Florida’s economic woes are shrinking local arts budgets.
By Kim Cartlidge
Martine Collier, executive director of the Sarasota County Arts Council, is so upbeat that she even sees a silver lining in drastic state cuts in arts funding. The reductions are forcing Sarasota’s arts and non-profit organizations to put serious effort into partnerships and collaboration, she says.
But after a little more questioning, Collier admits tracking arts funding this past legislative session was exhausting, a roller coaster ride, especially just after Easter weekend when advocates learned of a discussion to eliminate Florida’s Division of Cultural Affairs altogether.
Had the division been eliminated, there would have been no state agency to distribute NEA grants, matching funds for capital and endowment campaigns, or operational funds. “That’s just shooting yourself in the foot,” Collier says. “Fortunately, it didn’t fly.”
It didn’t fly because the Florida Cultural Alliance and its members, including Sarasota’s Arts Council, launched an intense lobbying effort, bombarding legislators with opposition. As it ended, the division remained, but with a line item budget reduction to $6 million in state funds for the next fiscal year. That’s down from $32.6 million in 2006-7 and $12.5 million in 2007-08.
If Florida’s leadership is serious about its intent diversify the economy and improve the quality of education, the state should support arts funding says Sherron Long, president of the Florida Cultural Alliance. Long could muster little positive to say about the outcome of the session. “It was a challenging year for everybody,” she said.
“It’s important that the state realize that we are part of the solution of economic diversification, especially in this creative economy,” Long said, noting that dynamic arts programs boost tourism, revitalize communities and improve student achievement. “Any vibrant community is going to have cultural amenities.”
According to a 2004 study, Sarasota’s arts are a $123 million industry with 3,000 full-time jobs. Arts organizations spend $68.6 million and generate an additional $54 million in audience spending. “Arts and culture is an enormous economic engine,” says Collier. “Every dollar invested brings back $7.”
The state’s cultural facilities grant program is one of several that received zero funding this year. In Sarasota, that will result in a loss of funding to arts groups including the Asolo, Ringling Museum, Florida West Coast Symphony and Florida Studio Theatre. But the full impact won’t be clear until next season.
“It was so volatile and changing over the past month,” says Collier. “We all knew funding was going to be cut dramatically. I think people are just now getting their arms around what’s happened, so I haven’t seen people making the hard choices about this.”
The lesson for Sarasota’s arts lovers is one that administrators and long-term advocates like Collier already know. “I totally recommend that no organization ever count on government funding,” she says.
P.S. The Florida Cultural Alliance lobbied on behalf of arts funding for Sarasota’s cultural institutions, yet the group doesn’t have strong member representation here in Sarasota. To join the alliance and receive updates about the status of arts legislation and funding, visit flca.net.
My mother and mother-in-law have taught me a lot—including how to live with loss.
By Kim Cartlidge
On Mother’s Day weekend 2007, my father left home after 44 years of marriage. He’d met someone, he said, fallen in love, and the marriage was over. My parents, who grew up in the same rural town in Minnesota, met in kindergarten. They teased and cajoled like schoolmates into their 60s, and appeared destined to be partners for life. My father remarried in January 2008, and remains maddeningly oblivious to the shock that still reverberates—he even took me to task for not skipping down the garden path to meet his new bride.
My mother is visiting this week, and I haven’t told her yet how proud I am that she’s lived through her abandonment and loss this year, her first of living alone and defining herself without reflection from my father’s eyes.
Two years ago this month, my father-in-law died after a long illness, leaving behind his heartbroken widow and confidante of 55 years. They met just after World War II in Sarasota on the Players Theatre stage. He was an artist, a sculptor, professor and mentor to a multitude of New College students throughout the years. She was his helpmate in all matters, from executing stained glass designs to keeping books to feeding the budding artists and lost souls who sought their open doors for comfort, enlightenment and unconditional acceptance. I understood it well, having first passed through those doors as a bit of a lost soul myself.
My mother-in-law has lived with us since October, confronting health problems, including a mastectomy in December, with courage and stoicism born during the hardship of the Great Depression and World War II. It seems unfair that she also faces loneliness, a trial of the heart.
On Mother’s Day, we picture mothers with arms wrapped around their babies, or arms opened wide when grown children return with new extended family. We envision mothers who champion good causes on behalf of their families and communities. Always, the image plays of mothers with busy hands, in a flurry of doing, caring and nurturing. Rarely do we imagine suffering.
But when those hands slow down and arms grow weak, our mothers do something else for us that isn’t about doing at all. They pass through life crises of loss and abandonment and aging. And in their living, in waking up every day, in breathing and looking into the mirror and not giving in to despair but still showing interest in those around them, they’re demonstrating that one day we, too, will suffer life-altering loss. And we will survive.
Sometimes my mother and my mother-in-law apologize that they can’t do more for me to ease the relentless pressure of managing my own family, household, work and volunteer obligations. We mothers tend to be list makers and taskmasters who measure value in each accomplishment. This week, I want to convey to both their worth to me in opening their hearts to each sunrise, in smiling and channeling encouragement with a glance, and in facing loss with dignity and grace.
They’ve taught me what to do. Now they’re showing me how to be.
Even in wealthy Sarasota, too many students fall behind. Teachers and leaders want to change that.
By Kim Cartlidge
Even in an era of deep budget cuts in education, children with tremendous potential who lack community or family support show up in classrooms every day. Last Friday, more than 200 Sarasota school district and civic leaders rolled up their sleeves and spent most of the day challenging themselves to understand what makes these students tick and how to reach them.
Friday also marked the 25-year anniversary of the release of the landmark “A Nation at Risk” report that revealed flaws in the American educational system and guided major reforms of the past two decades. But as Edward Fiske, author of the Fiske Guide to Colleges, wrote in a New York Times guest editorial Friday, the United States still has a disproportionate number of low-performing students, too many of whom never graduate.
The Sarasota district, for all of its wealth, community support, and large numbers of high-achieving students, is not immune from this problem. Last week, I asked Superintendent Lori White what she perceives as her greatest long-term challenge. She didn’t hesitate.
“My passion is student achievement,” she said, noting that the district has not made enough progress across all socioeconomic and cultural groups. “When I see the graduation rate for some of our students, it breaks my heart.”
The participants in Friday’s symposium examined how to bridge the cultural divide between these students and classroom expectations. They noted, with both Lori White and Gary Norris present, that the most challenging classrooms are often staffed with the least experienced teachers.
Assistant Superintendent Hal Nelson organized the symposium. “School districts fail in well-intended efforts because they fail to recognize critical cultural and social issues,” he said. “We’re at a stage of building a model that is fully community collaborative and based on best practices, expert opinion and current literature, and to hard-wire it into the district achievement plan.”
Both Belinda Williams, psychologist and editor of Closing the Achievement Gap: A Vision for Changing Beliefs and Practices, and Dr. Ronald Ferguson, Harvard economist and author of Toward Excellence with Equity: An Emerging Vision for Closing the Achievement Gap, presented findings ranging from how black teenage males perceive getting good grades to what types of teachers best communicate high expectations.
