Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/203490
NEGOTIATIONS BEGIN The plan has been to try to operate Little Salt Spring — unlike Warm Mineral Springs, which opened in the 1960s as a health spa — as a protected, limited-access archaeological and ecological preserve. Image courtesy Sarasota County SARASOTA COUNTY AND THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI BEGIN TALKS ON THE SALE OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICALLY RICH LITTLE SALT SPRING, BUT THE TWO PARTIES DO NOT APPEAR CLOSE TO A DEAL By Roger Drouin County Editor Negotiations between the University of Miami The County Commission voted 3-2 on Oct. and Sarasota County over Little Salt Spring 23 to extend an offer to the university. Under that proposal, the county would clean up the are under way. property and maintain and manage it if the The two parties, however, do not appear university transferred ownership of it "as close to a deal that would transfer ownership is" to the county at no cost. Commissioners of the archaeologically rich spring to the local Joe Barbetta and Christine Robinson and government. Chairwoman Carolyn Mason directed county