Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/356321
get something done to hang their hat on. That park probably really needed to have an oppor- tunity to really shake out. You know, start with state and regional tournaments. When you look at what they are trying to accom- plish, I think I would have walked before I tried to run, from an operational standpoint. In the long run, the amount of rowers that are going to come into this community, the demo- graphic and income that the average rowing family will have, is a great demographic to go after. I'm not saying don't go after it. What I am saying is what they probably should have done is gone a little slower and really … [found] out where the problems are ... After 15 or so years of … collegiate rowing, they could say, "Hey, here is the economic impact. Boom," not "We promise all this economic impact." SNL: Do you support the diverging diamond? SS: I think over time that project will be successful. I think there is one in Georgia everyone is pretty much happy with. Much like roundabouts, people will have to get used to it. People weren't wild about round- abouts, but I can't imagine anyone saying an intersection like Webber [Street] and Honore [Avenue] isn't a much more efficient intersec- tion because of the roundabout. I just think we put the cart before the horse as far as development goes. You are going to have such dramatic infra- structure needs with that [Mall at University Town Center] and the area around there, and with the changes from [Sarasota] 2050. You are going to see a race out Fruitville Road with subdivisions because of the changes. SNL: Do you think the County Commission has handled the rewriting of Sarasota 2050 well? SS: They gutted it. They gutted what this community agreed to. And I think the big issue it is going to set up is that with all of those infrastructure needs, you now end up with competition for infra- structure dollars inside Sarasota County … If we had stayed on the current [2050] Plan, it would have given us 10 or 15 years … to catch up on infrastructure in Venice, and you would have seen that interconnectivity around Venice and Laurel Road, and then we would have gone to Englewood and North Port. The way 2050 was set up before, you would be moving slowly out Fruitville Road [with growth]. Now all of a sudden that has been thrown out the window and it's whoever gets to the trough first. When you have 50,000 homes going up out east of Interstate 75 on Fruitville Road, you are going to have compe- tition for infrastructure dollars. What I am afraid of is five or six years out, what you end up with is a battle between North County and South County. … The northern counties — Hillsborough, Pasco, Polk — had the water wars in the '70s and '80s. We are going to end up with the same problem, with infrastructure wars over dollars for roads, sewers, parks. We are going to be politically divided between north and south. Sarasota News Leader August 1, 2014 Page 24