SOS Speaks to Common Cause

Recently Save Our Sarasota spoke to the Sarasota members of Common Cause.

What does Common Cause do? From their website:

Common Cause works with our members and activists and in coalition with other advocacy organizations to make government more accountable to the people. We have been engaged in a wide range of issues for more than thirty years, succeeding in many reforms and today keeping up the fight to make government open and accountable.

Janice Green and Dick Clapp spoke to the group about the history of Save Our Sarasota and the organization's goals.

Current issues were discussed including arcades (see the Oct 13 posting, "Future Vision") and downtown Sarasota:

• arcades can result in the potential give away of public space above sidewalks, the value of this approaches several million dollars for each side of a block that has arcades
• arcades magnify the canyon effect that will already be a problem as we get closer to build out with ten story buildings,
• issues of tree loss in general and additional loss resulting from arcades eliminating space for trees and light required for growth
• design issues and the need for models to show the impact of all new downtown projects was also covered.
• potential give away of public space (one block of state Street) in the Pineapple Square development

If you know of an organization that would like to learn more about Save Our Sarasota and the issues that we consider important for Sarasota's future please contact us. We are willing and happy to share our story.

Save Our Sarasota : saveoursarasota@comcast.net