Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/235968
Sarasota News Leader January 3, 2014 seconds the motion by telephone from the Appalachian Trail, where he is vacationing. Earlier in the meeting, Atwell's attorney, Robert Lincoln, announced he had reached an understanding with the plaintiffs — Citizens for Sunshine — and Atwell had signed a settlement agreement. That relieves her of any conflict of interest, he notes. Without comment, she supports the motion to offer a city settlement. "I was hung out to dry by my political opponents," Chapman says after the meeting adjourns. This summer, Sarasota County asked a consulting firm with ties to the Reagan Administration to review the fiscal neutrality requirements in its Sarasota 2050 Plan. It gets more than it bargained for. A draft version of Page 113 the Laffer report is being derided as "awful," "extreme" and "beyond" what the county wanted — by urban planning experts, longtime commission critics and members of the commission alike. Sarasota County inked a $90,000 deal with Tennessee's Laffer Associates in early September for the firm to analyze Sarasota 2050's fiscal neutrality regulations. The 2050 Plan, adopted a decade ago, was created to encourage the construction of walkable, mixed-use communities in areas that had previously been closed to development, largely east of Interstate 75. Fiscal neutrality is the "requirement that any new growth pay its way," in the words of county Long-Range Planning Manager Allen Parsons. That means builders must demonstrate at multiple stages Marchers in the Sarasota Veterans Day Parade represent POW and MIA groups. Photo by Norman Schimmel