The attendance was capped at 200, and the response was overwhelming, Nelson said. Some of the participants don’t know where they’ll be teaching next year, or how district cuts will affect their schools. Despite those challenges, they put they put aside personal concerns to focus on their own roles in improving student progress. Their openness to change and refusal to be deterred by economic clouds bodes well for the students who will need them the most.
Political analyst Susan McManus on this year’s bumpy road to the White House.
By Kim Cartlidge
Forget everything we thought we knew about politics this presidential election, Dr. Susan MacManus, USF professor and one of Florida’s most-quoted political analysts, said Friday.
Dr. Susan MacManus
MacManus spoke at the League of Women Voters of Sarasota County’s annual meeting about how conventional political wisdom is being challenged in this unconventional campaign.
“Campaigns evolve,” she said. “That’s what makes it so dangerous for some one like me to say I know who is going to win in November. I used to say the person who is going to win will be the one with the most votes,” MacManus said, but now people like to shoot back, “but you’re from Florida.”
The generally neutral professor expressed low regard for the national Democratic leadership’s management of Florida’s delegate dilemma.
“There’s no leadership in the party. This is really eating into people’s ideas about the
Democratic party and making every vote count,” MacManus said. “Florida is again in the eye of the storm. We’re the starting point and we’ll be the end point.”
MacManus’ Top Surprises this Political Season.
The length of the campaign. We’ve generally known who our nominees would be by the end of Super Tuesday. “Instead, we have the longest presidential campaign in history in terms of intensity, and the first billion-dollar election,” MacManus says.
The source of most contentious competition. The Obama-Clinton race outcome may be decided in the courts, MacManus says. “After June, we’ll see a legitimate lawsuit filed” over Florida’s primary vote delegates, she predicts, possibly a minority voter claiming disenfranchisement under the Voting Rights Act.
The draw of the debates. “Who would have imagined that the debates would have drawn more viewers than regular television shows?” asked MacManus.
The high-touch nature of the campaign. Early primary states Iowa and New Hampshire have been known as the last bastions of retail or shoe leather politics, where people can greet candidates face to face. However, “the length of the campaign has resulted in a huge number being able to go to events and see candidates,” MacManus says.
Primary voter turnout. Traditionally, primary turnout is low, but “we have had record turnout in our primaries,” says MacManus.
The role of religion. “Religion has played a role in a very different way,” and in a discriminatory way,” says MacManus “If you’re a Mormon, you’re crucified,” while Obama was accused of being a radical Muslim, and Huckabee was tagged in most media stories as the Baptist preacher.
The targeted group. “Who would have expected to read that the targeted group this election cycle is not women, not blacks, but white males?” says MacManus.
As a Distinguished Professor at USF, MacManus studies generational voting patterns, which are also in a shake-up this election. Obama’s candidacy has aroused such enthusiasm among youth that some say it could produce what Reagan’s candidacy achieved for the Republicans—a realignment election that locks in partisan change.
When it all plays out, MacManus won’t be observing from an ivory tower. She’ll attend both party conventions this summer as a political analyst for WFLA.
MacManus appears on “Decision 2008: The Road to the White House” every other Sunday morning at 9:30 on WFLA Channel 8. The next show will air on May 4.
In mainly Republican Sarasota County, Democrats are beginning to have a fighting chance.
By Kim Cartlidge
For years, election nights for Sarasota County’s Democrats were somber, stay-at-home affairs. There weren’t backs to slap or hands to shake because so few Democrats ran for office. Republican incumbents were reelected without opposition or in Republican-only primaries before the open primary law took effect. The Libertarian Party, with its lively, off-the-wall candidates, generated more opposition and debate in local races.
The pendulum is swinging, says Sarasota Democratic Party Chair Rita Ferrandino. During the presidential election of 2004, local Democrats fielded Jan Schneider for Congress, long-term incumbent Barbara Ford-Coates for tax collector and Frank Peterman for the four-county, gerrymandered state district 55. Ford-Coates and Peterman won as George Bush was reelected.
Rita Ferrandino
Over the past two years, Sarasota’s electorate kicked out incumbents on both the Venice and Sarasota City commissions and replaced them with Democrats. Even though city races are non-partisan, both councils have Democratic majorities now.
This year, Democratic candidates have filed in 14 races, providing the first true, two-party contest in decades. “We are kicking butt. Our strength is we’re fielding a set of candidates that are highly skilled and qualified to not only win the election but to excel in the job, and that is how you create systemic change,” says Ferrandino.
Registered Republicans comprise the majority in Sarasota County and in most of the state legislative districts. But a strong Democratic turnout combined with the independent vote could sway local races and alter the landscape, even in long-term, Republican-held offices.
The state Democratic Party has taken notice. “Sarasota is the golden child at the moment because we have the ability to go from red to blue. We can pick up state seats,” says Ferrandino.
Florida’s Democratic Party Chair Karen Thurman concurs, adding, “Florida is thirsty for change, and that's why people are electing Democrats in every corner of the state, including Sarasota. It's absolutely one of the most important areas to Democrats in the 2008 election.” State party reps landed in town this week to woo potential candidates for the open Florida Senate seat.
Sarasota’s Republicans now have Democratic opponents for all the Florida House Seats, Public Defender, Sheriff, Supervisor of Elections, County Commission, the City of North Port, and Charter Review Board. Ferrandino expects candidates to file for Florida Senate and Property Appraiser soon.
But Eric Robinson, chair of the Republican Party, says the Dems are fielding shadow candidates who haven’t raised enough money or support to win. “I think it’s wonderful. It’s part of the Democratic process and it helps Republicans because it closes the primaries. If you think about it, it closes out the Democrats from having input in who their elected officials will be.”
Ferrandino says most have just filed this month, and that fundraising has only begun. She’s counting on Democrats and Independents who desire change. But in the end, it’s the quality of the candidates that will determine the Democrats’ success. “If you have good candidates, there’s a much higher probability they will vote,” she says.
Sarasota’s Democratic candidates will be out in full force, meeting and greeting the public at Oscar Scherer’s Earth Day celebration this Sunday, April 20 from 10-3. For more information about party events and candidates, visit sarastoadems.org and rpos.org.
A new foundation aims to revitalize Sarasota’s parks.
By Kim Cartlidge
When I pulled up to the Payne Park auditorium to attend the inaugural community meeting of the Sarasota Parks Foundation, I expected to see a few dozen well-intentioned park lovers. I had no idea I would find so many heavy hitters who already support the organization. It all began only four months ago with a young person’s plea at a public meeting.
Sarasota's Payne Park.
Dr. Lawrence Miller, economic development coordinator for the city’s planning and redevelopment department, grew up in a housing project in the South Bronx. “Mentors would come forward and keep us out of trouble,” says Miller. “I went to Robert Taylor Park [in Newtown] for a community meeting and kids were pleading for programs that would keep them off the street. It went to my heart. I knew the connection between economic development and the parks. The park is a symbol of what the community stands for. If it’s well done and attractive, there’s an active and alive community,” Miller said.
Miller contacted Brenda Patten, former county attorney, who drew in General Rolland Heiser, former head of the New College Foundation, and enlisted guidance from David Rivel, executive director New York City’s CityParks Foundation.
