News Briefs

+ SKA online membership launches successfully
Siesta Key Association board member Deet Jonker announced during a Nov. 1 meeting that 15 members renewed annual memberships online after the organization sent out 1,100 notification emails.

Recipients opened 46% of the emails the organization sent about new online services, which will eventually include links to surveys and media for island residents.

The organization will still send out paper notices to those who can’t use the online membership renewal.

“The whole purpose of this is to make membership easier and also less expensive because the cost of mailing (and) printing is just tremendous,” Jonker said.

+ County consolidation affects mowing
Sarasota County commissioners derided staff during the first meeting of November, after an audit from the Clerk of the Courts found evidence of negligence that led to miles of overgrown medians.

The audit did not name specific employees, but found that staff signed work orders for thousands of dollars of mowing from Bloomings Landscape and Turf Management, without knowing if the work had been performed. The firm abandoned the contract earlier this year, prompting the county to split its mowing territory into smaller pieces and hire temporary contractors.

County Administrator Randall Reid blamed the consolidation of the county’s operations and maintenance department in 2007, and the rush to privatize mowing operations for the problems, as well as the poor state of county baseball and softball fields.

+ Siesta sewer rehab ahead of schedule
Williams Testing Inc., a pipeline-inspection and -rehabilitation firm, reached substantial completion of the Siesta Key sanitary sewer rehabilitation project Oct. 31, two weeks earlier than expected, according to the firm’s project manager, Susan Dunlop.

The firm finished lining and inspecting sewer pipes on Midnight Pass Road the same day, in the final aspect of work requiring lane closures.

Meetings & Agendas
• Sarasota Community Disaster Organizations meeting — 2:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8, Sarasota County Health and Human Services, Room 226, 2200 Ringling Blvd., Sarasota

• Public Facilities Financing Board meeting — 1:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 9, Administration Building, A/B Conference Room, 1660 Ringling Blvd., Sarasota

• Sarasota County Commission meeting — 9 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 13, Administration Building, Commission Chambers, 1660 Ringling Blvd., Sarasota

• Sarasota County Commission meeting — 9 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 14, Administration Building, Commission Chambers, 1660 Ringling Blvd., Sarasota

• Sarasota County Planning Commission public hearing — 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15, Administration Building, Commission Chambers, 1660 Ringling Blvd., Sarasota