The business community should pay close attention to the alarming County Charter amendment that will appear on the ballot to create single-member districts. It looks innocuous at first, but when you peel back the layers and figure out what this really does, it is dangerous and troublesome for our future. There are five elected commissioners…

Change the Date Sarasota is an incredible gathering of residents, businesses, organizations and thought leaders across the political spectrum. It is an effort to increase voter participation in city commission elections and to save taxpayer money by changing the date of city elections to the fall. It is not just overall voter participation that will…

Meanwhile, as part of the club’s continuing efforts to inform members before election day, former Sarasota County Commissioner Christine Robinson provided an update on the legal status of other constitutional amendments, as well as her views of a county charter amendment that would have county commissioners elected only by voters in the district they represent…

Simply put, we seek to increase participation amongst the City’s electorate. On average, 8 out of 10 voters aren’t participating in city elections—it’s unbelievable! Our local democracy suffers when roughly 80 percent of voters either do not or cannot participate. Compare that with the more than 70 percent of city voters who participated in the…

Sarasota County just received a presentation of the 2018 Citizen’s Survey. Survey participants were asked what they thought could be the single biggest contributor to the county’s economic growth. The top answer was “Workforce Training or Re-Training”. Luckily, we have a wonderful resource here in Sarasota County that was started by Gulf Coast Community Foundation and…