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ANONYMOUS WYOMING CORPORATION TARGETING SARASOTA COMMISSIONERS RACE
FROM FLORIDA TRIDENT
The most aggressive new voice in Sarasota County’s elections has a Washington, DC headquarters that is a rented mailbox, a research team no one can name, seven “active investigations” of which six are empty, and a gallery of outraged citizens who do not exist. It has run at least 11 paid attack ads on Facebook while its website claims it runs none. What it does not have is anyone willing to say who is paying for it.
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LAKEWOOD RANCH RESIDENTS FACE CHALLENGES OF LIVE LOCAL ACT
FROM EAST COUNTY OBSERVER
Over the past two years, Manatee County commissioners have routinely denied requests for development along Lorraine Road, but a plan for 224 rental townhomes doesn’t need the board's approval. Hillpointe, LLC has a plan in motion to develop Point Grande Lorraine on about 20 acres on the east side of Lorraine Road and to the west of Esplanade at Azario Lakewood Ranch.
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BEHIND THE ANGER AND SCIENTIFIC BRAWL OVER FLORIDA'S ATLANTIC RED SNAPPER SEASON
FROM FLORIDA TRIB
Politicians in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, who had lobbied the Trump administration for permission to extend the snapper season, fumed about the lawsuit and the environmentalists and commercial fishing interests who supported it. “For them, it’s not about conservation,” Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr wrote in a Facebook post. “They’re attempting to destroy fishing as we know it.” Commercial fishermen and environmentalists responded with similar passion, arguing that a longer red snapper season would derail decades of effort to restore the fishery.
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'INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.' BANDS OWED $1000S AFTER BRADENTON MOTORWORKS PERFORMANCES
FROM BRADENTON HERALD
Multiple bands say they have gone months without receiving payment for live performances at Motorworks Brewing as the Bradenton business faces a foreclosure lawsuit. As apparent financial woes piled up, the brewery abruptly announced a temporary closure Tuesday afternoon. The news comes less than three months after the Bradenton Herald reported that a bank filed $1.9 million foreclosure against Motorworks in May, according to Manatee County court records.
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SARASOTA BAY BOAT CAPTAINS FIGHT AGAINST POACHERS
FROM ANNA MARIA ISLANDER
Years of documenting suspected illegal shellfish harvesting by a coalition of tour boat captains operating in Sarasota Bay helped the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission cite suspected marine-life poachers July 28 following an investigation near the South Coquina Beach boat ramp. The citation was the result of work by the Habitat Guardian Group, an informal coalition of tour boat captains and volunteers formed in 2023 after members spent more than a year documenting suspected illegal shellfish and marine species harvesting.
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PROFIT OVER PRIVACY? FLORIDA CITY'S RECORDS RAISE QUESTIONS ABOUT GROWING SURVEILLANCE STATE
FROM FLORIDA TRIDENT
Until this spring, Tiffany Hudson had never filed a public records request. The 37-year-old single mom and personal trainer never had an inclination to dig into government records to discover what her city is up to, but that changed in early April when Hudson read Plantation Mayor Nick Sortal’s weekly newsletter telling of how the city was expanding its use of license plate readers.
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NEW DOWNTOWN SARASOTA BAKERY DRAWS ON OWNERS' EUROPEAN ROOTS
FROM WUSF
Opening a business is hard. Doing it with your spouse is harder. But a married couple from Ukraine said they've managed both, turning a shared dream into the 'Bakero', Sarasota's newest bakery and café. The Bakero opened in April, the product of a four-year plan, a career change, a war and a shared love of European baking traditions, owners Nataliia and Piotr Lugowski said. The couple moved to Sarasota permanently about two years ago from Poland. For Nataliia Lugowski, the bakery is also a way of coping with the war in her home country of Ukraine, where her parents still live.
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FLORIDA LAW HAS DEVELOPERS POISED TO BUILD ON 1000S OF ACRES OF FARMLAND STATEWIDE
FROM SEEKING RENTS
Records show that lawmakers in Tallahassee worked closely with lobbyists for major developers on the legislation, which strictly limits to the power of locally elected county commissions to prevent development of agricultural lands on the fringes of cities and towns. The month-old law is already being used to resurrect controversial projects that had been previously rejected by local community leaders as unwanted urban sprawl.
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NEW OWNER RESUMES CONCRETE CRUSHING AT PROBLEMATIC SARASOTA PLANT
FROM WSLR
The sound of concrete crushing can be heard at the industrial site off Central Avenue, formerly known as US Recycling. The site itself has changed hands. Property records show that on May 28, the land previously held by US Recycling owner Christopher Williams under the name Freedom Estates was transferred to FCD Investment South LLC, a Tampa-based company linked to Feliciano Morales, the same person behind Central Sarasota Recycling and DGPS Construction. The recorded value of the transaction was $1.5 million. Under the new operator, conditions at the site appear to have improved. Locals who frequent the area describe a reduction in runaway dust compared to operations under US Recycling.
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HOW HACKERS ATTACK MUNICIPAL WATER SYSTEMS — AND WHY THE UTILITIES ARE SO VULNERABLE
FROM THE CONVERSATION
Hackers tried to break into at least 30 municipal water systems in Minnesota on July 26-27, 2026. Since then, Michigan, New Jersey and several other states have reported similar cyberattacks. The attackers did not try to infiltrate the computers that utility offices use. Instead, they tried to seize control of small computers in equipment like pumps and valves that deliver drinking water to millions of people.
READ THE STORY HERE
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