Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/305631
supporters as a state and local economic gen- erator and scrutinized by county governance watchdogs — has already received nearly $30 million in public funding, including $10 mil- lion the state signed off on and $19.5 million from Sarasota County. Yet, state legislators this week balked at giving the project more public funding. They want to see a successful fundraising effort under way before funneling more state dollars into it. Late Monday, following legislative negotia- tions, the $2.5 million appropriation for the rowing complex appeared on a list of new projects for the state budget. Then the fund- ing disappeared. "The message we got from our legislators is 'Show us you have a private-public partner- ship,'" Blackketter told The Sarasota News Leader Tuesday as he was preparing to leave Tallahassee, where he had been lobbying for the state funding. "They want to know the private [money] will be there for the facility, which I think is fair." The funding setback comes amid rising scru- tiny for SANCA, the nonprofit charged with managing the rowing complex. In early April, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported that SANCA had failed to file the proper state paperwork to allow it, as a charitable organiza- tion, to collect tax-deductible donations. That filing problem was quickly corrected, but not before it caused "heartburn" and "egg on the face" for the SANCA board as well as county commissioners, as Commissioner Carolyn Mason told her colleagues during their April 23 meeting. The incident also raised more Some people watch events from the shore as others stroll through Benderson Park during the Florida Scholastic Rowing Association Sweep Championships on April 26. Photo by Norman Schimmel Sarasota News Leader May 2, 2014 Page 34