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SARASOTA’S HIGHEST-PAID CITY EMPLOYEES REVEALED IN TOP 10 SALARIES
FROM SARASOTA HERALD-TRIBUNE
Your roads are not maintained on their own, nor are your development ordinances enforced out of thin air or water quality inspected by artificial intelligence. It takes a busy, and often unappreciated, hive of public servants to keep the city of Sarasota buzzing. An itemized list of employee salaries was obtained by the Herald-Tribune via a public records request. The 934 people listed on the city’s payroll range from elected officials and senior department heads to landscapers, beat cops, and vacation rental compliance specialists.
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MIDNIGHT PASS A YEAR AFTER REOPENING: WHAT COMES NEXT?
FROM ABC7
Midnight Pass has been a life source for Little Sarasota Bay, allowing water to circulate and biodiversity to thrive. But that all changed in 1983 when the pass began to shift, threatening homes nearby. The homeowners got permission to close the pass with hopes of reopening it in new location. But those efforts were unsuccessful. “What I’ve noticed about Midnight Pass is that in the hopes of saving a few homes, the environment and all the things around it suffered along with the people who could use the area,” local resident Mike Smith said. With its natural reopening in 2024 after the hurricanes Helene and Milton, the health of the bay been improving significantly. The community wants to make sure the pass stays open and maintained. So what are the next steps?
READ/WATCH THE STORY HERE
DEPUTIES RAID ANOTHER BRADENTON ARCADE ACCUSED OF ILLEGAL GAMBLING
FROM BRADENTON HERALD
Detectives seized dozens of slot machines and thousands of dollars in cash after raiding New Winners Circle Arcade, where undercover visits had confirmed it was operating electronic slot and gaming machines in violation of state law. It is the latest storefront casino targeted in what law enforcement describes as an ongoing effort to curb illegal gambling operations across Manatee County. But as recent reporting by the Bradenton Herald and Suncoast Searchlight has shown, those closures don’t always last. A joint-newsroom investigation in July identified nearly 20 unlicensed gambling businesses from Bradenton to Englewood and found that many reopen under new names or management shortly after being shut down.
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FEAR OF IMMIGRATION ARRESTS NEAR SCHOOLS IN FLORIDA REDUCING ENROLLMENT, OFFICIALS SAY
FROM WUSF
Education leaders watching how immigration policies affect schools expect classrooms to get emptier every year, but this year, they were caught off guard by falling enrollment rates in some of Florida’s largest districts. In Orange County, the school district saw an enrollment decrease of around 6,600 students this year, more than double the 3,000 students the district predicted would leave for charter schools, said school board member Stephanie Vanos. She said the majority of the unexpected departures were children in immigrant families. The district’s total enrollment is just over 182,400.
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MANATEE COUNTY APPROVES TWO MORE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DISTRICTS
FROM WSLR
A fast-growing share of homeowners in the region are paying more assessments to their community development district than taxes to their county. That’s according to an investigative series by Suncoast Searchlight. These districts are often developer-controlled, and homeowners have little say. Even so, the Manatee County Commission just approved two more CDDs. A CDD is a special district that lets a neighborhood finance and maintain its own roads, landscaping and amenities through special assessments paid by residents. During the meeting, commissioners debated what these districts mean for homeowners and who’s responsible for maintaining their infrastructure.
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AFTER 34 YEARS AT THE SAME MCDONALD'S, A SPECIAL CAREER COMES TO AN END
FROM TAMPA BAY TIMES
This was a special day but a work day nonetheless, so Rich Wilber did the same thing he did after every shift. He ate chicken nuggets and sipped a strawberry smoothie. He wouldn’t turn his attention to the sheet cake and gifts until the meal was methodically consumed. Rich, 56, tugged his yellow McDonald’s hat signed by coworkers and adjusted a satin sash slung around his chest: Officially retired! Rich, who has Down syndrome, spent 34 years at the McDonald’s on 34th Street South. He clocked in five days a week from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., mostly washing dishes but also meeting customers, throwing fist bumps at regulars.
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SARASOTA'S STEUBE AMONG ONLY REPUBLICANS TO VOTE AGAINST ENDING THE SHUTDOWN
FROM SARASOTA HERALD-TRIBUNE
As the U.S. House of Representatives voted to end the longest shutdown in the nation’s history on Wednesday, Nov. 13, there were only two Republican holdouts who joined Democrats in voting nay. One of them was Sarasota’s own Congressman Greg Steube. Matt Fisher, a spokesman for Steube, told the Herald-Tribune that the congressman’s vote hinged on a provision inserted into the bill by his Republican colleagues in the Senate, which would have given senators a $500,000 payment for every instance in which federal law enforcement obtained their electronic data without their knowledge.
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EXPERTS DEBATE POTENTIAL PROPERTY TAX MEASURE AT USF: ‘THIS IS POLICY MALPRACTICE’
FROM FLORIDA PHOENIX
Gov. Ron DeSantis and CFO Blaise Ingoglia’s campaign to scale back or eliminate homesteaded property taxes drew a rebuke from a former Republican state lawmaker Wednesday night during a discussion with Ingoglia and tax policy experts. “It’s not really a proposal, it’s a bumper sticker, right?” said Jeff Brandes, who served in the Florida Legislature representing parts of Pinellas County from 2010-2022. During the event at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Ingoglia called that “a false premise.” “I think there is more than enough room to cut local budgets, probably by the amount of 15%, and not even worry about taking away any money for essential services,” he said.
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SARASOTA FALLS FROM U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT RETIREMENT RANKINGS AS NORTH PORT CLIMBS
FROM SARASOTA MAGAZINE
Sarasota, long the toast of the retirement world, just got upstaged by its own neighbors. In U.S. News & World Report’s list of the 2026 Best Places to Retire, the city dropped out of the national list of top 250 cities altogether, while North Port, the quiet inland counterpart in the same county, landed at No. 135. On U.S News’ statewide list of best places to retire, the irony runs even deeper: North Port ranks 36th, Bradenton 46th and Sarasota—wedged right between them on the map—comes in at 57th.
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NEW AIRPORT CEO FINDS 'PARADISE' IN FIRST MONTH IN SARASOTA
FROM SARASOTA OBSERVER
As a visit to Sarasota after becoming the new president and CEO of Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport came to an end, Paul Hoback and his wife, Amy, were at the gate awaiting a return flight to Pittsburgh. That's when an epiphany offered confirmation of their career move choice. “I’m a big fan of yacht rock,” said Hoback, ironically, the genre often heard from the airport’s audio system. That’s when the song Almost Paradise from the movie Footloose broadcast over the terminal’s speakers. “Almost” is descriptive of Hoback’s philosophical approach to his profession. No endeavor is ever complete. There is always room for improvement. And after an entire life and career spent in the Pittsburgh area, moving to the Sun Coast is surely paradise.
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