Today’s board members are: Tim Clarke, DeWanda Smith-Soeder, Diana Grandy, Larry Fineberg, Jeff Maultsby, Casey Colburn, Mark Famiglio, Roxanne Joffe, Millie Small and Robert Johnson. Rolland Heiser is chair, Lawrence Miller is president and Brenda Patten is secretary and treasurer. Michael Saunders, Ian Black, Phil Delaney, Jeff Lawenda, Dennis McGillicuddy, Graci McGillicuddy and Randy Benderson serve on the advisory council.
Heiser compared the effort to his involvement in the first Offshore Grand Prix. “If we do this right, we’ll have 49 parks that will be first rate and a credit to the community.’
They had invited Rivel to present the history of New York’s CityParks Foundation and the scope of its activities. The 29-year foundation was originally a fiscal sponsor for a private donation to New York City’s park system. It has grown into a $10 million program and the city’s largest provider of arts performances, drawing more than 340,000 attendees to more than 1,100 performances a year. CityParks also works with more than 4,000 support groups, ranging from dog walking associations to sports leagues, and 65,000 volunteers. CityParks derives 90 percent of its revenue from private funding, which is evenly divided among corporations, foundations and individuals.
“When times are tough, there’s a real temptation to get private citizens to fund government functions, but it’s a slippery slope. You really have to have a sense that you’re an independent entity,” advised Rivel.
Rivel’s caveat to the group was to clearly delineate the mission from the start. Especially in an era of budget cuts, a parks foundation might be asked to fill government funding gaps.
The Sarasota Parks Foundation has incorporated and filed for 501(c)3 status. The first priority parks are Robert Taylor, Payne Park and Mary Dean Park at 15th and Central Avenue. Payne Park, said Miller, could become Sarasota’s Central Park and the heart of the city with more community support.
Could Payne Park become Sarasota's Central Park?
For more information about the Sarasota Parks Foundation, call Dr. Lawrence Miller at 373-7764.
Three retired statesmen offer insight into partisan politics and Florida’s taxes.
By Kim Cartlidge
Former Senators Bob Graham and Connie Mack and former House Rep Dan Miller weighed in on political issues and the current climate in Washington at a Tiger Bay meeting last week. The three long-term Congressmen, well-regarded statesmen in this area, drew a packed crowd.
From top to bottom: Sen. Bob Graham, Sen. Connie Mack, Rep. Dan Miller
Their prescription for a polarized Congress had more to do with human nature than political philosophy. Graham and Mack, who had a close working relationship in the Senate even though they sat on opposite sides of the aisle, said elected officials should cultivate personal relationships. “There’s an awful lot of insularity in Congress,” said Graham, joking that Reagan airport is dangerous on a Thursday afternoon due to members of Congress trampling through the terminals to get home for the weekend. People used to stay in D.C. over the weekend to socialize and work out their political differences, said Graham.
When Mack was in office, he attended a weekly, bipartisan prayer breakfast, where members of Congress would speak about their life challenges. “It’s very difficult to rail against this person you’ve just been dealing with,” Mack said. Rancor and confrontation in politics are part of human nature, he added, but knowing and understanding each other help deal with it. Trent Lott and Tom Daschle had very open communication, Mack said, although it may not have appeared so to outsiders.
Dan Miller said that the parties have become more homogenous over the years as blocs such as the Rockefeller Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats have diminished. But the presidential primary results have proven that voters respond to candidates who say they will work across party lines. “The most partisan people have dropped out,” Miller said.
School Board member Shirley Brown asked their opinions of the proposed Florida constitutional amendment shifting some education funding from property tax to a sales tax increase and other revenue streams. “The (Florida Taxation and Budget Reform) Committee has improvidently put on the ballot what should be left up to the legislature,” said Graham. “Once you lock it up in the constitution, you’re locked down for a while.”
Legislating by referendum is a way of undermining the republic, said Mack. After the meeting, he added that Florida’s property tax system is fundamentally unfair. “I’m open to taking the burden off property taxes and onto sales tax,” he said. “The issue’s going to be whether people are comfortable that the legislature will address education funding. They have to assume on faith that it’s going to happen.”
Brown had also recommended watching the new HBO miniseries based on historian David McCullough’s book John Adams, to which Graham offered a surprise plug. His second daughter, Cissy, is married to David McCullough’s second son, Bill, and their three children are nearing the expensive college years. “I have a commercial interest,” he joked. “Tell them to buy the book.”
Tiger Bay will host a forum of Sarasota County Sheriff’s candidates on Thursday, April 3 at 11:30. Email sarasotatigerbay@comcast.net for more information. Dan Miller is working with a group that plans to found a Manatee County Tiger Bay club soon.
Architecture lovers and outraged parents collide over the high school's future.
By Kim Cartlidge
While I was having dinner last week with other parents of school-aged children, the conversation took a familiar turn to substandard conditions at Riverview High. Anyone aghast that the school board could abandon renowned architect Paul Rudolph’s modernist high school in favor of new buildings could get an earful from staff and families who spend their days there.
That day, a plumbing issue had caused water to flow through a bathroom ceiling, closing it off to students. A chorus of complaints that followed about students sloshing through flooded hallways and suffering mold and allergens reached its crescendo with tales about rats.
I called Riverview Principal Linda Nook the following day. We discussed the recent news that the school board granted the Revive Riverview group a three-month extension to seek funding for an adaptive reuse of the Rudolph building as a music quadrangle. I asked about the condition of the building. Yes, Nook said, the custodial staff does squeegee the main hallway after a hard rain. Plumbing problems are not common she said, but it’s a 50-year-old building and there are rats, although the stories are exaggerated.
“Is it true,” I asked, “that a rat fell through a ceiling tile during a class?”
“That did happen,” she said.
In May of 2006, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Riverview’s accrediting body, cited the school for two deficiencies: “conditions create unsafe and unhealthy school environment,” and “facilities negatively impact effective delivery of instruction,” and put Riverview on advised status. Nook worked hard to remove this undesirable distinction, one not shared by any high schools in the area, by proving that a new facility was ready to break ground soon.
It was at about the same time that a group of prominent local architects rallied to save Rudolph’s building, inserting another layer into what was already the “the biggest, most expensive and complex construction project in the history of the district” says Nook, in part due to the compact site and its adjacency to Phillippi Creek.
While Revive Rudolph’s Riverview and its distinguished architectural team have spoken of what the building was, what it represented and what it could be, the end users of the building don’t have the vision. They can’t get past what it is.
The new high school is scheduled to open fall of 2009. I could see this visionary solution gaining steam and momentum once the staff and students are settled into new facilities. But any move to delay that opening would unleash the outrage of families whose patience has already been stretched beyond reasonable limits. The Revive group has worked to allay those concerns. “This in no way impedes the progress of a new high school,” says Mollie Cardamone, chair of the Revive Rudolph’s Riverview committee.
Could the building stand long enough for Save Rudolph’s Riverview to build its base? The building is sound, says Cardamone, and School Board Chair Kathy Kleinlein reminds me that the staff and students will reside there through summer of 2009.
“Their plan creates all kinds of effects, with the stormwater, parking, the soccer fields. We’re not going to pay for new architectural drawings,” says Kleinlein. Still, she’s more positive than some of her peers on the board. “If the new plan fits with the campus, I have no objection to it. It just comes down to dollars.”
