Ringling, Selby serve as models for SPAC

Soon, the city of Sarasota will face key decisions about the future of the proposed Sarasota Performing Arts Center (SPAC). A path forward has been identified, and while broad support exists, it’s sometimes hard to hear over the louder voices of opposition.

Still, moving ahead with conceptual planning now could help shape Sarasota’s cultural and economic landscape for generations to come.

While the Ringling Museum and Selby Botanical Gardens began under different circumstances and at a smaller scale, both offer useful parallels for thinking about SPAC today. Each reflects a historical commitment to the arts in Sarasota — and to the idea that cultural investment plays a defining role in shaping a city’s identity and future.

In 1927, John and Mable Ringling broke ground on their museum during a time of economic uncertainty. The stock market crash came two years later, followed by the Great Depression. Even so, they pressed forward, believing that Sarasota would benefit from a world-class cultural institution. They were right.

Today, the Ringling is not only a respected museum, but an important part of Sarasota’s economy — attracting visitors, supporting local jobs and reinforcing Sarasota’s place as a cultural destination.

The story of Selby Gardens tells a similar story of long-term thinking. After Marie Selby passed away in 1971, her estate provided the foundation for converting her private garden into a public space. Despite a national recession, work moved forward in 1973 and 1974, and the gardens opened to the public in 1975. 

Selby Gardens, while rooted in nature and science, has grown into a place where art, education and community come together, contributing in a real way to Sarasota’s cultural fabric. Like the Ringling, it has become an international draw and an economic contributor to Sarasota and the broader region.

Both institutions were created during challenging times. And both have gone on to show how cultural investment can pay off — not just for the moment, but for decades.

Today, Sarasota faces a different kind of uncertainty. While the local economy remains relatively strong, broader economic signals are harder to read. New policies and national developments are bringing change, but the full effects are still unclear. In times like this, when the direction of things is uncertain, long-term planning matters even more.

Economist John Maynard Keynes once argued that public investment — especially in civic and cultural projects — can help communities stay on course through unsettled times. The Ringlings and the founders of Selby Gardens seemed to understand this instinctively.

We have that same opportunity now. The proposed SPAC is more than a city project — it’s a regional vision. The new center would serve audiences from across Sarasota and the broader region, much like the Ringling and Selby Gardens do today. It can move forward through a mix of dedicated Tax Increment Financing (TIF) revenue, public funds and private philanthropy. 

Together those tools provide a path forward that makes sense, with public oversight and built-in checkpoints along the way.

Not everyone sees this project the same way, and I get that. But I think a lot of people would agree that Sarasota’s arts and cultural life is part of what drew them here and what keeps them here. It’s a big part of what makes this place feel like home. 

Whether Sarasota keeps growing as a cultural hub or starts to lose ground will come down to the decisions we make now. 

The moment may be different, but the idea still holds: forward-looking, well-considered decisions can shape the kind of community we want — not just today, but for generations.

Let’s move ahead.

—David Lough, Sarasota

Put SPAC issue on a referendum

How about simply putting it out for a vote from the taxpayers

like they did for the legacy trail expansion?

My guess is it would be soundly voted down.

—George Hellyer, Sarasota

Fauci speaking fees should go to victims

I was so delighted to come across on Substack the Observer Opinion column, “Serious questions for Fauci.”

It has my stomach turning in unspeakable disgust to see that the man who somehow commanded a higher salary than even the president, despite being so obviously responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans, now commands $100,000 or more for an hour’s speaking performance that will most likely be no more informative than his late 2022 deposition performance entailing 174 uses of the reply “I do not recall.” (Source: WPDE-TV, Florence, S.C.)

Or his three-year-ago performance where he appeared to perjure himself on C-SPAN in reply to questioning by Sen. Rand Paul in a Senate hearing on his role and the U.S. government’s role in the nation’s failed COVID response.

I was so happy to read Dr. Peter McCullough’s comment. He is one of the four or five truly prominent, life-saving doctors in the entire country during the COVID era, all of whom have had their medical careers reduced to ashes in large part because of pressure by Dr. Anthony Fauci and others.  

Fauci stands so personally responsible for one of the greatest horrors ever inflicted on humanity! Yet he is feted like a hero by a totally ignorant public, many of whom may have even lost either their health or their ability to function, or even one or more of their loved ones, to his almost unimaginable evil! 

I began distrusting him and the soon-to-come vaccine cult, including the incredibly greedy Bill Gates, by March of 2020! The reasons were so clearly obvious!

Unfortunately, any responses from Fauci during his upcoming lecture of the Ringling College Town Hall Lecture Series will furnish no answers of any more substance than he has already honed during all his previous late career and post career speaking engagements. 

Any speaking fees given to him should instead be awarded to some teacher or soldier or policeman who sits alone at home, alive but horribly vaccine injured, trying to put their life together after being mandated to take Fauci’s mandated vaccine.

Thank you for a great and courageous public service!

— Jim Santagata, Siesta Key