand years removed from when they were created.

That’s because the stories have an elemental structure to them that people instinctively appreciate.

“They are first and foremost sto-

IF YOU GO

‘HOOD’ When: Previews June 3-10; June 11-26 Where: Asolo Repertory Theatre, 5555 N. Tamiami Trail Tickets: $33-$93 Info: AsoloRep.org

ries of of a hero. But they have a lightness and humor to them that I respond to,” says Beane. “A friend of mine who’s a writer said, ‘Robin Hood is always laughing. When you think of Robin, he’s always standing on a log and laughing.’ I said, ‘Yeah, he’s a fun guy.’ That image was obviously an influence. But the stories are fun stories, and somehow they’re in our brains, even if we don’t remember ever seeing them.”

Beane mentions the Errol Flynn and animated Disney versions of Robin Hood that have become ubiquitous in pop culture, and he says there are moments in the legend we all recognize instinctually.

There’s Robin donning a disguise to enter an archery competition, and there’s the moment Robin meets Little John on a bridge. The art comes in taking those moments and still saying something original.

Beane and Flinn met while working on “Music From a Sparkling Planet,” which was directed by “Hood” Director Mark Brokaw and had its theatrical run in 2002.

“I would say that actually we met as collaborators,” says Beane.

“I had written a play. Mark Brokaw was directing that play, and he hired Lewis Flinn to bring music into the play. I initially was very upset because I had selected some bound music for the show. But when I heard

THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

Lewis’s music, I remember I started to cry because I thought it was so beautiful.”

“It’s been 20 years of tears ever since,” jokes Flinn.

The pair have collaborated with Brokaw several times; Brokaw, for instance, directed Beane’s wildly successful adaptation of “Cinderella.” Together, Beane and Flinn have created “Lysistrata Jones,” and Flinn contributed music to Beane’s “The Little Dog Laughed.” They’ve also worked together on things that haven’t yet seen the light of day.

“We have an easy rapport. We get along,” says Beane. “We have very similar tastes in theater. Rarely do we leave a show that we didn’t write, and he says, ‘Oh, I loved that,’ and I say, ‘Oh, I hated it.’ Usually, we have a very similar aesthetic.”

How do they work together?

Are you picturing the married playwright and lyricist sitting side by side at a keyboard and carrying out their tasks?

That’s not really the way it works.

“We don’t sit in the same room, creatively,” says Flinn. “We do when we want to review or discuss something. But a lot of time, it’s separate.

And you have to be careful; I’ll be working, but Doug may have moved on to a different project.

“I’ll be on this and want to bring it up, so I just have to say, ‘OK, I need to schedule a time to discuss this tomorrow at 11 a.m.’”

Flinn often works in a studio across the street from their apartment.

“I’ll be working on something else or maybe watching television,” says Beane. “Then a little bling will show up on my phone, and he’ll send me an email on the draft of a song. And that’s always like a nice little bonus treat. If I’m in a restaurant, I get to just run into a bathroom and play it.”

The pair has been working on this play since the Obama Administration, but they’ve taken time out in that span to work on other projects.

Beane singled out one cast member, Billie Aken-Tyers, who has been a part of the project since the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Aken-Tyers began as an assistant director on “Hood” but stepped in and played a role when an actor took ill. Now she’s a permanent member of the cast.

Beane and Flinn say that the cast of “Hood” is an instant community, a family that has worked to bring the story to life over a number of years.

The show has evolved with the times they live in, but neither Beane nor Flinn wants to get ahead of themselves and predict what happens to “Hood” after Sarasota.

“Honestly, we’re not thinking beyond this opening,” says Beane.

“The minute you start putting stars in your eyes like, ‘This will go into the Majestic Theatre and kick out “Phantom of the Opera,”’ you’re dead because then you’re not doing the work.”

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THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

OUR PICK

CHUANG PLAYS CHOPIN We’ve got some alliteration in this event on the Sarasota Music Festival docket. Pianist Ya-Fei Chuang, a festival alumna, will take center stage on Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor.

The Festival Orchestra, led by conductor Yaniv Dinur, will play Jessie Montgomery’s “Starburst” and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 to complete the program.

IF YOU GO When: 7:30 p.m.

Where: Sarasota Opera House, 61 N. Pineapple Ave. Tickets: $29-$65 Info: Visit SarasotaOrchestra.org.

THIS WEEK THURSDAY

DARKNESS TO LIGHT 4:30 p.m. at Holley Hall, 709 N. Tamiami Trail $29-$40 Visit SarasotaOrchestra.org The Calidore String Quartet is the guest of honor at this, the opening event of the Sarasota Music Festival.

The quartet, which consists of violinists Jeffrey Myers and Ryan Meehan, viola player Jeremy Berry and cellist Estelle Choi, was formed at The Colburn School in Los Angeles in 2010. Other standout musicians are pianist and festival music director Jeffrey Kahane, clarinetist Franklin Cohen and flutist Carol Wincenc.

TEN-MINUTE PLAY FESTIVAL 8 p.m. at The Cook Theatre, 5555 N. Tamiami Trail $28 Visit TheatreOdyssey.org.

How do you like your drama? Theatre Odyssey will present the best quick-and-dirty plays from artists throughout Florida over four days at the Cook Theatre. None of these plays run more than 10 minutes, but they’re full realized works that fast forward to the denouement. Former drama teacher Connie Schindewolf, a Bradenton resident, has won best play at this festival twice and returns with a work entitled “Ancestry” for this year’s festival. Runs through June 12.

JAZZ THURSDAYS AT SAM: DARCIE ALLEN AND THE FIVE POINTS QUINTET 5:30-8 p.m. at Sarasota Art Museum, 1001 S. Tamiami Trail $20 guests, Free for museum members Visit JazzClubSarasota.org.

Local vocalist Darcie Allen is fronting an all-star band that took its name from a famous Sarasota intersection. Allen will be supported by Marc Mannino, Pete Carney, Bob Lunergan and Peter Innocenti, who’ll play a selection of jazz songs in a contemporary format. The beautiful Marcy and Michael Klein Plaza will serve as backdrop for the show, and the museum’s galleries, bistro and shop will remain open for the duration of the concert.

DEAN NAPOLITANO 7 p.m. at McCurdy’s Comedy Theater, 1923 Ringling Blvd. $25 Visit McCurdysComedy.com.

Come down for some comedy Napolitano style. Napolitano, a native of Long Island, New York, has done the hard work of building a name for himself by relentlessly touring comedy clubs in Florida and around the country. Nothing is sacred for Napolitano, and he’ll joke about anything and everything that will bring a laugh from the audience.

SATURDAY

Come meet the artists who are helping artists. Elizabeth Goodwill and Barbara Gerdeman started Creative Liberties with the hope of providing studio space and assistance in staging exhibitions for less-experienced artists, and Here Comes the Sun will give patrons a chance to peruse and purchase art from local artisans in a variety of mediums.

FRIDAY IN-STUDIO PERFORMANCE FEATURING LISA DEL ROSARIO 7 p.m. at SCD Home Studio, 1400 Boulevard of the Arts $20 Visit SarasotaContemporaryDance. org.

Lisa del Rosario, a Texas-based ballet instructor, will be performing for one night only at Sarasota Contemporary Dance’s home studio. There will be a virtual showing of the event at 7 p.m. Saturday.

‘ATHENA’ BY GRACIE GARDNER 7:30 p.m. at Urbanite Theatre, 1487 Second St. $20-$36 Visit UrbaniteTheatre.com.

You’ve seen rival dramas in just about every sport, but have you tried fencing? This play, written by Gracie Gardner and directed by Summer Wallace, centers on a pair of aspiring fencers who compete against each other and practice together, but do they really like each other? June 10 is the opening night, and it will run through July 10.

REUNION 7:30 p.m. at Sarasota Opera House, 61 N. Pineapple Ave. $29-$50 Visit SarasotaOrchestra.org.

This Sarasota Music Festival event will reunite faculty members and fellows to make beautiful music. Faculty violinist James Dunham will lead a group of string fellows in Bach’s famous Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, and the woodwind fellows will perform on Carl Nielsen’s Wind Quintet.

The fellows will also play Florence Price and Dvořák in this show.

NEXT TO NORMAL 7:30 p.m. at Rise Above Performing Arts Center, 3501 S. Tamiami Trail $17-$27 Visit RiseAboveArts.com

‘HOOD’ 8 p.m. at Mertz Theatre, 5555 N. Tamiami Trail $30-$76 Visit AsoloRep.org.

You can feel good about Hood. This musical adaptation of the timeless Robin Hood tales has been reworked substantially since its last theatrical run in Dallas in 2017. The musical comes from the real-life partnership of playwright Douglas Carter Beane, a five-time Tony nominee, and his husband, lyricist Lewis Flinn. Runs through June 26.

SUNDAY HD AT THE OPERA HOUSE: ‘ROMEO AND JULIET’ 1:30 p.m. at Sarasota Opera House, 61 N. Pineapple Ave. $22 Visit SarasotaOpera.org.

Get your popcorn and settle in for a classic of ballet cinema. Shakespeare’s timeless romance is set to music by Sergey Prokofiev and choreographer Kenneth MacMillan, and the music is played by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. Dancers Marcelino Sambe and Anna-Rose O’Sullivan hit their marks in this eternal production.

RISING STARS 1 2:30 p.m. at Holley Hall, 709 N. Tamiami Trail $15-$22 Visit SarasotaOrchestra.org.

Come hear fellows work together on ensembles that play many of the giants of the classical genre. Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Schubert will all be on the bill for this festival event, which will run 90 minutes with an intermission.

RING OF FIRE 7 p.m. at Gompertz Theatre, 1265 First St. $45 Visit FloridaStudioTheatre.org.

Love is a burning thing, and it makes a fiery ring. Scott Moreau stars as Johnny Cash in this show, which will take you on a tour through the beloved artist’s canon. The show, created by Richard Maltby Jr. and conceived by William Meade, made an outsized impact on Broadway before touring Sarasota. Runs through June 19.

This show has made its mark on the American theater, taking home three Tony Awards in 2009. It’s a complex family drama set to music,

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It’s the debut of Florida Studio Theatre’s Summer Cabaret show, which will run through Aug. 7. This production, based on the classic music of Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, has successfully toured the country and performed in more than 150 cities. The musical arrangements are done by Jared Mancuso and Nick Gallardo.