New York Architect Diane Lewis has revised her plan for a music quadrangle, and the first Revive Rudolph’s Riverview fundraiser will be held in April. Visit www.sarasotaarchitecturalfoundation.org
Before the region can attract innovative companies, we have some issues to address.
By Kim Cartlidge
State lawmakers and the governor opened session last week announcing that we’re at an economic crossroads—Florida must cultivate a research and technology economy in order to thrive beyond its reliance on real estate, tourism and population growth.
As exciting as it sounds to hear lawmakers talk of encouraging an innovation economy, I’m not sure Florida ever lacked innovative business people in the first place. They are choking on the same expenses—taxes, insurance, housing costs for employees and healthcare—that residents rail about. But they don’t have the benefit of Save Our Homes, and neither Florida’s lawmakers nor Amendment I have offered substantive relief.
I caught up with Nancy Engel, executive director of the Economic Development Council for the Manatee Chamber, and Kathy Baylis, president of the Sarasota County Economic Development Council, late last week as they were driving to a Tampa Bay Partnership meeting together. Both have worked in the trenches for years. Both spend the majority of their time on business retention--supporting existing companies that want to grow, or these days, just survive.
Kathy Baylis
“What I’m hearing from businesses, and I hate to use the words ‘perfect storm,’ but property taxes, commercial insurance, the cost of healthcare, affordable housing and trouble recruiting employees have all just come together. Overall operating costs are out of kilter with what they were before, causing companies to leave,” said Engel. “We have not dealt with the issues we have now—tax relief, insurance and health care.”
A Bradenton manufacturer that chose to expand to North Carolina provided Engel this cost comparison last summer:
Manufacturing space
North Carolina $20 to $25 per square foot
Florida $70 per square foot
Taxes
North Carolina $26,000 per year on 140,000 square feet that can be paid in installments
Florida $96,000 per year on 74,000 square feet that must be paid in a lump sum
Utilities
North Carolina $.067 per KWH
Florida $.096 per KWH
The company saves $35,000 per year in annual utility costs by locating in North Carolina.
Baylis added, “We both support diversity—that’s what economic development is all about. But if we don’t deal with the foundation issues, even those innovative companies are going to struggle.”
So even if Florida offered a buffet of tax incentives, grants and educational initiatives for alternative energy, research and technology companies, would they come? If the cost of doing business continues to cloud Florida’s economic climate, what would keep them here?
The Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission (floridatbrc.org), the body appointed to review the state’s financial structure, could be key for businesses this year.
The commission will have reviewed 51 reform ideas by May 2, including a constitutional proposal sponsored by former Senator John McKay to replace school property tax revenues with sales tax by repealing some exemptions. Reforms such as this, Engel says, could offer some immediate relief. But it would be up to legislators to champion and pass the Florida TBRC recommendations into law, or for voters to approve them if they are placed on the ballot in November.
It’s by no means foolish for the state to induce innovative industries with financial incentives. But without attention to business climate fundamentals, it could well become folly.
America’s most famous political scientist elicited gales of laughter from his Sarasota audience last week with spirited election commentary and Daily Show-style graphics. Dr. Larry Sabato also extended a serious message about raising the bar of civility this election year.
Dr. Larry Sabato
Sabato predicted most of the presidential campaign will be substantive, offering a clear choice on key issues such as Iraq and the economy. However, Internet rumors and attacks will continue to undermine civility. “The citizenry can do a lot to discourage diatribes,” Sabato said. “Terrible rumors are spread by Internet, telephone and person to person, but they are aided and abetted by us, the voters because we don’t check them out.”
Sabato frequently appears on television, and he said he’s shared green rooms with plenty of pundits. In an interview after his talk, he compared bad political punditry to pornography. “You know it when you see it. The more ideological the pundit is, the less likely I am to pay attention. They’re so predictable and they’re more interested in haranguing you than informing you,” he said.
Sabato sticks with traditional media sources and realpolitics.com for his news. He also recommends nonpartisan websites such as Politifact.org for checking out the truth of candidate claims or Internet rumors.
He’s an advocate of civic education beginning as early as kindergarten, and offers free, state-standardized curriculum to teachers through the University of Virginia Center for Politics, where he is based. Hundred of thousands of students have voted in mock elections through the classroom-based Youth Leadership Initiative.
The Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice, Collins Center for Public Policy and USF Institute for Public Policy and Leadership hosted Sabato’s talk and book signing at the Ritz-Carlton on February 27 as part of its Civility in Democracy series.
Sabato is credited with being one of the most accurate political forecasters around. Only a fool or a liar would try to predict the outcome of the presidential election this early, he said, but he is willing to forecast that both the U.S. House and Senate will gain Democratic seats this year and retain a modest majority. The new president will still have to work both sides of the aisles to accomplish his or her agenda.
The most likely McCain-Obama race could end the “virtually static” red state-blue state voting outcomes of the past two elections. Each candidate could win nine to ten states over to his party, Sabato said.
For more prognostication and the list of dozens of books Sabato has written about the political process, including his latest, “A More Perfect Constitution: 23 Proposals to Revitalize Our Constitution and Make America a Fairer Country,” visit LarrySabato.com.
Sarasota Memorial looks for profits to offset the costs of caring for the uninsured.
By Kim Cartlidge
Sarasota Memorial is the only taxpayer-supported hospital between Tampa and Fort Myers, and its tax revenues subsidize only about half the cost of treating uninsured patients. As our presidential candidates debate long-term solutions for the uninsured in the political realm, Sarasota Memorial is covering their backs on a daily basis.
The hospital collected $56 million in property tax revenues last year. Yet the total cost of safety-net programs was $109 million, a huge chunk of its $433 million in operating revenues.
Here’s the breakdown of that $109 million for 2007:
$60.9 million in bad debt, unpaid hospital bills,
$28.5 million for traditional charity care (poverty level, non-Medicaid patients),
$14.7 million to cover Medicaid losses, subsidize community clinics and doctor care for uninsured patients, and other community programs and, a
$5.2 million payment into a state indigent care fund.
Because of Amendment 1 and the statewide property tax rollback, CEO Gwen MacKenzie is projecting a $3.5 million decrease in tax revenue this year.
People who are poor or uninsured usually wait for care until a crisis hits. They can’t afford doctor visits, or they feel stigmatized when they don’t have an insurance card to present, says MacKenzie. And when they do get sick, they tend to show up at the emergency room, where costs are higher than a doctor’s office. The hospital has instituted programs to stop the bleeding from frequent emergency room visits for manageable conditions.
Sarasota Memorial’s Charter Plan insurance program offers coverage through companies with fewer than 20 employees that aren’t eligible for traditional insurance. About 1,000 people are now covered, says MacKenzie. SMH also has a pilot program with the county health department to identify “frequent fliers,” such as diabetics, who may need prescription assistance or a social worker to help manage their health conditions. More than 200 doctors volunteer their skills in the hospital’s community medical clinic to provide surgeries and treatments to the indigent or uninsured.
