The Lake Sarasota Community Blog

meeting locations and information ​ CONA monthly meetings are free and open to the public as well as the members of the more than seventy associations the organization represents and our individual members. ​ Regular monthly meetings are on second Mondays of the month at the Sarasota Garden Club, 1131 Boulevard of the Arts in Sarasota, which is at the intersection of Tamiami Trail, south of the Municipal Auditorium. Parking and the entrance are reached from Van Wezel Way. A social at 6:30 precedes the meeting that begins at 7:00. ​ We do not schedule regular monthly meetings in July or August unless there are pressing issues of immediate concern. ​ Special meetings may be held on different dates, at other times, or at other locations, please check announcements and notices carefully. Special fund-raising events may be reserved to contributors who respond to advertisements of the event to members and the public.

Monday ,  April 10 ,   2017 7 : 00 p . m . surplus lands and community treasures  -  crucial decisions  - a town hall examination   ​          ​ On Monday, April 10, 2017 please join  CONA  for a town hall examination of our surplus lands policies and zoning processes that are putting lands considered community treasures in danger, perhaps irreversibly. Such crucial decisions require public participation.     ​          The current offer to sell public lands adjacent to the Celery Fields for a construction waste processing facility has drawn the focus of adjacent neighborhoods, environmental groups, conservationists, and many concerned individuals. The issues will be examined to determine what should drive decisions about public lands and how policies may be changed to assure protection of our community treasures while making appropriate decisions about devel...

County Commission candidate Lourdes Ramirez will visit Lake Sarasota Wednesday afternoon, April 16th. Ms. Ramirez, a Republican, is the first candidate to come to the neighborhood this campaign season, and the visit is on her own initiative. She is president of the Sarasota County Council of Neighborhood Associations, or CONA. Her candidate page is here . One key issue of this year's County Commission campaign concerns the "2050 Plan" -- the County's directives for new development east of I-75. The position of CONA is that new development should pay for itself. From CONA's home page : NO new taxes for current county residents, especially to pay for new development. Ramirez will be meeting residents of Lake Sarasota on Wednesday afternoon. Look for her car (with name signs) on Mauna Loa Blvd as well as other neighborhood roads. More about Ramirez and this year's issues  here ,  here, and here .

The Sarasota Coalition of Neighborhood Associations (CONA) will hold its regular Monthly meeting on Monday, April 8, 7 pm at the Sarasota Garden Club, 1131 Blvd of the Arts. The agenda includes a candidate forum with the three remaining candidates for the municipal commissioner at large for the City of Sarasota.  The Lake Sarasota Community Group recently became a member of CONA.

Incumbent Sheriff Bill Balkwill is not running again, but there is no shortage of folks seeking his job. The four announced candidates for Sarasota County Sheriff will debate who will make the best sheriff at CONA's Monday, June 9, 7:00 PM meeting. The meeting will be at The Sarasota Garden Club, 1131 Boulevard of the Arts, Sarasota (Corner of US 41 and Blvd of the Arts) at 7 PM on May 12. Please visit CONA's web site for detailed directions. Candidates Dave Gustafson, Tom Knight, and Curt Lavelle have so far accepted invitations to participate. The format at CONA candidates' nights is that each candidate has two minutes to introduce themselves and their views, followed by the panel answering questions from the audience and concluding with a one-minute summary by each candidate. CONA , the Sarasota County Council of Neighborhood Associations, is a county-wide coalition of sixty-one neighborhood and condominium associations and individuals organized around making Sarasota ...