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SUMMER CIRCUS SPECTACULAR Sarasota, a circus city, is bracing for the summer spectacular, which will bring the art of circus to the Historic Asolo Theater.

The event, a partnership between the Circus Arts Conservatory and The Ringling, will bring a number of phenomenally talented artists to Sarasota from June 10 to Aug. 13.

Heidi Herriott, a third-generation circus performer, will serve as master of ceremonies, and the acts will include an aerial duo, a hand balancing team and a hand balance/contortion act.

Abreham Mola, a skilled acrobat and juggler, will perform on the rolla bolla, and Chris Allison, a graduate of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus Clown College, will provide comic relief.

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WEDNESDAY

MICHAEL MACK AND THE FACES OF ROCK 7 p.m. at McCurdy’s Comedy Theatre, 1923 Ringling Blvd. $25 Visit McCurdysComedy.com.

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JUNE 9, 2022

YOUR NEIGHBORS

Photos by Harry Sayer

Ellie Levy, Nicholas Lewis, Rui Jiang, Sarasota Mayor Erik Arroyo, Donnally Miller and Scott Ramer comprise Team Sarasota in the international chess match.

Friendly competition

Mayor Erik Arroyo has played chess since grade school.

Sister Cities Association of Sarasota and the Manasota Chess Center partnered to play a little online chess against a team in Tel Mond, Israel.

HARRY SAYER STAFF WRITER

M

ayor Erik Arroyo likes to play chess.

That’s been true from the time he was a young boy receiving his first chess set to when he was a Sarasota lawyer playing daylong chess matches with fellow lawyers and judges, moving pieces between cases.

He now has one chess set in City Hall, one in his car and one at home.

He also takes the time to play online chess with players across world. It’s a connection he enjoys.

“It’s a beautiful way to connect with people all over the world,” he said. “It’s an ancient tradition that we all have managed to pass down.”

He feels like he’s good enough; he has his favorite strategies, including the English Opening, the Stonewall Attack and the Sicilian Defense, depending on whether he’s playing black or white. But his confidence took after he entered a competition at the Manasota Chess Center.

“I thought I was advanced,” Arroyo said. “I got here, and I got crushed. I won maybe one match out of eight.”

All the same, Arroyo recently found himself back at the chess center for a different kind of competition — one that promoted goodwill and camaraderie between Sarasota and the city of Tel Mond in Israel.

Arroyo and five other players of varying backgrounds and skill sets competed against a chess team in Tel

Mond during an online chess match to foster friendship on May 28.

The event was a partnership between Manasota Chess Center and Sister Cities Association of Sarasota, an organization that promotes goodwill between Sarasota and international cities it’s partnered with.

Arroyo teamed up with several other players, including a chess national master, with each playing two matches against their opponents in Israel. The players on both sides were picked to be at similar skill levels. Sarasota’s side included Manasota Chess Center Executive Director Nicholas Lewis, chess national master Scott Ramer, scholastic participants Rui Jiang and Ellie Levy — both of whom have studied chess at the center — and longtime chess player Donnally Miller.

Many of the players turned out for the thrill of competition, but the day’s contest meant more to Sister Cities President Miriam Kramer. The organization’s leader sees it as a way to connect Sarasota to the rest of the world through good actions, something akin to an idealistic boost for dark times.

“It might sound dry on the surface, but it really isn’t,” Kramer said.

“Our players are meeting people (during) their remarks; it’s an idealistic vision. Our whole (mission) is creating peaceful relationships with our cities around the world.”

Sisters Cities hosted chess matches with connected cities at local libraries and schools before the pan-

“I was trying to do something we could do across the ocean that was low cost and promoted friendship.”

— Miriam Kramer, president of Sister Cities Association of Sarasota

demic, but that was before Sarasota had its own chess center. Once the Manasota Chess Center was up and operational, wheels began turning in Kramer’s head.

Sister Cities and the chess organization quickly planned a chess competition against one of Sarasota’s Sister Cities, Vladimir, Russia. Their game was scheduled a few days after Russia invaded Ukraine. The relationship between the cities was suspended, and the event was canceled.

Lewis and Kramer were still eager to have a game and turned to the city of Tel Mond, Israel. Fortunately, much of the technical setup and planning could be quickly applied to the new contest.

“I was trying to do something we could do across the ocean that was low cost and promoted friendship,” Kramer said. “We have a strong chess tradition; they have strong chess in Tel Mond.”

Arroyo received an invitation to join the team after Kramer learned he was a chess fan. He felt he held

his own during his two matches and walked away with a win.

There’s philosophical value in chess to Arroyo as well. He feels that playing the game can make you understand the importance of gradual wins and the effects they can have when added together.

“It unites us and teaches a younger generation that, like in chess, you find value in small, incremental wins,” Arroyo said. “Those can add up to a big victory later on. Even small activities like this tournament can add to a larger bond with our sister city.”

Lewis was less fortunate. The center’s executive director gave it his all during his two matches but walked away with two losses. He felt like he had a shot against his opponent but didn’t make the right moves.

“I go back to fundamentals, try to play good moves,” Lewis said. “It doesn’t matter if the other person is better than you; you’re playing the board. You just have to make the best moves.”

By the day’s end, Tel Mond beat Sarasota 9 to 3.

Still, it was hard for Lewis to look at the day as any kind of loss. Finally having the Sarasota team together and competing was a victory in and of itself.

With any luck, Kramer and Lewis will host new competitions against other cities going forward. “(Sister Cities) has plenty of relationships with different cities,” Lewis said. “Hopefully we can play all of them.”

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THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

YOUR CALENDAR

PATTI SMITH

JUNE 11

PROJECT PRIDE CAR PARADE 11 a.m. on Main Street. Project PRIDE SRQ leads its annual car parade through downtown Sarasota on Main Street, ending at Bayfront Park. An afterparty will be held at O’Leary’s Tiki Bar & Grill. Free. For information, visit PPSrq.org.

JUNE 10

FREAK SHOW ESCAPE ROOM OPENING 5 p.m. at Mysterium Escape Room & VR. A freak show escape room opens with circus-themed trivia, karaoke and even a creepy clown costume contest. Tickets start at $15. For information, visit MysteriumEscapeRooms.com.

FEBRUARY 13 - JUNE 26 NOW THROUGH JUNE 26

SUMMER CIRCUS SPECTACULAR 7 p.m. at Historic Asolo Theater, 5401 Bay Shore Road. The annual circus show from Circus Arts Conservatory features a number of local circus performances at various times all week, through Aug. 13. Tickets are $18 for adults and $12 for children 12 and under. For information, call 355-9805.

PRESENTING SPONSORS Drs. Joel Morganroth and Gail Morrison Morganroth LEAD SPONSORS

Marianne and William McComb

JUNE 11

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Parkway. Mote Marine celebrates oceans with themed games, facepainting, visits with a children’s author and photos with the lab’s mascots. Tickets start at $19. For more information, visit Mote.org.

FAMILY HULA-HOOPING 2 p.m. at Fruitville Library, 100 Apex Road. Amy Raspiller leads a HulaHooping class in which families learn tricks, special movements and everything else needed to properly Hula-Hoop. Free. For information, call 861-2500.

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LIGER LUAU 5:30 p.m. at Big Cat Habitat & Gulf Coast Sanctuary, 7101 Palmer Blvd.

The second Liger Luau event brings live music, Hawaiian-themed food, raffle prizes and plenty of animal guests to Big Cat Habitat. Tickets are $50-$75. For information, call 371-6377.

KIDS’ SUMMER BEACH RUNS 5:30 p.m. at Siesta Beach, 948 Beach Road. The summer series returns with weekly mile fun runs for kids on Siesta Beach. Registration at 5:30 p.m.; run starts at 6. For information, visit SCGov.net.

JUNE 15

SOCRATES CAFE 10:30 a.m. at Selby Library, 1331 First St. People from different backgrounds meet to respectfully exchange ideas and learn new perspectives at this library series. Free.

For information, call 861-1100.

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THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

Day for dogs

T

he Bazaar on Apricot and Lime put on a day for dogs during its debut Dog Days of Summer costume contest June 4.

More than 20 excited dog owners brought their canines of all shapes and sizes to the event, each dressed in a colorful and cute design. Some were superheroes, while others were modeled after Audrey Hepburn or Darth Vader. The day also had representatives from rescue organizations Tender Heart Charities, Love4Paws and Satchel’s Last Resort, which brought rescue dogs looking for their forever home.

Each dog walked up on stage for the benefit of three judges. By the end of the competition, awards had been given out to Gail Yeager and her dog Hetty for their matching costumes and Debra Kiner and her dog Chewy for his pineapple costume.

Amanda Munro pets Elijah.

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Debra Kiner, Chewy and Kendal Kiner

A costumed Pierre

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he crowd was up and grooving during Project PRIDE SRQ’s Grand Carnival at the Sarasota Municipal Auditorium on June 4.

The debut event, which continues Project PRIDE’s many programs and events during June, had dozens of supporters filling the auditorium for a night that paid tribute to LGBTQ history. The auditorium was full of informational posters of LGBTQ figures and icons past that the audience learned about while mingling and sipping drinks.

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WILD FLORIDA An exploration beyond the pavement.

Raccoons are handy, adaptable There’s no masking this mammal’s role in the state’s habitat.

A

native species, raccoons are among the most-intelligent of Florida’s wildlife. Historically found in our forests, wetlands and along river and stream corridors, these highly adaptable omnivores, which will eat just about anything, have, by necessity, learned to thrive in close proximity to humans.

In their natural Wild Florida habitats, their typical diet consists of fruits, grains, nuts and vegetables, along with small mammals, amphibians, insects and reptiles.

In urban Florida, where wild food is less abundant, they will also happily help themselves to anything they find in your garbage.

Raccoons tend to do most of their foraging at twilight and night. Their dark masks are believed to help reduce glare and improve vision in low-light environments, and although they have very keen night vision, their most highly tuned sense is touch: Their extremely dextrous hands, capable of highly complex tasks, are full of sensitive receptors.

And wetting their hands helps increase the responsiveness of those nerves, which explains why you’ll often see raccoons “washing” their food or hands.