Inpatient care just isn’t profitable, especially obstetrics, high-level neonatal intensive care and crisis psychiatric units. But the hospital has a mission to provide these services, even as for-profit hospitals shut them down. The moneymakers today in health care are outpatient clinics that provide quick surgeries and high-level imaging, like CT scans.
SMH isn’t reducing its level of care or asking for more tax money. Instead, it’s trying to increase its income by opening more outpatient clinics, at a current rate of about two per year. SHM even has one planned in Manatee, which has caused resentment at Manatee Memorial. But the hospital system isn’t banking its profits or sending them out to stockholders; it’s pouring them back in to serving a wider spectrum of people who need medical treatment, says MacKenzie. If Sarasota Memorial is to fulfill its mission to continue provide unprofitable and safety net care, it’s also going to have to compete vigorously in a for-profit market, she maintains.
Experts share grim predictions and long-term hope at a panel on the region’s next five years.
By Kim Cartlidge
Is it any surprise that a panel discussion last week on our five-year economic outlook turned contentious? The discussion, sponsored by USF’s Institute for Public Policy and Leadership and Sarasota and Biz 41 magazines, was more evidence that Sarasota’s real estate market downtown is creating not ripples, but waves of anxiety among local business owners. When Deerfield Beach real estate consultant and economist Jack McCabe asked the room how many people knew some one who had recently lost their job, had a home foreclosed or had left the area because it had become unaffordable, most people in the room raised hands on several counts.
The panelists were McCabe, demographer Brad Edmondson, state senator Mike Bennett, Citizens for Sensible Growth Director Bill Earl, Sarasota County Administrator Jim Ley and Pat Neal, former senator and long-term developer from Manatee County. You wouldn’t expect consensus among this group even in the sunniest of times.
The most controversial speaker was McCabe, who predicts Sarasota-Bradenton’s real estate market will continue to drop until 2010 and then remain flat before rising again. His prediction is based on the current backlog of unsold condos and homes and the “vulture” buyers who are waiting, he says, for prices to drop further before they swoop in and buy units in bulk from banks. Those lower prices “will be the new gold standard” for appraisals, McCabe predicted.
According to McCabe, Sarasota-Manatee now has a 40-month supply of homes and condos. This is based on the 16,264 units currently listed on the MLS and the January sales of 402 units in the two counties. As of January 31, Sarasota had 5,079 single-family homes and 3,353 condos listed for sale. Manatee County had 5,361 homes and 2,471 condos listed. The two counties combined sold 272 homes and 130 condominiums in January of this year.
Pat Neal appeared to be seething beneath his smile. Neal emphasized that the market will adapt quickly, offering new product and new business models because “unlike government, people who have their own capital can change things.”
After acknowledging an oversupply of blame as well—the speculators, flippers, spec builders, lenders and appraisers, government officials too quick to amend the comp plan, and consumers who sought to make a quick buck--the panelists did find areas of agreement.
Sarasota’s demographic gold is baby boomers in their 60s who will retire here over the next 20 years in larger numbers than we’ve ever seen, said Edmondson. Nobody disputed that. All agreed that over the long-term, the market will recover and prosper.
But how will we grow? Already, you can hear the murmurings of the post-bust public discourse. The process of altering land-use plans, the tax structure and the way we support our existing jobs and attract new industry are under scrutiny.
If Sarasota-Bradenton is in danger of a big chill, it’s not from the current market downtown, Pat Neal warned. It’s the possibility that we’ll continue to be a one-industry town, and that dependence on growth and development will turn us into an enclave for the ultra-wealthy and their service providers--Longboat Key without the diversity of the other communities. That discussion has long engaged the community’s leaders, but they won’t be able to move it forward without more voices, more participation, and more people willing to shoulder the burden instead of placing the blame.
More than 100 local candidates and their supporters—where did they all come from?—went to college one night last week to learn how to run a campaign. Not all of them were running, but they all got an earful from our local experts—the supervisors of elections, news and editorial writers, and Bradenton political consultant Tom Nolan.
If you’ve ever entertained the idea of running or know someone who has, here are the nuts and bolts of How To Run For Office and Avoid Trouble, according to the experts and to me.
1 – Before you begin campaigning, open a campaign account at your bank. Don’t even think about accepting any donations before you do, or you’ll be in trouble with a capital “E” for Elections Commission violation.
2 – You have to sign an affidavit saying you’ve read and understand Chapter 106 of the Florida Statutes, the bible of campaign rules. I got the impression that lots of people skim it or try to read it at stoplights as they are driving to the elections office. That can cause trouble later on.
3 – Once you open your campaign account, go home, set down your keys, and call the nearest political consultant to schedule your first poll. That’s according to Tom Nolan. He didn’t use that exact phrasing, but his Powerpoint did flash the words, “you must take voter polls” every few seconds.
4 – Take political polls with a grain of salt. They’re only a snapshot in time. Make use of information from the monthly SCOPE indicators (scopexcel.org), annual city and county citizen surveys (scgov.net), and your own knowledge of issues. If you’re involved and engaged in the community, your own instincts just might be superior. That’s from me.
5 – Have a diverse, kitchen-table committee of people you can trust to make decisions when you can’t see the forest for the trees. That’s from Tom Nolan, and it makes good sense.
6- Talk to the people at the top of the political food chain. Are they the wealthiest? No. The most powerful? Nope, again. They’re the people who regularly and predictably turn out to vote, and can be as little as 25 percent of the eligible population.
7 – A candidate must never with malice make a false statement about an opposing candidate. It’s illegal. Huh? “Yes, folks,” says Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent, “there are laws out there,” and this one is on the books.
There you have it. To qualify, you can pay a small percentage of the salary of the office you seek, or gather signed petitions from one percent of the registered population. If you’re thinking of running, it’s time to get started because the first qualifying deadlines are at the end of next month. (srqelections.com)
New director Mary Bensel has high hopes for the Van Wezel.
By Kim Cartlidge
It’s a tough year to be a new director of the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall. Performance hall ticket sales are down around the state. The hall’s subsidy from the City of Sarasota could be as high as $2 million this season, just as voters have sent a clear mandate that they want local governments to cut spending. When Mary Bensel took the helm in the middle of the 2007-2008 season, several key positions, including CFO and marketing director, had gone unfilled for months. Meanwhile, she had to book the 2008-2009 season, and she’s not entirely happy with the bookings she inherited.
Mary Bensel
Bensel moved from Maryland in December and plunged right into the day-to-day management of the Van Wezel. When I interviewed her after a month on the job, she’d had little time to take stock, meet her counterparts in Sarasota, even to unpack boxes in her new home.
Still, Bensel was upbeat. Her new marketing director started last month. Bensel had just returned from a Broadway booking show in New York City, the APAP Conference, where she talked up major touring show agents to try to bring a big name Sarasota. This process takes years of networking with agents, watching what’s happening with shows such as Moving Out, Chicago, or Phantom, and, in Sarasota’s case, waiting until the show is affordable.
The Van Wezel’s 1,700-seat capacity puts Sarasota at a disadvantage. Major touring show producers are seeking about 2,300 seats to be profitable. Sarasota competes with larger halls in Tampa and Clearwater, which producers consider one market. Most shows initially require a run of several weeks, but with organizations like the Florida West Coast Symphony also performing in the hall during season, there’s not a large window of open nights. Major shows are financially risky, easily costing $500,000 before realizing a profit.
