Author: WSLR News

A Florida Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Sarasota County Property Appraiser is having unexpected side effects on affordable housing. For starters, the shutdown of the roommate matching program by the Sarasota County Housing Authority.

After test pickets in Sarasota and Tampa, the August package delivery strike is called off. The teamsters union scored a big victory with and for UPS drivers when the company agreed to a nationwide collective bargaining agreement yesterday.

There’s a teacher shortage and the Sarasota school district held a job fair yesterday. WSLR reporter Sophia Brown was there to tell us how it went. She also talked to teachers to find out what makes them stay away.

Developer Pat Neal got green light from the Venice City Council to build a shopping plaza. But neighbors are pushing back. The North Venice Neighborhood Alliance has raised $15,000 to pay for a lawyer.

A mural was unveiled yesterday honoring the African American roots of the fast-gentrifying Sarasota neighborhood once known as Overtown. Sophia Brown is painting the picture for you.

Living in your community and local politics is not a spectator sport. Engage. Claudia Allers is ready to help you with the Activist Calendar. This is Claudia Allers, bringing you the weekly Activist Calendar for Friday, July 21.

The New College administration reserves the best student housing for athletes and incoming students. Current students are left with a mold-infested dorm and an off-campus hotel, and that has pushed one of them to jump ship and switch to a college in Massachusetts.

A developer who bought several lots at the southern edge of downtown Sarasota has big plans, and they appear to include swallowing an entire city street. At a public workshop yesterday, some residents raised their voice against abandoning a public right-of-way.

Rosa Parks’ life has been reduced to that one moment on a bus in Alabama in which she refused to give up her seat. Her elevation to an icon of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement has obscured the fact that she had a life before and after, and that she was embedded in an organization and a movement.

Last fall, Sarasota County Commissioners allowed the owners of Lakewood Ranch to get around limitations to urban sprawl and pave over 5,000 acres of pastureland in the rural east of the county to build thousands of mostly luxury homes in more cul-de-sacs.