Residential pay-for-parking irks Siesta residents

The noise issue in Siesta Key Village is not the only problem beckoning for more code-enforcement hours. Illegal pay-for-parking in Siesta residential zones is flaring up again.

Sarasota County Commissioner Nora Patterson was first alerted in 2010 via email about properties on Avenida Del Mare, which runs parallel to Beach Road, where drivers were parking on grass, sidewalks and driveways for $20 each. She received three more emails this month and alerted commissioners during a Tuesday, July 10 meeting.

“The whole street looks like a parking lot,” she said during commission reports. “It’s just wall-to-wall cars.”
The code violation happens most often on weekends when the main public beach parking lot fills up and Sarasota County Sheriff deputies place “parking lot full” signs at the entrance. The parking problem has something in common with sound-level violations in the village: Code-enforcement officers don’t work on the weekends.

As Sarasota County finalizes its budget for the 2013 fiscal year, questions linger about income available to support overtime hours for officers or the addition of staff in the county’s planning and development department.

The preliminary budget for 2013 calls for 16.5 full-time code enforcement employees. This continues the skid from 19.5 employees in 2011 and 18.75 in 2012. Projections in last year’s adopted budget had predicted 18.75 full-time employees in 2013.

There is some breathing room for county revenues, after the county tax appraiser adjusted taxable land values up, cushioning the 4% decrease predicted last year to 1.09%. And County Administrator Randall Reid submitted a request for consideration of more code enforcement. But, there has not been an adjustment to the planning and development staffing preliminary budget as of July 10.

But, after the same resident who complained about illegal parking two years ago again reached out to Patterson, Sarasota County Code Enforcement Supervisor Sandra Jones said she would set up a meeting with Sarasota County Sheriff Tom Knight and his staff. The goal of the summit is to organize a task force to canvass Siesta on a future weekend to identify residential areas that are charging for parking.

Patterson told commissioners July 10 she did a visual inspection and found several violations, and she presented a picture she received in 2010 from a concerned resident.

“The photo doesn’t do it justice,” she said of the illegal parking, “but it gives you a tip-of-the-iceberg flavor.”