Bensel has a track record of success and the business savvy to know she’s got to get the hall out of the red. The Van Wezel may book fewer shows next year or operate seasonally. Each show will have a targeted marketing campaign. Beginning next season, she’ll push to build subscription audiences for plays, children’s programming, orchestra concerts and more.
This week, Bensel added a February 7 matinee performance of I love a Piano because the two evening performances were sold out. Tickets for two other new bookings, the Beach Boys (March 30) and the Moody Blues (March 29) are on sale now.
But Bensel is hearing from her patrons that they want to see more Broadway shows, and over the long term, that’s what she’d like to deliver. As one of about 750 Tony Award voters and a big fan of Barbra Streisand, Angela Lansbury, Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters and Nathan Lane, she says Broadway is where her heart is. “I would love to see what people keep asking me for,” she says. “There’s nothing like the experience that happens in a live theater.”
Nothing good will develop in Newtown until crime is under control. Now, at last, that may happen.
By Kim Cartlidge
If there ever were a place in need of a superhero, it’s Newtown. It’s Sarasota’s most impoverished neighborhood, yet commercial revitalization efforts have amounted to more talk than results. Redevelopment plans have been developed and approved. The city has expanded the CRA district to funnel tax dollars there. Retailers have expressed interest in developing the former Wal-Mart site, and the neighborhood wants to open a farmer’s market soon. But Sarasota City Manager Robert Bartolotta says some developers and business people have told him they won’t consider investing in Newtown right now. It’s all about the crime.
Index crimes—murder, rape, the big ones—were up five percent last year, says Sarasota Police Captain Lucius Bonner, and there’s a perception that it’s getting worse. High-profile incidents like a shooting last year have residents worried. Drug dealers are making sales in the commercial corridor on Martin Luther King Boulevard. Despite frequent arrests, criminals are too quickly returned to the streets. “You can’t arrest your way out of the situation,” says Bonner. “You’ve got to address social issues as well. It’s got to be a collective involvement.”
City officials are listening. The Sarasota City Commission has ranked Newtown redevelopment as its top priority for this year. In March, the city will launch a public safety initiative in districts 1, 2 and 3 with the most intense effort concentrated on visibly reducing crime in Newtown. “We’re going to make it a safe place to live and work and walk,” Bartolotta says.
The new effort, tentatively called Operation New2, “is in its incipient stages,” says Police Chief Peter Abbott. “We want to deal everybody in before we decide what to do.”
Police Chief Peter Abbott
What’s different about this initiative, says Captain Bonner, is the city’s outreach to involve all of Newtown’s neighborhoods, such as Amaryllis Park, associations like SURE and the NAACP, city departments, such as code enforcement, and organizations like Habitat for Humanity and Ringling College.
Bartolotta is committed to sustain the effort. “We’re not just going in for the weekend,” he says. “People are going to see a marked difference, but it’s not going to happen overnight.”
Bartolotta and the Sarasota Police Department have identified dozens of potential partner organizations, which are invited to a community forum on February 11. The city is not looking for superpowers so much as citizens and groups willing to tackle crime together, and a Justice League of residents who know they deserve better.
War, the economy and the debt they’ll inherit are driving young voters to the polls.
By Kim Cartlidge
I spent the weekend among hundreds of well-informed, well-read high school students who are following the presidential election closely. Yes, they are out there, despite a perception that young people don’t care enough about politics to vote. Turnout rates among the nation’s youngest voters have in fact risen since 2000; 47 percent of 18-24 year-olds voted for president in 2004.
These 700 students from 12 states were suited up to compete at the 2008 Crestian speech and debate tournament at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale. Crestian is known for its tough, high-caliber competition, especially in the policy debate events. I attended as a parent judge, but as I looked around at the faces of kids who will soon be eligible to cast a ballot for the first time, I could not help but ask a few about their thoughts and opinions.
I wasn’t surprised when the students I spoke to told me they are very excited to vote this year. However, their top voting issues and pluralistic newsgathering habits were a surprise. John of North Carolina is most concerned about long-term economic stability. He looks at what the candidates are saying, but also reads the Washington Post, LA Times, Christian Science Monitor and the Economist, most likely online. “I’m never one to believe one news source,” he said.
I asked Arjun of North Carolina how he thinks most young people are getting their election news. He responded that they watch CNN, but also YouTube, where all the candidates have their own pages. His biggest issue is healthcare and the 47 million Americans who are without health insurance.
Jesse of Florida said the war in Iraq is most important to her. “I think we should have a rational timetable to get out in a reasonable amount of time,” she said.
Amit of North Carolina said, “foreign policy, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, how we deal with the international community but also economic issues, our major national debt, housing, economic stimulus packages and healthcare. It’s a misconception that politics don’t affect young people.”
Allistair of Florida said, “Health care and social security are very important because they are most going to be affecting our generation.
Christina of Florida said her top issues were the war and Social Security. “I think we should pull out soon.”
Economic issues and the war with Iraq were the concerns of the youngest voters in 2004, as well, and current Facebook and MySpace election polls show that’s still true. But I would have expected them to be tuned in to the job market or educational opportunities rather than Social Security or health insurance. While I’ve heard senior voters lament about the debt we are placing on our children, I did not know young voters were paying attention.
Since the 1970s, young voters have not been vocal enough or comprised a large enough voting bloc to engender much political attention. Now, they are tuned in to what’s at stake and voting in greater numbers. These bright, engaged kids who are debating policy now will bear a tremendous economic burden as adults. It’s imperative that they speak out, and that we and the politicians listen.
A new lecture series hopes to clean up local campaigns.
By Kim Cartlidge
The ink had barely dried on the printed programs, and most speakers had yet to sign on the dotted line when the Civility in Democracy: Election 2008 series kicked off on January 11 at the new USF campus. Bob Graham, a popular former governor and U.S. Senator who co-chaired the post-September 11 intelligence inquiry, attracted a crowd of more than 200 on relatively short notice. The series has developed so rapidly since mid-December, and so organically, according to Teri Hansen of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, that even organizers are a little awed by its momentum.
Graham was most certainly a draw, but so was the theme. Civility will be big story this year as citizens brace themselves for another election cycle. I contend that the good citizens of Sarasota--weary of contentious local elections, disappointed by bickering legislators who could not deliver tax relief let alone tax reform, and dreading the negative ads from unidentified organizations that will soon appear on television and in their mailboxes—would welcome a little civility, especially in the political realm.
Over the years, I’ve often listened to voters complain about mudslinging and negative advertising. Candidates will nod in agreement and then argue self-defense, blaming their opponents for firing the first shot. Their political consultants will shake their heads whisper an aside, “But negative advertising is effective. It always works.”
Negative campaigns work when they discourage any voter who’s not a sure bet for their candidate from participating. They succeed when voters tune out, stay home, or go to the polls and then don’t vote. Sarasota’s historic undervote in the 2006 Buchanan-Jennings Congressional election was blamed on flawed voting machines. Yet ample evidence suggests voter disgust was at an all-time high.