Despite habitat reduction due to development, as well as being extensively hunted for their meat and fur, raccoons have been able to thrive in Florida. Given their important role in Florida’s ecosystems, this is a very good thing. In addition to being helpful seed dispersers, raccoons are important predators and pest controllers. Indeed, raccoons have a great affinity for insects in both larvae and full form. They will even eat wasps, which helps protect bees, and

Miri Hardy

other threatened pollinators critical to Florida ecosystems. And, as scavengers, by removing rotting meat or plant matter, raccoons play a central role in helping keep Wild (and less wild) Florida healthy.

But once accustomed to being fed or having easy access to food, raccoons lose their natural fear of humans and will move closer to food sources. To keep these important residents of Wild Florida safe and away from our living spaces, we should avoid leaving trash, bird seeds or pet food outdoors (especially overnight). And when spending time in Wild Florida, we should never feed wildlife.

Raccoons are nocturnal but can be active during the day. A mother raccoon out with her kits is likely teaching them how to forage.

—MIRI HARDY FRIENDS OF MYAKKA RIVER

Friends of Myakka River exists to support Myakka River State Park and the Wild and Scenic Myakka River. Together, we’re protecting and sharing Myakka’s Magic, to the benefit of future generations and our own.

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THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

7B

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THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

SARASOTA 1423 Hillview Drive 6 Beds 7/2 Baths 11,588 Sq. Ft. Linda Driggs & Kim Ogilvie 941-374-2920 A4525534 $21,600,000

SARASOTA 1718 Bay View Drive 6 Beds 5/1 Baths 4,644 Sq. Ft. Mackenzie Longueuil & Pat Mudgett 941-961-4023 A4536016 $3,750,000

ENGLEWOOD 4990 N Beach Road 3 Beds 3 Baths 1,870 Sq. Ft. Marla Crane 251-300-1047 D6125053 $3,100,000

SARASOTA 1771 Ringling Boulevard PH302 3 Beds 3/1 Baths 2,873 Sq. Ft. Michael Moulton 941-928-3559 A4532280 $2,975,000

VENICE 721 Granada Avenue 4 Beds 3 Baths 3,287 Sq. Ft. Margaret Kennedy 941-713-5000 A4535138 $2,650,000

SARASOTA 650 Golden Gate Point 302 2 Beds 2/1 Baths 1,949 Sq. Ft. Dana Westmark 941-356-5091 A4531159 $2,600,000

SIESTA KEY 3913 Roberts Point Road 4 Beds 4/1 Baths 2,793 Sq. Ft. Denise Mei 941-685-3198 A4535487 $2,499,000

BIRD KEY 628 N Owl Drive 3 Beds 2 Baths 2,534 Sq. Ft. Kathy Valente & Gregory Zies, LLC 941-685-6767 A4526783 $2,495,000

SARASOTA 13966 Pine Woods Lane E 5 Beds 3/1 Baths 4,531 Sq. Ft. Tammy Mast 941-256-6543 A4535509 $2,400,000

SARASOTA 3537 Founders Club Drive 3 Beds 3 Baths 3,544 Sq. Ft. Richard Hearn 941-313-1591 A4535534 $2,300,000

SIESTA KEY 681 Avenida De Mayo 3 Beds 3 Baths 3,324 Sq. Ft. Camille Buck 941-894-4771 A4535840 $2,295,000

SARASOTA 1350 Main Street 1410 2 Beds 2/1 Baths 2,288 Sq. Ft. Bibi-Ann Allard PA 941-685-0422 A4534087 $2,285,000

SARASOTA 3835 Pomegranate Place 3 Beds 3/1 Baths 3,179 Sq. Ft. Kelly Quigley 941-356-9954 A4519108 $2,200,000

SIESTA KEY 6326 Midnight Pass Road 508 3 Beds 3 Baths 2,318 Sq. Ft. Karen Chandler 941-544-4919 A4523199 $2,159,000

SARASOTA 1704 Arlington Street 3 Beds 3 Baths 2,545 Sq. Ft. Barbara May & Fred Sassen 404-822-9264 A4529406 $2,100,000

SARASOTA 1111 Ritz Carlton Drive 1008 1 Bed 1/1 Baths 1,768 Sq. Ft. Kim Ogilvie 941-376-1717 A4535190 $1,875,000

SARASOTA 8188 Grande Shores Drive 3 Beds 2/1 Baths 2,797 Sq. Ft. Stacy Haas 941-587-4359 A4532966 $1,795,000

SARASOTA 1111 N Gulfstream Avenue 7D 2 Beds 2 Baths 1,736 Sq. Ft. Bernadette Caswell 941-320-8265 A4535300 $1,700,000

SIESTA KEY 6146 Midnight Pass Road 10S 2 Beds 2 Baths 1,204 Sq. Ft. Marlene & George Marshall 941-539-8850 A4527968 $1,500,000

SIESTA KEY 19 Whispering Sands Drive 102 2 Beds 2 Baths 1,464 Sq. Ft. Mary Jo Violett 941-928-8474 A4533091 $1,395,000

SARASOTA 1694 Floyd Street 2 Beds 2 Baths 1,988 Sq. Ft. Julia Mcclung 941-356-6499 A4533919 $1,290,000

SIESTA KEY 5880 Midnight Pass Road 310 3 Beds 2 Baths 1,713 Sq. Ft. Linda Stowe 941-228-5685 A4536003 $1,285,000

SIESTA KEY 6140 Midnight Pass Road 502 2 Beds 2 Baths 1,521 Sq. Ft. Barbara Dumbaugh & Victoria Lear 941-951-6660 A4532193 $1,200,000

SARASOTA 1685 Laurel Street 9 3 Beds 2/1 Baths 1,914 Sq. Ft. Lenore Treiman 941-356-9642 A4535266 $1,150,000

SARASOTA 707 S Gulfstream Avenue 1003 2 Beds 2 Baths 1,305 Sq. Ft. Marybeth Flynn 941-704-1477 A4535832 $1,150,000

LONGBOAT KEY 2161 Gulf Of Mexico Drive PH3 4 Beds 4/1 Baths 6,002 Sq. Ft. Jenifer Schwell 941-780-0968 A4534425 $8,950,000

SARASOTA 1500 Shelburne Lane 3 Beds 3/1 Baths 4,505 Sq. Ft. Kim Ogilvie 941-376-1717 A4535715 $4,950,000

SARASOTA 100 Central Avenue PH01 4 Beds 4/1 Baths 3,764 Sq. Ft. Bibi-Ann Allard PA 941-685-0422 A4533365 $3,750,000

888.552.5228 | MICHAELSAUNDERS.COM

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YourObserver.com

SARASOTA OBSERVER

ADAM HUGHES

A

home in Cardinal Shores tops all transactions in this week’s real estate. 513 Casey Key Road LLC sold the home at 513 Casey Key Road to Jeremy Ruccio, of Nokomis, for $4.2 million.

Built in 1983, it has three bedrooms, two baths and 2,516 square feet of living area. It sold for $2.3 million in 2020.

Q Donald Allen Bauer and Mary Lyn Bauer, of Sarasota, sold their home at 271 Cosmopolitan Court to Robin and Michael Marrah, of Elmhurst, Illinois, for $1,375,000.

Built in 2015, it has three bedrooms, three-and-a-half baths and 2,588 square feet of living area. It sold for $903,200 in 2020.

HUDSON PARK Somphone Jim Makamanivong and Elizabeth Jae Clark, of Tampa, sold their home at 2414 Wood St. to Joanna and Zachary Brewer, of Sarasota, for $1.35 million. Built in 2015, it has five bedrooms, twoand-a-half baths, a pool and 2,737 square feet of living area. It sold for $445,000 in 2016.

ONE WATERGATE Jill and Raymond Riondet, of Grenoble, France, sold their Unit 15B condominium at 1111 N. Gulfstream Ave. to Salim and Carol Lalani, of Bozeman, Montana, for $1,275,000. Built in 1974, it has two bedrooms, two baths and 1,575 square feet of living area.

SCHOOL AVENUE TOWNHOMES Gerard Severynse, trustee, and Modell Plummer, of Sanibel, sold the home at 12 N. School Ave. to Peter and Patricia Knox, of Venice, for $1,225,000. Built in 2020, it has three bedrooms, three-and-a-half baths and 2,761 square feet of living area. It sold for $699,000 in 2020.

MAY 23-27

SARASOTA

The Landings Rodney Word Hollingsworth Jr. and Kathryn Taylor Hollingsworth, of Sarasota, sold their home at 1684 Peregine Point Drive to Adam and Nina Ziff, of Sarasota, for $2.28 million. Built in 1984, it has five bedrooms, fiveand-a-half baths, a pool and 5,410 square feet of living area. It sold for $724,100 in 2009.

SIESTA KEY

SARASOTA HANSEN Richard Dean Osney and Judy Gayle Osney, of Sarasota, sold their home at 3901 Red Rock Way to 3901 Red Rock Way LLC for $2.15 million.

Built in 2002, it has three bedrooms, four baths, a pool and 3,536 square feet of living area.

RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE TRANSACTIONS

Other top sales by area

RESEARCH EDITOR

Photo courtesy of Lori Carey, Premier Sotheby’s International Realty

The home at 513 Casey Key Road topped this week’s sales at $4.2 million.

Patricia Ann Wunderlin, trustee, of Sarasota, sold the home at 142 Audubon Place to Alvaro and Courtney Bada, of Sarasota, for $1,135,000. Built in 2019, it has three bedrooms, three-and-a-half baths and 2,430 square feet of living area. It sold for $667,500 in 2021.

RIGBY’S Michael and Janice Braga, of Sarasota, sold their home at 1002 Osprey Ave. to Paul and Marianne Ferrier, of Sarasota, for $1.2 million.

Built in 1922, it has three bedrooms, three baths and 2,434 square feet of living area. It sold for $220,000 in 1997.

baths and 1,029 square feet of living area. It sold for $835,000 in January.

Siesta’s Bayside Jimmy and Barbara Shirley, of Sarasota, sold their home at 615 Waterside Way to George William Young and Lee Rauch, of New York City, for $2.95 million. Built in 1972, it has five bedrooms, three baths, a pool and 3,793 square feet of living area.

It sold for $259,300 in 1990.

ORANGE CREST PARK Richard Oaks, of Ridgeley, West Virginia, sold two properties at to 2040 and 2030 Sandrals LLC for $865,000. The property at 2040 was built in 1972, it has four bedrooms, two baths and 1,854 square feet of living area. The property at 2030 was built in 1972, it has four bedrooms, four baths and 1,854 square feet of living area. They sold for $390,000 in 2014.

