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Sarasota News Leader January 4, 2013 bring to the table and share with me. I hope I���ve been here long enough that they can see I���m committed and working hard to bring some [sense of] achievement to the conversation. Page 26 release, but I brought [former Sarasota Police Chief] John Lewis in for 30 days to speak to as many officers as possible and develop a road map Chief [Bernadette] DiPino can begin working on to have the Sarasota Police Department become the best trained police deBesides economic development, there are a partment in the state of Florida. And I���d like to lot of planning initiatives under way. We���re take it a step further, to the Southern United looking at a catalyst project in the Rosemary States. I hope to begin that initiative in 2013. District. I���m going to be proposing we look at a second catalyst project in north Sarasota, Once we get rolling on that, some of these inin Newtown, in terms of the Marian Anderson cidents we���ve had to deal with over the past [brownfield] site. I���m still new, but we don���t three years will be fewer and farther between. have to sit on our hands over that site. It���s a tough job; it can be very frustrating. We do have human beings in these jobs. But they We���re working with folks on Lido Beach, lookhave to be well trained and deal appropriately ing at the pool and park area and its future. It���s ��� or perfectly, really ��� with every situation been in front of the commission a couple of they face. They need to work like a team out times. We���re fine-tuning our parking, the right there. way this time. That will evolve over the years. We���re starting to address employee parking In this last incident [at the downtown Sarasoneeds and trying to get that organized. It���s sub- ta County Area Transit transfer station], we tle, but it���s important. I was surprised it hadn���t had two officers. There was no sense of urgenrisen [to a higher level of awareness]. Having cy about it. The guy was belligerent; he spit been through this before, I understand that. in the security guard���s face. He wasn���t on his These are all good things. best behavior, either. It was hard to decipher on the video to what degree the individual was Times dictate your priorities. On the less posactually resisting arrest. But I felt, from having itive side, I���ve had to [suspend] two police had that experience for four years, they could officers for 90 days for incidents that were have used more discretion and coordination ��� I think ��� unfortunate. And I���ve had to susin effecting that arrest. pend an officer for unnecessary force. But I think there���s a silver lining to that, in that it It���s accelerated my need to understand what���s accelerated my need to understand our Police happening throughout that department, and Department in more depth than an incoming discovering that training needs to be re-bootmanager would expect in their first 90 days. ed and emphasized ��� maybe even more so Usually, that���s the chief���s job. during tough economic times, because you are asking fewer people to do more. What I���ve discovered is ��� for lack of a better word ��� ���victims��� of the Great Recession The other thing: This situation has given me an were training programs. We are going to re- opportunity to become more familiar with the boot that. [I] don���t know if you saw the press whole homeless community, or sub-communi-