by Christine Robinson | Jan 14, 2018 | News
The NAACP’s local organization has endorsed an initiative aimed at letting voters in the city of Sarasota decide whether to change their election schedule. The endorsement provides a boost to the effort and should help alleviate some concerns about the proposal’s...
by Christine Robinson | Jan 12, 2018 | News, Uncategorized
Chapters keep being added to the voluminous story behind the affordable housing topic. Like elsewhere across the country, Sarasota and Manatee counties and the region’s municipalities continue to struggle with the hot-button issue. The latest chapter is being written...
by Christine Robinson | Jan 9, 2018 | News
A push to change the timing of Sarasota’s city elections got a lift Monday with an endorsement from the NAACP. But while leaders of that group see a shift to November elections as a way to boost minority turnout, critics of the measure remain skeptical that city...
by Christine Robinson | Jan 4, 2018 | News
Off-year voting dilutes minority and young voter influence. Decide the Date Sarasota is a petition initiative to place the question of when to have city elections on the ballot. I am chairing this initiative because I believe that more people who vote, the more...
by Christine Robinson | Dec 18, 2017 | News
When I was a county commissioner, many decisions on the dais were difficult. I would read, research, ask questions, sit through presentations, listen to public comment and make the best decision I could on each issue before voting. The decisions were never made...
by Christine Robinson | Dec 16, 2017 | News
We lost a giant in the business community this past month. Ron Royal was a past president of The Argus Foundation, past Sarasota Chamber chair and past chair of the Gulf Coast Builder’s Exchange, to name a few of the many business leadership positions he held. His...
by Christine Robinson | Dec 15, 2017 | News
A group led by a pair of politically prominent Sarasotans is attempting to do what the City Commission has repeatedly refused to do: Provide voters an opportunity to determine when municipal elections are conducted. It’s about time that someone offered an alternative...
by Christine Robinson | Dec 12, 2017 | News
Decide the Date is co-chaired by Larry Eger, the elected public defender for the 12th Judicial Circuit, and Suzanne Atwell, the former mayor who repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, pushed for such a referendum during two terms on the commission. It also is supported by...
by Christine Robinson | Dec 12, 2017 | News
In October, the City Commission discussed holding a referendum about moving municipal elections from the spring to the fall. The board ultimately declined to pursue a ballot initiative, citing a lack of established public support for the concept. Now, a citizen-led...
by Christine Robinson | Dec 11, 2017 | Argus Impact
VENICE, FL: Caldwell Trust Company and Agape Flights teamed up in November to bring a taste of home to missionaries who spend Thanksgiving Day—and every other day—working in Haiti, the Bahamas, and the Dominican Republic. Helping with Agape’s Missionary Thanksgiving...
by Christine Robinson | Nov 30, 2017 | News
Construction executive Jack Cox approached Ron Royal at an Argus Foundation event in fall 2014, minutes before Royal received the organization’s most prestigious honor — its lifetime achievement award. “I told him congratulations, and that I was so happy for him,”...
by Christine Robinson | Nov 20, 2017 | News, Uncategorized
The Argus Foundation is a non-profit, membership-based think tank and government watchdog that was created in 1983. Its founders were concerned about an anti-business climate in government and wanted to make sure they had a pure, unified business voice, unfiltered by...