Graham’s prescription was a combination of campaign reform, civic education and an engaged, rather than passive, citizenship. He touted more television airtime for candidates. He seemed encouraged by the efforts of primary-source information websites like Politifact.com. A partnership of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly, Politifact checks the accuracy of candidates’ statements and defuses inflammatory claims on its Truth-O-Meter. As Graham noted, when everyone works from the same set of facts, civility, bipartisan agreement and even progress become possible.
The Civility in Democracy Series will host Journalist Carl Hiaasen, Professor Larry Sabato and a Candidate College for local candidates in February and March. The series is a project of the USF Institute for Public Policy and Leadership (sarasota.usf.edu/ippl), the Collins Center for Public Policy (collinscenter.org) and the Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice (gulfcoastcf.org).
Does that Season of Sculpture car piece cause bad driving?
By Kim Hackett
The Sarasota Season of Sculpture’s Dance (referred to by locals as the piled-up cars at Gulfstream and U.S. 41) is a case of art imitating life imitating art. And since art is open to interpretation, maybe artist Dustin Shuler was commenting on our dicey intersection, the site of 29 accidents so far this year.
While out-of-towners are contemplating whether it’s some kind of freak accident and rubbernecking to see the giant tooth across the street at Bayfront Park while trying to figure out how to get to Longboat Key, they’re plowing into one another at a higher rate than usual. A few days after the pile-up (the artistic one) Drayton Saunders, an executive with Michael Saunders and Co. witnessed a real one, as he has at that intersection many times before. “When people come around, they slow down and people behind them rear end them,” Saunders says. It was the second accident that day, unusual for an area that typically has about three a month.
Could our Season of Sculpture be a traffic hazard, with senior citizens and out-of-towners getting distracted when they need to figure out how to navigate a confusing area? The Sarasota Police don’t think so.
“It’s not a concern,” says spokesman Sgt. Jay Frank. He pointed out that 29 accidents in a year wasn’t a big deal compared to Beneva and Fruitville, where there are that many in a month.
Still, I know the area well and found myself whipping around the corner in my red convertible and nearly slamming into the guy in front of me at the sight of those cars (I won’t mention the number of speeding tickets I’ve gotten since purchasing my pre-midlife crisis BMW.) “I’m down there every day and I don’t see it as a problem,” says Brenda Terris, executive director of Season of Sculpture. She says she received a lot of complaints from residents in the nearby towers about “junk cars” as the display went up, but safety hasn’t been an issue. “I’m worried about the graffiti.”
OK, so maybe it’s me. Maybe I’d better take that safe driving course the nice policeman recommended to me a few weeks ago.
And on that note, dear reader, I bid you adieu. I’m heading back to the hard news side of the aisle at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, where I worked for three years before taking a breather. I’ll be covering Venice, where I live, and doing some TV reporting for SNN.
Thank you for sharing your opinions on my CityBeat blog and putting up with all my nosy questions. Feel free to drop me a line or chew me out at kimhackett@comcast.net. And thanks again, Pam and Jeff. It’s been a real pleasure writing for you.
What happened to term limits on our county commissioners?
By Kim Hackett
From Tuesday’s clean sweep of three long-time Venice city commissioners to last spring’s Sarasota city elections, voters are saying “out with the bums.”
But why stop there? We’ve got three incumbents on the Sarasota County Commission who shouldn’t even be there beyond 2008 if we actually listened to voters.
It may surprise you to learn that in 1998, county voters, by an overwhelming 68 percent, approved a two-term limit on commissioners. That means Nora Patterson shouldn’t be serving (she would have been ineligible in 2006) and Jon Thaxton, Paul Mercier and Shannon Staub couldn’t run again in 2008.
So what happened?
A few years passed before the term limits issue would have come into play; we all forgot about it; and then in 2004 there was a lawsuit; term limits were ruled unconstitutional at the Circuit Court level. Sarasota County officials opted not to appeal the ruling and for good reason. Who wants to push an issue that would require relinquishing all that power?
We’ve got term limits for state representatives and the governor but not county commissioners. Does that make any sense?
Straight out of a John D. MacDonald novel, the person fighting the legality of term limits was another public official—Frank Moore, who still sits on the county’s Charter Review Board.
Moore claimed that a 2002 court ruling on term limits in Pinellas County was applicable to Sarasota, and he wanted to give voters the opportunity to remove that unconstitutional language from the charter. You know, clean up the charter a bit. But his fellow charter board members voted against him. So Moore sued.
In 2005, 12th Circuit Judge Deno Economou agreed with Moore.
Not so surprisingly, the county commissioners opted not to appeal the judge's ruling.
So term limits remain on the county charter as “unenforceable.” And who knows, now that the building industry is mad as hell, they may be motivated to revisit the issue. Or the slow-growthers may continue their crusade. That language is just sitting there in our charter like an Al Qaeda sleeper cell.
What ever happened to public outrage? It’s as if the water supply has been tainted with Xanax—the modern-day Valium. The only ones on the opposite side of the reaction spectrum are the Sarasota police, who shoot unarmed men and arrest kids for riding their bikes through a closed park. But that’s another story altogether.
At the top of my “where is the outrage” list, along with the costly Iraq war, is the tepid response outside the African-American community to the nooses popping up all over the country.
In our back yard of Punta Gorda, a redneck named Michael Whiteaker had a noose displayed next to a Confederate flag for three years and everybody ignored it. To make matters worse, the noose was in plain view of a nearby park. When the story hit the media, you’d think the white community would be outraged enough to march in front of the man’s home, or that public officials would have a mouthful of harsh words. Instead, we get this from Punta Gorda Mayor Larry Friedman: “Virtually everyone within the city would be happier” if Whiteaker removed the noose, he told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Huh? That’s it?
And then in the same article, there was this from a man in charge of a nearby homeless shelter, who you’d think would have more compassion: “It doesn't bother anybody in the neighborhood,” Joseph Byron Machuca, manager at the nearby Bread of Life Mission, said of the noose. “He's just a redneck. Redneck people get to express themselves. This is America.”
It took the courage of John Floyd, a city worker and African-American elder statesman, who removed the “Colored” signs from municipal bathrooms in the 1970s, to talk the redneck and his noose down. Floyd walked into the bar where Whiteaker worked, ignoring the taunts and racial slurs, to talk some sense into the man. What courage.
Our local noose episode didn’t surprise Trevor Harvey, Sarasota County NAACP president. “It says to the entire community ‘take the blinders off, racism still exists,’” Harvey told me in an interview last week. “He said it was a joke. If you know enough about history and what African-Americans went through, then you know there are certain things you don’t joke about.”
This latest ugliness comes out of the same polluted pond that’s brought anti-Mexican sentiments to the fore. It sounds better to call it “tough on immigration,” but mass e-mails I’ve received and comments I’ve heard are racism pure and simple.
Next week, we have an opportunity to talk about some of these issues at the Sarasota Reading Festival. (http://www.sarasotareadingfestival.com/).They’re bringing in Lou Dobbs, the vitriolic CNN host who’s always ranting against Mexican immigrants.
Far more interesting to me is Hank Klibanoff, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution managing editor and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation. He’ll be on a panel discussing the media’s role in democracy along with Alexis Simendinger, White House correspondent for the National Journal; and Herald-Tribune executive editor Mike Connelly. Hope to chat with you there.
