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RESTORE RANKINGS Sarasota County Commission settles on priorities for spending funds from the BP Deepwater Horizon settlement ��� Cooper Levey-Baker The Sarasota County Commission this week made minor tweaks to a list of high-priority projects the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program hopes will be funded through the RESTORE Act, the federal law that guides how penalties paid by BP for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill will be spent. While no one knows exactly how much money will eventually be made available through the RESTORE Act, local governments and agencies around the Gulf Coast are jockeying to pick up cash for hometown projects. The Joint Estuary Program Group ��� comprising organizations that oversee Sarasota Bay, Tampa Bay and Charlotte Harbor ��� plans to submit a ranked list of ecosystem restoration projects to the federal government in the hopes of winning some of that BP money. (Full story here) LOOKING BETTER With another vote on mowing contracts, the County Commission hopes it has put the worst of problems behind it ��� Rachel Brown Hackney After less than five minutes of discussion and a unanimous vote, the Sarasota County commissioners voiced optimism last week that they had put the worst of the county���s mowing problems behind them. At the recommendation of Spencer L. Anderson, director of the Field Services Office for the county, the board authorized County Administrator Randall Reid or his designee to extend mowing contracts for five county zones up to April 30, 2013 and to increase the aggregate not-to-exceed amount for all the contracts from $1,058,000 to $1.4 million. (Full story here) Click Any Headline To Go Directly To That Article AT A GLANCE TOP STORIES