GROVELAWN Marian Jones sold her home at 2149 Wisteria St. to RJJM LLC for $1 million. Built in 1951, it has three bedrooms, one-and-a-half baths, a pool and 1,910 square feet of living area.

PALM PLACE Kathleen Ann Homan, trustee, of Bradenton, sold the Unit 304 condominium at 755 S. Palm Ave. to David Alexander Smith and Philippa Jane Smith, of Glasgow, Scotland, for $991,000. Built in 1983, it has two bedrooms, two baths and 1,421 square feet of living area. It sold for $580,000 in 2017.

JOHNSON ESTATE HB Land Holdings II LLC sold the home at 1520 Kenilworth St. to Michael and Caitlin Moustoukas, of Sarasota, for $875,000. Built in 1945, it has two bedrooms, two

9B

THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

REAL ESTATE

Casey Key home tops weekly sales at $4.2 million

|

PALMER RANCH

Turtle Rock David and Lori Hollos, of Windsor, Colorado, sold their home at 8605 Great Meadow Drive to James and Helen Biniaris, of Rahway, New Jersey, for $1.1 million. Built in 1995, it has three bedrooms, two baths, a pool and 2,409 square feet of living area. It sold for $505,000 in 2018.

OSPREY

Oaks II Christopher Hill Moore and Laurie Anne McLaughlin Moore, of Nokomis, sold their home at 680 N. Mac Ewen Drive to Daniel and Melissa Feldstein, of Norwood, New Jersey, for $2.5 million.

Built in 2002, it has five bedrooms, four-andtwo-half baths, a pool and 4,998 square feet of living area. It sold for $940,000 in 2020.

SEE REAL ESTATE, PAGE 10B

In with the new NOW UNDER CONSTRUCTION

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The Residences at the St. Regis | 941.213.3300 | From $2.4MM to $10.9MM | Call for appointment | SRResidencesLongboatKey.com NOW TAKING CONTRACTS

TOP BUILDING PERMITS These are the largest city of Sarasota and Sarasota County building permits issued for the week of May 23-27, in order of dollar amounts.

Downtown St. Petersburg

CITY OF SARASOTA Address

Permit

Applicant

Amount

929 Alameda Way

Pool/Spa/Patio

Elita Kane

$200,000

1500 Hillview Drive

Seawall

Henry Frieder

$111,805

1401 Hillview Drive

Seawall

Russell Novak

$75,000

988 Blvd. of the Arts #417

Remodel

Louise Lane, trustee

$58,650

2265 Clematis St.

Solar System

Kristine Casart

$40,793

101 S. Gulfstream Ave. #15B

Alterations

Dennis Cardoza

$32,000

2704 Ringling Blvd.

Fence/Gate

Constance Puleo

$27,198

2704 Ringling Blvd.

Electrical

Constance Puleo

$24,568

1326 13th St.

Alterations

James Baxter

$24,500

2840 Arlington St.

Enclosure

David Virkus

$23,700

400 Central | 727.209.7848 | From the $1MM’s | Call for appointment. | Residences400central.com 2 UNITS LEFT

Downtown Sarasota

SARASOTA COUNTY Address

Permit

Applicant

Amount

1312 Tice Ave.

Remodel

Mark Zook

$350,000

5880 Midnight Pass Road

Renovations

Thomas Keckeis

$200,000

#904 5770 Midnight Pass Road #109 $148,771

RenovationsBenjamin Andrews Jr.

6321 Beechwood Ave.

Pool/Deck/Cage

John Camenisch

7216 John Silver Lane

Pool/Spa

Cory Matthews

$89,111

152 Roberts Road

Shed

Stephen Pettee

$85,000

206 Sorrento Drive

Pool/Deck

Vladislav Zherebnenko

$85,000

1382 Roberts Bay Lane

Solar System

Charles Cullen

$80,000

The Collection | 941.232.2868 | From the $2MM’s | Call for appointment. | thecollection1335.com

Sales galleries open and available for virtual or in-person presentations.

Virtual home tours | OnDemand local experts | Interactive site and floorplans

Source: Sarasota County, city of Sarasota

MichaelSaunders.com/New-Homes | 844.591.4333 | Sarasota, Florida Prices as of February 2022.

Licensed Real Estate Broker

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$93,019

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SARASOTA OBSERVER

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YourObserver.com

THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

Real estate FROM PAGE 9B

ROBINHOOD WOODS MTB Investments LLC sold the home at 991 S. Rhodes Ave. to Bryan Eby, of Hagerstown, Maryland, for $775,000. Built in 1954, it has four bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths and 2,098 square feet of living area.

It sold for $355,000 in 2021.

22 Sandy Cove #502

$1,999,000

Hidden Gem on Siesta Key. Two story renovated Penthouse, 3BR, 3BA, Full Gulf views and private beach.

SOUTH GATE James and Patricia Sullivan, trustees, of Sarasota, sold the home at 2508 Mineola Way to Chase and Melinda Joslin, of Sarasota, for $770,000. Built in 1959, it has three bedrooms, three baths, a pool and 1,714 square feet of living area. It sold for $215,000 in 2015.

Millennium Trust Co. LLC sold the home at 2532 Siesta Drive to 211 Monitor LLC for $700,000. Built in 1957, it has three bedrooms, two baths, a pool and 1,443 square feet of living area. It sold for $329,000 in 2017.

FIELD CLUB ESTATES Len Furman, trustee, sold the home at 1806 Field Road to Raymond E Williams LLC for $750,000. Built in 1963, it has two bedrooms, two baths and 1,328 square feet of living area. It sold for $91,000 in 1987.

1030 Sylvan Dr

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GULF GATE EAST Harry Call III, trustee, of Stoughton, Massachusetts, sold the home at 3931 Kingston Drive to Hank and Ena Michael, of Sarasota, for $750,000. Built in 1986, it has four bedrooms, three baths, a pool and 3,638 square feet of living area. It sold for $187,000 in 1986.

HARTLAND PARK Vision In Mission Inc. sold the home at 1905 Tulip Drive to Cody Troyer, of Bristol, Indiana, for $750,000. Built in 1950, it has three bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, a pool and 2,080 square feet of living area. It sold for $580,000 in 2020.

TROPICAL SHORES Eric Stockdale, of Sarasota, sold the home at 1756 Livingstone St.

to Garrett Clady and Madison Cowden, of Sarasota, for $665,000.

Built in 1957, it has three bedrooms, three baths and 2,354 square feet of living area. It sold for $320,000 in 2021.

COLONIAL TERRACE Nunzie and Brenda Burzo, of Sarasota, sold their home at 2913 Concord St. to John Lee Binder Jr. and Christopher Taylor, of Maple Grove, Minnesota, for $659,900.

Built in 1971, it has two bedrooms, two baths and 1,488 square feet of living area. It sold for $228,600 in 2021.

ALDERMAN STREET Marc and Leann Schlabach, of Myakka City, sold their home at 3446 Alderman St. to James Matthew Greene and Alexandra Ingram, of Sarasota, for $610,000. Built in 1950, it has three bedrooms, two baths and 2,449 square feet of living area. It sold for $68,000 in 1997.

THE LANDINGS – CARRIAGE HOUSE Cameron Cox, trustee, of Nokomis, sold the home at 1720 S. Kestral Park Way to Michael and Geraldine Broderick, of Brick, New Jersey, for $603,000. Built in 1982, it has two bedrooms, two baths and 1,440 square feet of living area. It sold for $138,000 in 2017.

HELEN D. MEAD’S Evan and Jessica Peterson, of Palmetto, sold their home at 1851 Rita St. to Yue Li and Liang Zhen Dai, of Sarasota, for $530,000. Built in 2003, it has three bedrooms, two baths and 1,299 square feet of living area. It sold for $230,000 in 2017.

ONLINE See more transactions at YourObserver.com

JUNE 9, 2022

SPORTS

“I like the pressure of people depending on me to do my job.”

—Cardinal Mooney High’s Teddy Foster SEE PAGE 13B

‘Rising Star’ on the high seas Sarasota Youth Sailing’s Kaitlyn Liebel has earned two prestigious awards for her success on and off the water.

Courtesy photos

Kaitlyn Liebel and her “Another Bad Idea” team sails on Pensacola Bay.

“I am my own sailor now. I am recognized now.”

— Kaitlyn Liebel

RYAN KOHN SPORTS EDITOR

Her name is Kaitlyn.

Kaitlyn Liebel, to be exact, but the 18-year-old sailor would like you to focus on her first name, not her last name. That last name, Liebel, means a lot in the sailing community. Liebel, who sails with Sarasota Youth Sailing, is the daughter of Mark Liebel, a championship-level sailor on the board of SYS. Kaitlyn Liebel first got on a sailboat with her father at 3 years old. She has sailed around the globe with him and still sails with him today, but she is also cutting her own path through the sport.

It is why Liebel was so proud to receive two awards this year that reflected her ability and character.

First, at the 2022 Bacardi Cup Invitational Regatta in March in Miami — one of the biggest events on the sailing calendar — Liebel received the EFG Rising Star award, given to a young sailor who not only displays elite skills but also elite sportsmanship; someone who can help the sport evolve for the better. Liebel navigated her “Another Bad Idea” boat to a third-place finish in the VX One class of boats at the regatta, alongside her teammates Mark Liebel and Jordan Wiggins.

“It helped me realize that people don’t see me as just Mark Liebel’s daughter,” Liebel said. “I am my own sailor now. I am recognized now. I didn’t know the award was a thing before I received it, so it caught me off guard, but I appreciated it. I never expected something that important to go to me. I looked around the room at all the world-class sailors there and thought, ‘How did I end up with this?’”

DIFFERENT BOATS FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS To sailing newcomers, the different classes of boats can be confusing.

Sarasota Youth Sailing’s Kaitlyn Liebel is happy to clear up some of that confusion. It is helpful to think of boats like cars, she said. They are in different classes because they are different boats with different rig set-ups.

Her favorite youth boat, the Nacra 15, is a two-person, highperformance catamaran (multihulled watercraft). She also races more “adult” boats, like the VX One, a high-performance skiff

On May 20, Liebel received the Florida Women’s Sailing Association’s Young Woman Sailor of the Year award, which is similar in nature.

