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Sarasota News Leader December 28, 2012 Sarasota County has recovered $23,750,000, or about 70 percent of the $34 million it lost in investments during what Karen Rushing, clerk of the 12th Judicial Circuit Court, refers to as the ���world financial crisis��� of 2008-09. In her routine report to the County Commission, Rushing says Wells Fargo agreed to settle a lawsuit the county filed in June 2010 against Wachovia ��� which Wells Fargo later acquired ��� for the loss of those millions through ���an asset-backed security issue��� involving Lehman Brothers Holdings and the county���s securities lending contract. The School Board members consider business during their last meeting of the year. Photo by Scott Proffitt The Sarasota County School District saw a 7 percent increase in its graduation rate from the 2010-11 school year to the 2011-12 school year, Steve Cantees, executive director of Sarasota County High Schools, tells the School Board members during their final meeting of the year. Since 1999, he says, the district and state rates have climbed almost 20 percent. School Board member Frank Kovach points out that the state graduation rate and the county���s rate are converging. State data shows a 74.5 percent high school graduation rate for students across the state in 2011-12, compared to the 77.96 percent rate in Sarasota County. Page 77 DEC. 6 Residents of Terrace East and directors of the Siesta Key Association indicate they will oppose requests for two variances that will be addressed by the Sarasota County Commission on Jan. 9. Both petitions involve construction of new Beach Road homes with swimming pools and decks, paver driveways and landscape retaining walls about 200 feet seaward of the county���s Gulf Beach Setback Line. Peter van Roekens, vice president of the SKA, notes the two lots have been beneath the Gulf of Mexico in the past. He has photos as proof for the County Commission, he points out. A Sarasota County Geographic Information Systems map shows the two lots that are the focus of the variance requests on Beach Road: 0080-240027 and 0080-24-0028, to the left of the Terrace building. Image courtesy Sarasota County Sarasota County���s 2050 plan may not make it past 2013 intact. On Sept. 18, the Sarasota County Commission instructed staff to meet with developers who have had firsthand experience dealing with Sarasota 2050, the ambitious and detailed document created to guide development in the county���s eastern portions. The idea: to generate ideas for how to update the