Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/332945
development too much of a subsidy. The city's numbers will be about two-thirds of what the county charges for its roads-only impact fees. The multi-modal scheme will allow the city to apply the money to bicycle lanes, pedes- trian improvements, rapid transit (like the now-defunct bus rapid transit system scut- tled by Sarasota County), downtown trolleys and other non-automobile-related transport, for examples. PICKING A FIGHT City policy at times is getting hard to unscram- ble from electoral politics. Two sitting city commissioners are running against each other for a vacant seat on the Sarasota County Commission. For the past two years, City Commissioners Paul Caragiulo and Shannon Snyder have voted together as a bloc time and again. Caragiulo last year announced he was running for the seat being vacated by Joe Barbetta. But after Snyder filed papers as a candidate last month, the bloc has been broken, with Snyder looking for ways to distinguish him- self from Caragiulo and his patron, Barbetta. For more than a year, Barbetta has pushed to relocate the downtown bus transfer sta- tion from Lemon Avenue and First Street approximately a mile east, to the site of the county-owned parking lot at the intersection of School Avenue and Ringling Boulevard, which is across from the Florida Department of Health offices in Sarasota County. The land for the current station was sold by the city to the county 12 years ago. Snyder did some homework, read the original sales contract and found a "clawback" provision demanding the city get right of first refusal if the county ever wanted to sell the property. After we reported the contract provision in our June 13 issue, Barbetta emailed County Attorney Steve DeMarsh. "I wasn't aware of that [reverter clause], nor were the other commissioners I presume, when we started discussion of this some time ago," he wrote of the bus transfer station plans. The signature on the bottom of the 2002 con- tract belongs to then-Mayor Carolyn Mason, who now sits on the County Commission. "We should be at the table at the beginning of the discussion," said Snyder on Monday. "I'd rather be driving the bus than under the bus." Chapman added, "If the county moves it, I want the property back." They were joined in sentiment by people in the audience who sat quietly through the entire City Commission meeting for this final item on the agenda. Local residents and the manager of the Payne Park skate park all said putting the bus station next to Payne Park was an awful idea. "We spent millions of dollars on that park," said Snyder. "A bus station would handicap anything east of [U.S.] 301." The commissioners approved sending a let- ter to the County Commission, saying they want to buy back the downtown land if the city moves the bus station. The motion was approved unanimously. Caragiulo was con- spicuously silent during the discussion. % Sarasota News Leader June 20, 2014 Page 45