Given Liebel’s results, the awards are no surprise. Liebel finished third in

(small boat) that is her favorite because of its intuitive rigging and the way you can get amazing maneuvers out of it, Liebel said.

Racing these two boats against each other would be like racing a NASCAR vehicle against a Formula 1 vehicle. They function differently and are finely tuned to achieve different goals, so it would not be a fair race.

There are dozens of boat classes recognized by World Sailing (the sport’s governing body) but only eight classes with Olympic status.

the Nacra 1 class of boats at the 2021 Bluster on the Bay in Clearwater and second in the same class at the 2021 US Sailing Youth Championships in Sarasota. She also won the Club 420 class at the Sarasota Sailing Squad-

Kaitlyn Liebel said she has been sailing since she was 5 years old. Here, she is 7 and helping out on the boat of her father, Mark Liebel’s.

ron’s Labor Day Regatta.

Liebel said the awards were important to her not just as recognition of her success, but also as proof that she is where she’s supposed to be, doing what she is supposed to be doing.

In the fall, Liebel will attend and sail for Jacksonville University. Liebel said she fell in love with the school’s campus, has friends in the area, but also likes the distance from home: far enough to get out of the SarasotaBradenton shadow, but close enough to come back home whenever she wants to return. Liebel said she also appreciated the Jacksonville coaching staff’s dedication to its athletes and the camaraderie on the team, which is important to her. As much as sailing can be an individual sport, cheering on her teammates is one of her favorite parts of it.

College will come later. Right now, Liebel is working as an SYS coach with the group’s 5- to 7-year-old athletes, aka “tadpoles,” at summer camp. Liebel is teaching them the basics and hopes to spark a love of the water in them. When she can get them to listen, at least.

Liebel said she often has to resort to singing the “Hands, shoulders, knees and toes” song to capture their attention. It’s a veteran move by a young sailor wise beyond her years, and one who has the potential — and the drive — to be a leader in the sport for years to come.

“This (sport) is what changed my life,” Liebel said. “I am so thankful for everyone who has helped me along the way. I hope I can give back and do the same for other little girls someday. What are you doing if you’re not trying to better the lives of the people around you?”

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Kaitlyn Liebel, shown sailing in the Junior Olympics Sailing Festival, will attend Jacksonville University in the fall.

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SARASOTA OBSERVER

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YourObserver.com

THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 9, 2022

PROSE AND KOHN

RYAN KOHN

Summer sports row right along Three pieces of news involving area athletes this week, including a championship rowing event, college offers and a television debut.

T

he beginning of June is purgatory in terms of the sports calendar.

The high school sports season has ended, but most summer sports, like all-star youth baseball, have not yet begun to play games, and there are not many community events, like 5Ks. That means I’m in position to bring you a smorgasbord column, giving you a suggestion on an event to follow this weekend, a bit of local football news and a look at a unique Sarasota athlete who competed on TV earlier this week.

NATION’S BEST YOUTH ROWERS HIT BENDERSON PARK

Starting Thursday, the best youth rowers in the United States will compete in the USRowing Youth National Championships at Nathan Benderson Park. The event is always exciting and, as always, Sarasota will be represented. The Sarasota Crew has 17 entries in the event; of the other 209 competing clubs, only the Maritime Rowing Club of East Norwalk, Connecticut, has more entries, with 19.

Many of the crew’s entries have a chance to finish high. Four are coming off wins at the Southeastern Regionals last month: Men’s U17 8+, Men’s Youth 8+, Women’s U17 2x (Maya Schultz and Maeva Ginsberg-Klemmt) and Women’s Youth 1x (Yana Krivosheeva).

Tickets to the event are admittedly expensive; it’s $89 for access to all four days of rowing. There are no single-day options. But at the least,

Sarasota High rising senior safety Lauriel Trotman III picked up an offer from FIU.

from USC, Penn State and Stanford.

Booker High rising sophomore Rashawn Peterson, a wide receiver, transferred from Braden River High after the 2021 season and has been on a tear this spring. Peterson has picked up offers from Penn State, Florida State, Duke and Marshall, among others. Tornadoes rising senior safety/wideout Gavin Stanford got an offer from Florida Atlantic on May 4.

Sarasota High rising senior wide receiver Tyler Pack got an offer from Florida International on May 2, as did rising senior safety Lauriel Trotman III. Rising senior wideout Caleb Bradley received an offer from Stetson on May 9. Rising Sailor sophomore quarterback Alexander Diaz scored an offer from Tennessee-Martin on June 7.

File photos

Sarasota Crew rower Eva Harris won a silver medal at the 2021 USRowing Youth Nationals. Will any Crew rowers match or beat her feat at the 2022 event?

I recommend following the results online via the event’s USRowing. org page. What these rowers do is impressive. So is the crew’s consistency. It’s one of the most-successful rowing clubs in the country and only gets a few weekends a year to shine. This is one of them.

AREA FOOTBALL PLAYERS EXPAND THEIR OFFER LISTS

It is officially camp season for football players across the country, which means there is about to be a deluge of offers from colleges coming down the pipe. It’s one of my favorite things about the summer.

All sports take a toll on athletes, but football is especially tough. Seeing the dreams of our best representatives come true is something that never gets old.

Sarasota, being the hotbed of talent it is, is no exception to this deluge. I have compiled our area’s offers from the last few weeks (approximately the beginning of spring ball) into a handy list. Since most players use social media to

make their offers known — and because social media is nonstop content — there’s a chance I might have missed someone’s offers, but I have done my best to mitigate that.

I won’t go into too much detail about Cardinal Mooney High rising junior Teddy Foster here, since he is our Athlete of the Week, but it would be odd to not include him; so, for the record, the cornerback/ wide receiver has received offers from Tennessee, Indiana, Rutgers, South Florida and Florida International. Foster’s teammate, rising junior running back Carson Beach, also received an offer from Tennessee, while Mooney rising senior wideout Cooper Flerlage got an offer from Stetson.

Riverview High rising junior Weston Gruttadauria, an offensive lineman, picked up his first Division I offer from Charlotte on May 24. Teammate Charles Lester III, a rising junior defensive back/wide receiver, has picked up offers from seemingly every big school but got even more this spring, including

between McCreight and his dog, Tre, whom he rescued in June 2019.

Tre had one of his legs amputated at 3 months old; McCreight trained him to support himself without it.

Tre is now a certified therapy dog.

McCreight made it through four of the show’s obstacles before falling off the course on the fifth. I don’t watch the show often, but the ANW announcers made it seem like this was a great performance for someone who had never attempted the course. It was good enough for McCreight to advance to the show’s semifinals, which will air at a TBD date. If you want to see McCreight, you can watch the episode on NBC’s Peacock streaming service.

Pro tip: McCreight’s segment starts at the 52:20 mark. You’re welcome.

THE ‘SUNSHINE NINJA’ STRIKES

On Monday, Sarasota’s Kyle McCreight, 34, competed on NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior” during the show’s 14th-season premiere. McCreight, known as the “Sunshine Ninja,” is an occupational therapist. He said during the broadcast that he has been training for the show for five years. The show highlighted the relationship

Ryan Kohn is the sports editor for the Sarasota/Siesta Key Observer. Contact him at RKohn@ YourObserver.com

The Home Service Pros Who Care

The Area’s most Trusted Name since 1974

New AC System Starting at

4,800!

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+ 12 Months 0% Financing Available!

Some restrictions apply. This offer applies to a 1.5 T, 14 SEER HVAC System with heat strip and thermostat included. Includes reconnection to existing ductwork, wiring, refrigerant piping and drain. Not valid on prior purchases and cannot combine offers.

Limited time offer.Contact Aqua Plumbing & Air for details.

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Cannot be combined with other offers. Must present coupon at time of service.Contact Aqua Plumbing & Air for details.

Offer expires 6/30/2022.

Lic # cAc1816020 • PLbg cFc1428223 • ELEc Ec13009313

Air Conditioning

Plumbing

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381404-1

SEE HOW MUCH MORE YOU CAN SAVE!

YourObserver.com

SARASOTA OBSERVER

If you would like to make a recommendation for the Sarasota Observer’s Athlete of the Week feature, send it to Ryan Kohn at RKohn@ YourObserver.com.

Teddy Foster is a rising junior defensive back/wide receiver at Cardinal Mooney High. Since the start of spring football in April, Foster has received scholarship offers from Tennessee, Indiana, Rutgers, South Florida and Florida International.

When did you start playing football?

I started playing young, around 6 or 7, but I actually took a break after my seventh grade season. I play basketball also, and I focused on basketball for awhile after I made a national AAU team. Last year, after watching the (Cardinal Mooney) football team’s first three games, I decided I wanted to play again. I had friends on the team, and I saw other players my size and build (Foster is 6 foot 1) getting scholarship offers, so I talked with the coaches and got a spot on the team. The first few weeks back were tough, especially the tackling and hitting drills, but I adjusted. The coaches helped me and made it easy.

What is the appeal to you?

I like being on the field with my friends. I like the pressure of people depending on me to do my job.

What is your favorite memory?

When we blew out Bradenton Christian last year (44-14) on the road, that was a great game. Everything clicked for our team. We had decided to take all the practices and the game seriously. It turned out great.

Do you prefer playing defensive back or wide receiver?

I like playing defense. Offense is fun, but there is something about the pressure of not letting anyone score on you that I like. It’s a lot of mental work in addition to the physical work.

ATHLETE OF THE WEEK

Teddy Foster

|

THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

13B

ANNOUNCING THE RETURN OF:

2022 SUMMER LUNCH & LEARN SERIES Proudly Sponsored by Williams Parker Attorneys at Law

June 21 | July 19 | August 16 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. | Michael’s On East, Sarasota Only $39 Per Lecture—Includes Luncheon!

Jason Isaacson AJC Chief Policy and Political Affairs Officer TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 2022

Securing Israel’s Future in a Changing Middle East Against the backdrop of terror attacks, regional aggression, and nuclear ambitions of Iran, the Abraham Accords of 2020 have introduced the prospect of mutually beneficial Arab-Israeli Peace— a prospect that will fundamentally alter Israel’s strategic posture.

What are your goals for the fall season?

I want a state championship. That’s what everyone wants. I think by doing that, all my personal goals will come true, but we have to put our team in that position first.

