Our city faces a number of issues that risk loss of confidence in our leadership as these issues linger.
- The sewage pumping station equipment failures and subsequent communication failures are difficult to understand in today's environment
- Constantly increasing traffic in downtown Sarasota with no effective communication of a short or long term plan offering relief, is problematic
- The lack of convenient parking downtown is still an issue despite some progress being made
- The numerous failures of the Hope VI grant applications for the Janie Poe housing project has focussed attention on Sarasota's poor record in maintaining clean, healthy homes for our very low income residents
- Affordable housing has been discussed for a very long time and even though everyone agrees it is a major issue, no progress is being made in addressing it
- The Newtown Redevelopment project has languished for lack of funding.
Amidst all of these issues, a conference center is being aggressively promoted in Sarasota that would require 100% public funding and be placed on public bayfront land. We do not see the benefit of public investment (with no private investment) in a conference center when faced with these issues. Our priorities seem to be clear.
No comments:
Post a Comment