We are only two and a half months into this fiscal year and the County Commission is already planning for the next budget year.

In the first planning meeting, several organizations came together to ask the county to make water quality a priority again. The Argus Foundation, the Conservation Foundation, the Gulf Coast Community Foundation and North Port City Commissioner Jill Luke, there as an individual, all came to a retreat to ask the county to refocus on this important issue. The Sarasota Chamber sent word of its support for this initiative as well.

The Argus Foundation came to its position when we hosted our Meet the Minds last August on red tide and subsequently started researching water quality projects in the county. We began sharing our information with these organizations and others.