Rabbi Noam Marans AJC Director, Interreligious and Intergroup Relations TUESDAY, JULY 19, 2022

What is your favorite food?

I love chicken Alfredo. That’s a go-to.

The Many Voices of Christianity on Israel: Not One Size Fits All Christians worldwide, and especially in the U.S., are not of one mind regarding support for Israel and diverse approaches for different denominations are needed.

Finish this sentence: “Teddy Foster is …” … Genuine.

Holly Huffnagle

What is your best skill?

I think I am a great ball-tracker in the air, and I know that if I get to a ball, I can bring it down 100% of the time.

AJC U.S. Director, Combating Antisemitism TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 2022

America’s Wakeup Call: What Rising Antisemitism Means for the United States Antisemitism, the world’s longest hatred, is rising in the United States.

Americans must wakeup to the fact that what begins with Jews, rarely ends with Jews. The current rise of hate, prejudice, and conspiratorial thinking should be a warning for all.

What have you been working to improve?

This offseason I have been focused on improving my footwork and technique generally as a defensive back, backpedaling and breaking on the ball.

383259-1

Reservations Required.

RSVP Online at AJC.org/Sarasota/summer2022 Or Email: sarasota@ajc.org Or Call AJC at 941.365.4955

WHO YOU WORK WITH MATTERS PENDING

$137 MILLION PENDING & SOLD IN 2021

SIESTA KEY | OFFERED AT $2.45M

1280 HIDDEN HARBOR WAY | OFFERED AT $7.5M

405 BEACH RD | OFFERED AT $4.25M

PENDING

SUCCESS STORIES

SARASOTA | OFFERED AT $1.2M

“Judie is a fixture in Sarasota and specifically Siesta Key. We didn’t even consider anyone else to list our home of 18 years with. She was always available to us throughout the process. Judie is a true professional. “

MIDNIGHT PASS | OFFERED AT $3M

SOLD

MICHAEL & DEBBIE SOLE

1

No.

SIESTA KEY’S TOP SELLING REALTOR ® SINCE 2005

SIESTA KEY | 1 DAY | $3M LP

546 FREELING DR | OFFERED AT $1.975M

23 Years Connecting Buyers and Sellers Ranked in the Top 1% of Realtors® in the USA YOUR HOME HAS NEVER BEEN WORTH MORE SCAN THE CODE FOR YOUR HOME VALUATION Sotheby’s International Realty® and the Sotheby’s International Realty logo are registered service marks used with permission. Each office is independently owned and operated. Equal Housing Opportunity.

380427-1

941.928.3424 | judie.berger@premiersir.com

14B

WEATHER

SARASOTA OBSERVER

|

YourObserver.com

THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

NATURE’S BEAUTY WITH

FORECAST THURSDAY, JUNE 9 High: 85 Low: 79 Chance of rain: 24%

FRIDAY, JUNE 10 High: 83 Low: 78 Chance of rain: 63%

SUNRISE / SUNSET Sunrise Sunset Thursday, June 9

6:34a

8:24p

Friday, June 10

6:34a

8:25p

Saturday, June 11

6:34a

8:25p

Sunday, June 12

6:34a

8:25p

Monday, June 13

6:34a

8:26p

Tuesday, June 14

6:34a

8:26p

Wednesday, June 15

6:35a

8:26p

MOON PHASES

SATURDAY, JUNE 11 High: 84 Low: 79 Chance of rain: 44%

SUNDAY, JUNE 12 High: 84 Low: 78 Chance of rain: 36% William Trautman captured this juvenile night heron exploring on Siesta Key.

June 14 Full

June 20 Last

June 28 New

July 6 First

RAINFALL Monday, May 30

0

Tuesday, May 31

0.79

Wednesday, June 1

1.16

Thursday, June 2

0

Friday, June 3

0.15

Saturday, June 4

0.13 0

Sunday, June 5

*Rainfall totals from Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport

Submit your photos at YourObserver.com/Weather. All submissions will be entered for the 2022-23 Weather and Nature photo contest. In February 2023, you will vote for your favorite photo, and the submission with the most votes will win a $500 gift card.

YEAR TO DATE: 2022 10.17 in.

2021 9.76 in.

MONTH TO DATE: 2022 1.44 in.

2021 0.65 in.

The Observer’s

Weather ENTER: &Nature

Sponsored by

YourObserver.com/contests KITCHEN | CABINETRY OUTDOOR PAVERS

383363-1

2022-23 PHOTO CONTEST

A REFLECTION OF NATURE’S BEAUTY

celebrity cipher

58 Part of BDSM 59 Vladimir who helped overthrow a 13-Down 60 End of Wikipedia’s URL DOWN 62 Gum or a paper clip, to 1 Skyrocket MacGyver 2 BBs and such 63 Lifesaving skill, briefly 3 Wet sponge’s spot?

64 Greek H 4 Burn treatment 65 Energy 5 Gibberish 66 Mobile device with a 6 Alert about a missing Super Retina display person, say (Abbr.)

67 Angola’s capital 7 Toxin in Victorian 68 Oscar winner Meryl wallpaper 72 Books that let you fol8 Lineups of songs to low Rte. 66 perform 73 Soda container 9 Zilch 74 Where to go after leav10 Iowa city ing home?

11 City west of Tesla Giga 75 Captain who fought Nevada Khan 12 Summer setting in 76 Site for film lovers NOLA 78 Blue-green 13 Former Russian ruler 80 Skills, slangily 14 Natural flavors, surpris- 81 Neighbor of China ingly 82 Understood by few 15 Head honcho 84 1977 Paul Davis hit with 16 Pilots’ zones the words “When I look in 17 Main M.D. your eyes” 19 CNN doctor Sanjay 85 Grand ___ (wine desig20 Humiliate nation) ©2022 Universal Uclick 25 Cuttlefish’s pouch, e.g. 89 Piece of a certain metal 92 ***”Conan” channel, 59 Textile machine (Last two letters) ACROSS 27 DNA strands, footprints, gate once (Last two letters) 28 “Old-fashioned” way to 61 *Observation about 1 Plastic wrap brand etc.

90 Dream sleep initials 93 *Jumping-in line observation make money 6 Some batteries 29 Irish actor Stephen 93 Drink that “platter” sur30 Three letters in “lullaby” 69 Guest columnist’s essay 96 Whole bunch 9 One might seize dope 30 Raison d’___ rounds, aptly 97 Tough H.S. courses 70 Mesh material 31 Water source 13 “Toodles!”

32 ___ party (sleepover) 94 Thrown for a loop 98 Precise type of clock 71 ___ your foot down 32 *Tip for a waiter?

17 Grapefruit cousin 33 Director Judd 95 Bark sharply 99 Chances to hit 72 Willing to do 18 ***Tailgated on campus, 40 ___ pickle (stuck) 34 Sweet’N Low alternative 100 Beyond dry 101 Bold and shameless 75 Children 41 “Top Chef” garments say (Note this answer’s 35 Charged particles 101 Champagne descriptor 104 **Get down on one 77 Pal, in Paris 42 Perform onstage first two letters) 36 Suffix with “differ” 102 Repetitive learning knee 78 In that place, to a whaler 43 Not just like?

20 “Same here!”

37 Four-leaf clover, for the method 110 Begin 79 Garden bed filler 44 Carpet cleaner, for short 21 Began airing clover plant 103 Swear to 111 Book after Psalms ... or, 80 It’s hot in the tropics 22 ***Above-average pupil 45 Took a short trip 38 Two-word confession 105 High woodwind read as one, two or three 83 “That was good!”

47 Pixies (First two letters) 39 Deteriorates 106 Okra parts 86 ***Credit card fig. (Last parts (as indicated by the 23 ***Celeb’s image prob- 49 TV star Leakes 46 Had the courage 107 “Garfield” dog stars), this puzzle’s theme two letters) 50 Off-roaders, briefly lem (Last two letters) 48 **Take a knee, maybe 108 Homes for many fish 113 Homes 87 Feature of Ghana, but 51 Sound booster 24 **Declare 49 Pixar clownfish 109 Corner computer key 114 Borden cow not Germany?

54 Purges (of) 26 “Old” city in a Tex-Mex 52 Club ___ resort 111 Faux ___ 115 Robocall setting 88 Madam’s counterpart 55 Tablelands brand name 53 Energy 112 Sneaky 116 Heavenly signs?

91 Starbucks size above 56 Me, in Montreal 27 ***Dominican people 55 Swarm around 117 Pomegranate tidbit Tall 57 Arboreal snake now called the Kalinago 57 Rock ___ boat

“S ZOGT NTRXNBTU ... RE ZEBEN RZT GOISOBR CTB FZE USTU. ... TGTNJ COB FZE VTR PEER EB ECOZO DTOLZ ... FOV O ZTNE.”

– ECON B. DNOUITJ

“A’W JADF G WFVX GP GV FHTFVKABF IFKPGXIGVP; CYX RGV JYYD GP WF, SXP CYX RGV’P GMMYIL WF.” – GVVG DYXIVADYBG

“WMSRUZNU ML X CMI HDSCRUB. OSS BXZF NTMRKDUZ XDU KFMZI. OSS BXZF NTMRKDUZ. AU BYLO KS LSBUOTMZI.” – IXCDMURRU IMGGSDKL © 2022 NEA, Inc.

Puzzle Three Clue: H equals P

118 Slow-cooked meal 119 Holler 120 Affirmatives

By Luis Campos Celebrity Cipher cryptograms are created from quotations by famous people, past and present.

Each letter in the cipher stands for another.

Puzzle Two Clue: T equals P

THREE-WAY SWITCH by Michael Schlossberg. Edited by David Steinberg

Puzzle One Clue: L equals C

crossword

sudoku Complete the grid so that every row, column and 3x3 box contains every digit from 1 to 9 inclusively.

©2022 Andrews McMeel Syndicate

6-9-22

Made for where you live. Here!

THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

RED PAGES INFORMATION & RATES: 941-955-4888

Vacation/ Seasonal Rentals

redpages@yourobserver.com •yourobserver.com/redpages DEADLINES: Classifieds - Tuesday at Noon

WEEKLY MONTHLY

Service Directory - Friday at 3PM • PAYMENT: Cash, Check or Credit Card

SEASONAL Rates

real estate

The Sarasota and Siesta Key Observer reserves the right to classify and edit copy, or to reject or cancel an advertisement at any time. Corrections after first insertion only. *All ads are subject to the approval of the Publisher. *It is the responsibility of the party placing any ad for publication in the Sarasota and Siesta Key Observer to meet all applicable legal requirements in connection with the ad such as compliance with towncodes in first obtaining an occupational license for business, permitted home occupation, or residential rental property.

Notice: All real estate advertised herein is subject to the Federal Fair Housing Act, which makes it illegal to advertise any preference, limitation, or discrimination because of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin, or intention to make any such preference, limitation or discrimination. All persons are hereby informed that all dwellings advertised are available on an equal opportunity basis.

SENIOR LOOKING to purchase precious metals, diamonds, time pieces, coins, jewelry, antique and estate jewelry, and collectors plates. Personal and confidential. Please call Marc: 941-321-0707.

SELL YOUR STUFF HERE! 941-955-4888 YourObserver.com/RedPages

ROOM DIVIDER sturdy, Asian print. 1 side, beige, 1 side black.

8’HX 64”W. Folds into 3 hinged sections. $140 OBO. Leave message 941-322-9063 SHOE BENCH- wicker, 32” long, $25. Bakers rack- dark green, 5 shelves, folds, excellent condition $25. (941)276-4820

Autos Wanted

Advertise items less than $200 for FREE!

CASH FOR YOUR CAR We come to you!

Ho Ho Buys cars.

941-270-4400.

Boat Slips for Rent/Sale BOAT STORAGE Slip For Rent Fits boat 8'6" wide, 8'6" tall and 31'6" long. Boat House on Longboat Key. (Dry Dock Restaurant). Text or call: 404-918-3811

jobs

Advertise as low as Help Wanted

$17.50 per week!

PART-TIME HOUSEKEEPER Siesta Key resort. 28 hrs/week, Mon 8am-12pm, Thurs, Fri, Sat 8am-4pm. $15/hour.

Call 941-349-2500 9am-5pm or email resume to cbcmgr@vacationfla.com

941-955-4888 LUXURIOUS CONDO on Anna Maria Island For Rent - Upgraded granite/strainless kitchen.

Incredible water views through floor length windows. Waterfront patio, luxury furnishings, 2BD/2BR, king bed. Pool, tennis, walk to the beach. Private carport.

Monthly rent July-December.

Owner/renter. Flexible terms.

570-239-0431 marketreps@aol.com

SELL YOUR STUFF FAST!

GARAGE SALE

Homes for Sale LONGBOAT KEY Incredible views Private boat dock Pet friendly condo Owner/agent $650,000

Advertise as low as $17.50 per week!

The Lake Club LWR 4 bed 4.5 bath Pool/Spa Dazzling with upgrades 2.5 Million

PERSONAL ASSISTANT. Experienced business manager with Fortune 50 companies available as personal assistant, chauffer, butler, connoisseur and property manager. 60 mile radius of Bradenton. (717) 825-1739

SELL YOUR STUFF HERE! YourObserver.com/RedPages

GARAGE SALE

YourObserver.com/RedPages

auto

RED PADDLEBOARD, LIGHT 11.5, LIKE NEW $199 941-920-2494

2BR/2BA DOWNTOWN Sarasota.

Elegantly Furnished condo for summer rental 2-4 month at gated downtown City Walk; photos and application download at City Walk. $3000/month includes utilities. Tenant gets internet if needed. Write owner @ eldowncoop@gmail.com

941-955-4888

GLASS-TOP COFFEE table, excellent- $10. Blonde wood desk & file cabinet, excellent-$30. Black wood desk, worn-$5. Beige fabric couch & chair, great-$20 . Wood TV cabinet, great-$20.

(CASH ONLY) 941-780-3123 ORIENTAL RUG Forest green with ivory border and medallion, 5' 1/2 x 9" $195 (941) 213-9550

Condos/Apts. for Rent

CALL

BEAUTIFUL WOOD dining table, 6 chairs, 2 leaves, and pads.

Excellent - $100. Brown leather couch, loveseat & footstool. Great $50. CASH ONLY (941)-780-3123

STORAGE FACILITY Boat/ RV/ Trailer. Secure facility, low monthly rentals, Clark Rd area.

941809-3660, 941-809-3662.

WE BUY cars. top $$ paid for your vehicles.

Call Hawley Motors: 941-923-3421.

Reservations 941-383-5577 wagnerlbkrentals@gmail.com

TREASURES FOUND HERE!

Buy or Sell with Brooke O’Malley as your Realtor, and CLUB REALTY will Pay your title insurance.

Call 941-726-2677.

SHIP YOUR car, truck or SUV anywhere in the United States.

Great rates, fast quotes. Call Hawley Motors: 941-923-3421.

Cleaning BRAZILIAN CLEANING Service

by Maria. Residential. Meticulous Cleaning. Excellent References.

Free Estimates. Reliable. Lic./Ins. 941-400-3342. www.braziliancleaningbymk.com

Landscaping/ Lawn Services Professional Gardener Design, installation, maintenance, flowers, herbs, vegetables, and exotic gardens.

Regular weekly lawn maintenance and restoration 40+ years experience.

Tomlarsen559@gmail.com farmgirlfarmboyorganics.com Please call 334-739-3409

Visa/MC 5360 Gulf of Mexico Dr., Suite 101 Longboat Key, FL 34228 Rental office 9a.m. - 5p.m.

M-F Ask about our special rates!

Since 1939 www.rentalsonlongboat.com

FIND BUYERS & SELLERS HERE!

Painting CARLO DATTILO Painting Licensed & insured. Interior/ Exterior painting including drywall repair and retexturing.

Wallpaper installation & removal, pressure washing. Residential & commercial, condos. Honest & reliable.

Free estimates. 941-744-1020.

35+ years experience.

PAINTING RESIDENTIAL experts. Painting Interiors, Exteriors, Residential and light commercial. Fully insured, clean, non-smoking, environmentally safe paints. (941) 275-7281 www.RegaliaPainting.Com

FIND BUYERS & SELLERS HERE! 941-955-4888 YourObserver.com/RedPages

Pressure Cleaning CLEAN BAY Pressure Washing and Window Cleaning. 20 years experience. Licensed and insured.

Family owned. 941-685-5597

Professional Services

Adult Care Services PERSONAL CARE GIVER- Private care: Meal preparation, errands, shopping, and more.

Affordable hourly rates, available weekdays, weekends, and holidays.

Minimal shift 5 hours can also provide overnight care.

Temporary or long term care.

Over 10+ years experience.

References available. No new faces, one consistent caregiver.

COVID Negative.

Call Kati: 941-536-7706.

This week’s Crossword answers

CALL MARCIA! She's Sweet!

Marcia Sweet, MBA. PC, MAC, Printer, Wifi, email, iPhone, Android, Tablet, Laptop, iPad, Kindle, Smart TV, Cameras, Roombas....anything technology!

I make house calls!!

(941) 773-2377

This week’s Celebrity Cipher answers Puzzle One Solution: “I have returned ... to honor the valiant men who died. ... Every man who set foot on Omaha Beach ... was a hero.”

Omar N. Bradley Puzzle Two Solution: “I’m like a menu at an expensive restaurant; you can look at me, but you can’t afford me.”

Anna Kournikova Puzzle Three Solution: “Violence is a big problem. Too many children are dying. Too many children. We must do something.”

Gabrielle Giffords

This week’s Sudoku answers

©2022 Universal Uclick

TO ADVERTISE CALL 941-955-4888 OR VISIT YOUROBSERVER.COM/REDPAGES

©2022 NEA, Inc.

4-DRAWER DESK, plus chair.

Like new, $125. Pick up only.

917-991-7409. Leave a message.

BUYING BASEBALL card collections! Looking to free up space and make $$? Need to sell sports cards? Collector looking to expand collection.

Pay top dollar. Text/call 941 548 6492 with photos.

Houses or Condos

home services

ADVERTISE YOUR MERCHANDISE with the total value of all items $200 or less in this section for FREE! Limit 1 ad per month,15 words or less. Price must be included next to each item. No commercial advertising.

Ad runs 2 consecutive weeks in 1 Observer.

Call 941-955-4888 Or Email ad to: classified@yourobserver.com (Please provide your name and address) Or Online at: www.yourobserver.com Or mail to: The Observer Group 1970 Main St. - 3rd Floor Sarasota, Fl 34236

Merchandise Wanted

Between

Wagner Realty

You’re only cheating yourself.

Items Under $200

WORLD BROMELIAD Conference Plant Sale.

Friday June 10, 9:00 AM-6:00 PM. Saturday June 11, 9:00 AM-4:00 PM. Thousands of Bromeliads for Sale. Sellers from California, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri and Peru!

Hyatt Regency Sarasota 1000 Boulevard of the Arts, Sarasota, FL 34246 Free Admission & Free Parking

peekers’ place

stuff

Garage/ Moving/ Estate Sales

Beachfront, Bayfront and In

Auto Transport

YourObserver.com

THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

Doors

Health

GET YOUR LIFE BACK!

Sliding Glass Door Repair

“FIX IT - DON’T REPLACE”

YoderAluminum.com

Auto Service

941-504-0903

FREE PICKUP / DELIVERY • FREE ONSITE QUOTES

WE COME TO YOU

www.SarasotaDiscCenter.com DrCifra@SarasotaDiscCenter.com

The Only Thing You Have To Lose ... Is The Pain!!

Handyman

5-Star Rated

STEVE PANEBIANCO H R S

Find anything in the RED PAGES

941-955-4888

Home Services

ome epaiR eRvice • No JoB Too SmaLL • ScReeN RepaiRS • paiNTiNG/DRY WaLL • TiLe RepaiRS • & mUcH moRe!

382453

HoHoBuysCars.com

24/7 SERVICE

(941) 809-7311

FREE

ESTIMATES!

Neighborhood

Computer

heroes found here.

COMPUTER REPAIR SALES & SERVICE

Pinnacle Home Watch.com Stop Worrying About Your Home While Away Dave and Connie Grundy

CALL PINNACLE TODAY! 941-306-1999

Relax. You’ve got better things to do. Find a professional here in the Observer Red Pages.

Closer is better.

New & Refurbished Computers Servicing PC & MAC on Site or In Shop Virus and Spyware Removal- Free Software We Make Windows 10 User-Friendly!

