Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/251767
told the News Leader she and her co-owners had decided to retain a Tampa attorney to advise them on how they should respond as Corps project details continued to unfold. "Nobody's suing anybody," she emphasized at the time, adding that the Best Western is the only branded hotel in the vicinity of Siesta Key, "and it's our livelihood here." In a Jan. 20 email to the county commis- sioners, Bankemper's father, Mike Lepore, wrote, "Best Western Plus Siesta Key Hotel determined that the proposed 50 year Army Corps project would likely damage Siesta Beach and/or Siesta Key in general and that, of course, would be damaging to the hotel's business and its property. Accordingly we have engaged a well known Tampa Law Firm A graphic shows the borrow areas for sand in Big Pass, which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers presented last year as its preferred sites for the first Lido Beach renourishment under a proposed 50- year plan. Image courtesy City of Sarasota Milan A. Mora of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers addresses the Sarasota County Coastal Advisory Committee in September 2013. File photo Sarasota News Leader January 31, 2014 Page 22