Mark Smith at Saturday’s community meeting: ‘This will take time, but we’re starting to see results’.
By Ramon Lopez
Original Air Date: October 8, 2025
Host: At a packed community meeting this weekend about flooding and stormwater management, one county commissioner admitted to “sins of the past.” Ramon Lopez has the story.
Ramon Lopez: This past Saturday, the Phillippi Creek Coalition, which represents hundreds of homes and thousands of residents along Phillippi Creek, hosted a Stormwater discussion at a packed South Gate Community Center.
Ben Quartermaine. Photo by Ramon Lopez
The several hundred concerned citizens who attended the meeting heard from Sarasota County District 2 Commissioner Mark Smith; Ben Quartermaine, the county’s Stormwater Department Director; and Stephen Suau, a watershed management planning consultant brought in to advise the new stormwater czar. Each panelist discussed his role, vision and plan for fixing the county’s stormwater shortfall.
Severe area flooding last year caused by Hurricane Debby led to a shakeup of the county’s stormwater hierarchy. A new county stormwater department was created with Quartermaine hired to head it. He is developing and implementing comprehensive stormwater and flood mitigation strategies and is leading infrastructure planning.
Flooding in the Pinecraft area during Hurricane Debby.
He has a long to-do list, including continuing system-wide maintenance while providing task transparency with residents. Quartermaine believes the county will have to up its standards to prevent more flooding of Phillippi Creek and other county waterways. Phillippi Creek is a seven mile stream located in the Little Sarasota Bay Watershed. It flows from the Celery Fields to Roberts Bay.
As progress is being made on the planned dredging of Phillippi Creek, the crowd reacted favorably to what Quartermaine, Suau and Mark Smith had to say.
But as a long-serving county commissioner, Mark Smith was on the hot seat and got some tough questions.
One was: Why did it take severe flooding to get the county commissioners to pay attention to stormwater?
Mark Smith
His answer: We hadn’t faced flooding in many years. You don’t know about designed systems until they are tested. And government is generally reactive, not proactive. Smith said the county commissioners were sold a used car, one the previous owner did not regularly change the oil. We are moving forward, he said.
Another person asked how the county commissioners can now regain the public trust.
Smith said, “I’m on probation. This commission is on probation. We’re catching up. It may take 10 years to fix the problems. I hope it will be one.”
He added, “This will take time, but we’re starting to see results. This commissioner, and this board, is going to correct the sins of the past.”
This remark drew applause from the crowd.
This is Ramon Lopez for WSLR News.
WSLR News aims to keep the local community informed with our 1/2 hour local news show, quarterly newspaper and social media feeds. The local news broadcast airs on Wednesdays and Fridays at 6pm.