DON’T THROW YOUR COMPUTER OUT THE WINDOW – CALL LORITECH!

PALMER RANCH HOMEWATCHERS® Watching your home while you’re away

Bob & Carol Guthrie 941.993.6613

941-955-4888 382457

6968 Beneva Road 941-929-9095

University Health Park 2415 University Parkway Bldg. 3, Suite 216 Sarasota, FL 34243

Furniture Sales & Repairs Cushions • Slings • Re-powdercoating

FAST • EASY • SAFE

(Next to Beneva Flowers)

DR. DAVID CIFRA, DC

Patio Furniture Repairs.com

SELL YOUR CAR! 941.270.4400

Board Certified in the specialty of non-surgical spinal decompression

Furniture Repair

383273

382460

Owner /Insured Operator Insured

Recognized Among the Best Non-Surgical Spinal Decompression Physicians in America

YourObserver.com/RedPages

Serving the Palmer Ranch Area Since 2007 Licensed & Insured

Doors

www.PalmerRanchHomewatchers.com PalmerRanchHomewatchers@comcast.net

DON’T let your PATIO DOORS be a DRAG or your WINDOWS be a PANE!!

Kitchen/Bath Remodeling CALL BEFOREYOU YOU FALL CALL BEFORE FALL

GRAB BARS GRAB BARS COMPLETE INSTALLATION PACKAGE

249 235 235

$$

$

Window Repairs • Sliding Glass Door Repairs Sliding Glass Door Deadbolts

INCLUDES22MOEN MOEN STAINLESS INCLUDES STAINLESS STEEL STEELANTI ANTISLIP SLIP CONCEALED PEEN CONCEALED SCREW GRAB BARS (16”BARS & 24”)(16” & 24”) SCREW GRAB

941.966.0333

Call us today! 941.628.8579

LIFETIME GUARANTEE • LICENSED • BONDED • INSURED COVERAGE AREA: RANCH TO S. VENICE COVERAGE AREA:LAKEWOOD PARRISH TO NORTHPORT

www.ezslider.com

DRGRABBARS.COM

THE GRAB BAR GUY

FREE IN-HOM ESTIMATEE S

382764

382755

941.650.9790 941.650.9790 YoderAluminum.com

Give Us a Call - We Can Help

FREE CONSULTATION 941.358.2224

382458

Dustin Yoder

New Deluxe Rollers Will Make Your Doors Roll Better Than Ever Call Mark 928-2263 proslidingglassdoorrepair.com

382754

“Specializing inin6” Gutters” “Specializing 6” Seamless Seamless Gutters”

Dustin Owner Yoder/ Operator

Do You Have Neck or Low Back Pain?

Do You Want To Avoid Surgery?

382459

Aluminum

383278

|

382766 364556

SARASOTA OBSERVER

Realtors

GLENN KROECKER

382765

954-1878 (cell) 780-3346 Licensed & Insured

SHOWER & BATH MAKEOVERS 382472

Cleaned - Regrouted - Caulked - Sealed

Call John 941.377.2940

Free Estimates • Sarasota Resident Since 1974

www.showerandbathsarasota.com Lawn Care

382212

3687676-01

Curt’s Lawn Service

Free Estimates Lawn & Landscape Maintenance

373-9299

724-2945 CREATE BUZZ! Lic. & Ins.

383279

16B

Advertise your business in the Red Pages. Call 941-955-4888

YourObserver.com

SARASOTA OBSERVER

Rescreening & Repairs

Wizard Moving SRQ

383280

Licensed and insured #IMT708

Pet Services

Melanie Gates

382461

(941) 966-2960

Insured

941-270-1561

• Pet Sitting • Dog Walking • Over 24 years experience • Excellent references Serving South Sarasota Only including: Palmer Ranch – Osprey – Nokomis

• Aluminum, Vinyl, & Wood Soffit & Fascia Repair & Installation • Roofing Repair & Installation • Metal Roofing & Tile Roof Repair Specialists

941-626-3194

Licensed & Insured CCC - 058059 CBC - 1253936

382210

by

“No Job Too Small”

Building & Roofing Contractor

Trees

• Pool Cage Restoration • Rescreening Specialists • Specialty Screens • Paint • Doors and more!

Satisfaction guarantee Satisfaction Guarantee Pool cage Restoration/ Rescreening specialists Manufacture and Workmanship Warranties

382762

Pet Care

Licensed

Kenneth Fuhlman Inc.

941-345-5264

382463

make your moving day a pleasure.

17B

Roofing

Eldridge Re-Screen

For $135 per hour you get: A truck, 2 men with equipment, experience and a great attitude to

THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

382209

Movers

|

specialty screens / screw replacement / paint Doors and more!

Manufacture and workmanship Warranties

BUZZ! CREATE (941) 345-5264

Complete Plumbing Services & Repairs Residential, New Construction and Commercial Serving the area since 1993 No Job Too BIG or Too SMALL. We DO IT ALL!

Veteran Owned & Operated • Third Generation Master Plumber All Major Credit Cards Accepted Generalplumbingsarasota.com

941-923-8140

• Drain & Sewer Cleaning • Backflows Installation • Natural Gas Installations - Appliance Hook ups • Power Flush & Comfort Height Toilets • All Water Heaters - Tankless - Gas - Solar • All Major Plumbing Fixtures Repaired or Replaced • Garbage Disposals • New Water & Sewer Services • Dishwashers Installed • Wells & Pump Repairs Licensed & Insured State Lic CFC056748

Advertise your business or services in the Red Pages.

Call 941-955-4888 YourObserver.com/RedPages

Power Washing $100 COUPON

SOFT WASH

WE ARE THE SOFT WASH PRESSURE WASHING PROS

PRESSURE WASHING

House Washing, Roofs, Screen Cages, Pavers, Driveways and Walkways.

FREE INSTANT ESTIMATES when you Call RICK for SCHEDULING

$100 COUPON $100 COUPON

382660

941-CLEAN IT 2 5 3 - 2 6 4 8

$100 COUPON

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Lic./Ins.

& Pressure C Window lean t e s ing as Sunrise Wi n w o n k Sun y l nd er

STANDARD WINDOWS

Roofing

LEAKY ROOF? 38 Years Experience

$

All Work Guaranteed

941-955-4888

Fully Insured

State Licensed Contractor #CCC057066

HEROES found here.

Relax. You’ve got better things to do.

Find a professional here in the Red Pages.

RED PAGES Made for where you live. Here!

Call 941-955-4888 or visit YourObserver.com/redpages

140

$

SPECIAL 00 5

Specializing in Re-Roofing & Repairs

941-228-9850

ows

INCLUDING SCREENS, TRACKS, MIRRORS & FANS

Gulf Gate RoofinG inc.

Joe Murray, Owner

25

UP TO

$100 COUPON

$100 COUPON $100 COUPON

$100 COUPON $100 COUPON

$100 COUPON

Res./Com.

Form Serving Longboat Key Since 2005

382462

General Plumbing Services Inc.

Windows

383281

senior citizen discount. www.sunsetwindowcleaningsrq.com

Purified water window cleaning available!!

Call Tibor for FREE ESTIMATES | 941- 284 - 5880

382763

Plumbing

18B

SARASOTA OBSERVER

|

YourObserver.com

THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022

Local Expert Since 1983 Global Reach Since 1744 When a home is marketed by Premier Sotheby’s International Realty, it is presented to highly qualified clientele worldwide through exclusive channels and relationships. Our network spans 79 countries, making us a truly global brand.

1 ,0 0 0

79

2 5,0 0 0

$204 BILLION

O F F I C ES WO R L DW I D E

C O U N T R I ES & T E R R I TO R I ES

SA L ES ASSO C I AT ES

A N N UA L SA L ES ( US D )

THE CHOICE WHEN SELLING YOUR HOME

L I ST W I T H U STO DAY.C O M

CASEY KEY 4004 Casey Key Road Joe Harris & Charles Totonis

WEST OF THE TRAIL 6420 Hollywood Boulevard Joel Schemmel

228 Lookout Point Drive Thomas Netzel

$1,650,000 941.539.0633

14910 Castle Park Terrace Jaci Krawtschenko

$1,100,000 941.809.0041

5429 Sundew Drive Cindy Migone

LAKEWOOD RANCH $2,000,000 941.492.7515

$1,699,900 941.400.0023

BRADENTON

4822 Ocean Boulevard #6B Keith & Sharon Whitfield

5708 Inspiration Terrace Lisa Rooks Morris & Amy Drake

$975,000 941.812.7438

SIESTA KEY $940,000 941.587.1776

14911 Castle Park Terrace Tana Moody

$1,375,000 941.284.3789

SANDHILL PRESERVE

WILLOWBEND 632 Crane Prairie Way Tamara & Todd Currey

325 Salerno Street Paula Wesley & Sam Giordano

$2,450,000 941.928.3424

COUNTRY CLUB EAST

CASEY KEY 105 Casey Key Road #34 Dennis Girard

497 Island Circle Judie Berger

VENICE ISLAND $6,900,000 941.587.4894

SOUTHBAY YACHT & RACQUET CLUB

SIESTA KEY $3,450,000 941.539.0974

$4,500,000 941.376.9346

VENICE GOLF & COUNTRY CLUB $925,000 941.302.4256

107 Overlea Way Debi Cohoon

$879,000 941.877.2550

View a rea list ings

7 RESIDENCES

Located in Sarasota’s lively Rosemary District, Collage on Fifth encompasses seven luxury condominiums. Priced from $1,350,000, these unique residences offer a contemporary oasis just moments from the city’s cultural center.

1469 5th Street, Sarasota, FL 34236 | 941.920.1500 Sotheby’s International Realty® and the Sotheby’s International Realty logo are registered service marks used with permission. Each office is independently owned and operated. Equal Housing Opportunity. Property information herein is derived from various sources including, but not limited to, county records and multiple listing services, and may include approximations. All information is deemed accurate. Source: MLS.

WORTH MORE

SARASOTA - DOWNTOWN | 941.364.4000

VENICE | 941.412.3323

LAKEWOOD RANCH | 941.907.9541

Contact us for a confidential consultation PremierSothebysRealty.com LONGBOAT KEY | 941.383.2500

RENTALS | 941.203.3433

382020-1

your home has never been