Catching up with Sarasota’s most famous politician.
By Kim Hackett
Katherine Harris has been out of the limelight since losing her bid for the U.S. Senate in 2006. When I heard about the HBO movie Recount in production in Jacksonville and Tallahassee, I wondered what she’s been up to and if she’s had any input in the movie.
Tall, willowy blonde Laura Dern plays the role of Harris, who was Florida’s secretary of state and co-chair of Bush’s Florida campaign; Kevin Spacey plays Ron Klain, Vice President Al Gore's former chief of staff who headed the Democratic candidate's legal efforts in Florida following the 2000 election. Denis Leary, John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson, Ed Begley Jr. and Bob Balaban also star in the movie to be released on HBO in the spring.
“I don’t have to talk to the press anymore,” Harris told me on the phone last week from her Longboat Key home.
“So what do you think about Dern playing you?” I asked. “She always plays complex characters so I can’t imagine her portrayal will be one-dimensional.”
“I don’t see it,” Harris said. “She’s blonde and tall. There’s dialogue that didn’t happen. They are making things up that never happened.”
We talked about the press and late night TV hosts skewering Harris. She took Sarasota Magazine to task for some of its coverage. Then we talked about the 2000 election.
Harris said she wasn’t the slightest bit partisan in her handling of the recount.
“What did happen is that it was a close race,” said Harris. “They were asking me to do things that were illegal and I wouldn’t do it. I had to kick them out of my office.”
Everyone knew there were political pressures on Harris, but this was the first time I heard Harris admit that she was pressured by Republicans to illegally influence the outcome. I wanted to know more. But “it’ll all be in the book,” she said.
Harris wouldn’t say another word about “the book” other than she was working on it.
“So what else are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m busy building a house on the mainland,” Harris said. She said she was happy, enjoying more time with her husband. She also said she’d have an announcement at the beginning of the year about something she’s working on with “global” implications, but wouldn’t elaborate.
With a promise to let me sit down and talk with her at the beginning of the year, she politely said goodbye.
Stay tuned. I predict Harris won’t be in the shadows for too much longer.
The time is right for a new Sarasota Commission on the Status of Women.
By Kim Hackett
I’m glad to report a rebirth. The Sarasota Commission on the Status of Women (SCSW), disbanded by the County Commissioners a few years ago, has regrouped.
This is not a “ladies who lunch” group. Made up of leaders in law enforcement, government, education, NOW, and some of the most dynamic women in the community, the Sarasota commission first started in 1987 as the county’s eyes and ears for local women.
The SCSW’s efforts brought more ob/gyns to the local health department, raised awareness on the pervasiveness of domestic violence and created a women’s information network, connecting groups as varied as the Girl Scouts and the Junior League.
President John Kennedy came up with the Commission concept in 1961, and there are now about 270 commissions, most operating under state or local government.
Some commissions have opted to become independent, and some have dissolved. “Politicians don’t want to hear about problems in the community because then they have to do something about them,” says Gini Hyman, chair of both the former SCSW and its reincarnation.
In the same way that the Van Wezel doesn’t fit the mold of a city department, the SCSW didn’t fit the mold of a county advisory board. We (I was on both the old and now the new) were a little too loud and a little too ambitious. After we got “permission” from the county commissioners to pursue having a national convention here, the commissioners balked over something as silly as setting up a checking account. There was a lot more going on, of course, but that was the beginning of the end. The SCSW had to cancel the convention, which would have brought hundreds of prominent women here. A few months later, at the members’ urging, the county commissioners dissolved the group.
For three years, the collective “woman’s voice” has been silenced.
In retrospect, it was a good thing. With the county paying the commission’s miniscule bills, there were too many political ties and considerations that hampered its effectiveness.
But as of Aug.28, the Women’s Commission is back, as its own 501c4.
My motivation in joining the commission—both old and new—was to get to know this group of smart, active women, which includes Carol Newnam, former president of the Florida American Association of University Women; Jen Cohen, Venice/North Port NOW president and candidate for Sarasota County Commission; and Evelyn Moya, a local attorney and former president of the Florida Association for Women Lawyers.
Evelyn Moya, attorney and co-editor of The Docket.
Jane Blanchard, Sarasota NOW president.
At our first meeting the other night, I realized how much is impacting women that I didn’t know about. For example, did you know that a large number of the girls at Cyesis – Sarasota County’s school for pregnant teens – are impregnated by married men? Did you know that Sarasota County doesn’t have its own juvenile detention center, so teens accused of crimes have to be processed in Bradenton? Did you know that domestic violence is a serious, and mostly silent, problem among North Port’s Eastern European community? You’ll hear more about these issues as the new SCSW gets organized and finds its voice.
The $54 million question—and the number keeps bobbing—is whether the Cincinnati Reds will compromise or take their ball home.
Things change, as real estate investors know only too well.
To fund the mostly new Ed Smith stadium requires four pots of money—one each from the state, the city, the county and the Reds.
The state’s $7.9 million is sitting there (not really, but I’ll spare you the nuance of government budgeting). If it’s not used for Ed Smith, it goes away. City voters have a say on their $16 million pot in a November referendum, which if they pass will raise their property taxes. As for the county commissioners, one of two will have to switch their vote on using $21.6 million in tourism taxes. The Reds say they’ll pay $10 mil plus cost overruns.
Everyone was for the stadium two years ago when coffers were flush with real estate money. Then the real estate bubble popped, the state ordered county property tax cuts and Sarasota County Commissioners started wielding a knife on libraries, parks and bus service. Commissioners Jon Thaxton and Nora Patterson changed their minds. One of them has to change it again for the deal to go forward.
“We spent the last two months cutting libraries,” Thaxton told me on the phone. “People are just not in the mood for new taxes.”
Whether the Reds stay or leave doesn’t impact most of our lives. It’s just the point of cutting libraries and bus service while subsidizing millionaire ballplayers that just doesn’t set right with people. And that’s what I told the Reds’ executives when they were making the media rounds last week.
The Reds' Dick Williams, director of baseball business operations, John
Allen, chief operating officer, and Jeff Maultsby, director of Florida
operations.
“If we go away, the pots of money go away,” Dick Williams, Cincinnati Reds director of baseball business operations, told me last week.
Well, that about sold me on the stadium. If those pots of money are fixed and can’t be shifted to fund parks, libraries and beaches, then there’s no point whining about it. If Sarasota voters want the stadium bad enough to raise their own taxes, it doesn’t bother me in Venice.
“That’s not even remotely correct,” Patterson told me.
She says she just found out a few months ago that $1.2 million annually for the beaches comes from the General Fund. Tourist tax money—which is what will go towards the stadium—could be used for beaches, freeing up general funds for libraries and parks.
Patterson says that if we use some of the tourist tax funds earmarked for the stadium to instead maintain our beaches, she’d change her vote in favor of the stadium. If you do the math over the years of the bond the county would have to post for future tourist tax funds, that means the Reds would have to budget for about a $30 million stadium rather than a $54 million one, or pony up the difference.
“I told them (the Reds) in my office ‘slice this back,’” and let us take out th
