Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/100825
Sarasota News Leader December 28, 2012 Page 72 NOV. 13 NOV. 14 The Community Alliance of Sarasota County presents its 2012 legislative priorities to one incumbent state representative and staffers for other Florida lawmakers, with one message standing out: Stop fighting Obamacare. The Alliance, a coalition of nonprofit health and human services organizations, holds its Second Annual Legislative Breakfast to directly communicate its legislative goals to the Sarasota County delegation. Representatives from organizations such as the National Association of Social Workers, First Step of Sarasota and the Early Learning Coalition line up to lay out their hopes for the Florida Legislature���s spring session, which convenes March 5. The surprise is not that the Walmart store proposed on Charles Ringling Boulevard is approved. The surprise is that two Sarasota Planning board members voice serious reasons to vote against it. By all appearances, this was an open-and-shut case. The growing-ever-emptier Ringling Shopping Center, at 97,000 square feet, would be replaced by a 98,000-square-foot Walmart Supercenter with a grocery. Every metric ��� zoning, city codes, parking requirements, traffic ��� had a green light from city staff. Even the associations for the two adjacent neighborhoods had not opposed the project. Those same two neighborhoods ��� Alta Vista and the Gardens of Ringling Park ��� fought Ron Burks��� high-rise School Avenue project to a standstill several years ago, but this time they were muted. Sarasota Planning Board member Jennifer Ahearn-Koch notes during the board���s Nov. 14 discussion that the existing shopping center on Ringling is an assembly of small shops, and a Walmart does not belong there. Photo by Norman Schimmel