Sarasota News Leader

08/09/2013 & 08/16/2013

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Sarasota News Leader August 9 & 16, 2013 Page 38 The expense Carter mentioned in January was one reason Barbetta asked County Administrator Randall Reid in March to have staff check out the feasibility of chickees — an idea that Jack Gurney, a former Sarasota mayor and longtime journalist, had proposed about three years ago when Gurney was serving on the county's Tree Advisory Council. ees again. She had joined Patterson in asking numerous questions of Carter in January regarding the cost of bus shelters. In response to a call from the News Leader, Patterson determined the Carter-Cunningham memo was logged in as having been provided to the County Commission on April 8. However, neither she nor Barbetta nor Commissioner Christine Robinson recalled any subsequent discussion of the document at the dais. The commission meetings held on April 9 and 10 covered a diverse array of other topics — from a pilot program involving the planting of wildflowers at the Fruitville Road/Interstate 75 interchange to a dispute over a fuel contract to improvements for Myrtle Street in Newtown to an update on the effort to replace the county's aging 800MHz emergency radio system; but no chickee bus shelters, pursuant to a News Leader review of minutes from those meetings. THE MEMO Patterson said she remembered reading the April 5 memo, especially that it noted concerns she had raised whether the chickees could withstand strong storms. When the News Leader contacted the SCAT office last week for an update on Barbetta's request on March 5 for more information on chickees, an assistant to Carter responded with a copy of the April 5 memo. As Barbetta had pointed out during that March meeting, the memo notes that chickees constructed by the Miccosukee or Seminole tribes "are exempt from building code requirements," but they "are still subject to typical zoning regulations such as setback requirements, right-of-way considerations and other local government regulations." Regarding chickees and storms, the memo says, "Researching this issue provided eviRobinson told the News Leader this week dence found on-line that is anecdotal only." that she would be open to discussing chick- Cape Coral guidelines for use of chickees, Part of an April 5 memo to the County Commission compares costs for putting in a chickee bus shelter and a regular bus shelter. Image courtesy Sarasota County

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