County residents encouraged to offer views on commission’s preliminary decisions
With the Sarasota County commissioners having decided on a preliminary apportionment of the county’s most recent federal grant for hurricane recovery initiatives, county staff has released that draft action plan for public review.
The comment period will end on April 3, staff has announced, with the commissioners scheduled to discuss the responses during their regular meeting on April 22. The board members indicated during their regular meeting on Feb. 25 that they could modify the amounts in the various “pots” of money, based on the public responses.
Following slightly more than an hour of discussion as they met on Feb. 25 in downtown Sarasota, the commissioners agreed to designate the largest portion of the $210,094,000 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) — 62.9% — to infrastructure needs, with the dredging of Phillippi Creek their top priority.
The HUD funds, which are designated as Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) assistance, were awarded directly to the county in mid-January.
By count of The Sarasota News Leader, 17 homeowners who live on Phillippi Creek urged the board members to address the numerous sandbars and sediment deposited in the creek since its last dredging in 2002. As many of the same speakers told the commissioners on Jan. 15, their homes flooded with several feet of storm surge during the 2024 events, because of the sand’s displacement of the water in the creek.
Among those who spoke on Feb. 25, Seth Johnson, who lives in Southgate, advocated for dredging of the creek north of Bee Ridge Road, “specifically Southgate and Pinecraft.”
He explained, “I live on what’s called an ‘oxbow,’ or something like that,” which — he said — refers to the islands that were created when Southgate was developed in the 1950s.
“The canal side of where I live,” he pointed out, “is land; I can walk across it. It’s kind of crazy. … I can see how that can be an issue with drainage. There’s been decades and decades and decades of non-maintenance in that area.”
Especially north of the Tuttle Avenue bridge and behind the Southgate Community Association building, Johnson continued — and behind the Tuttle Avenue traffic circle — “There is an island that I have personally watched over the last eight or so years … develop into two islands …”
Johnson further explained, “It used to be open; you used to be able to see all the way across, and now it’s just jungle.”
He added, “We were stuck in our house for three days, after all the ‘stormwaters’ receded [following one of the 2024 storms], because we couldn’t get off the island … I have pictures of myself in my canoe, going up and down my street.”
Jim McWhorter, who lives in the River Forest community on Phillippi Creek, reminded the commissioners that he is a member of an organization called Supporters for Action Now in Dredging (SAND), which was founded by residents in his neighborhood.
He asked the commissioners whether they “could possibly move up the completion of the [action plan] by two weeks, to April 8.
“Every day and every week that we lose,” he continued, “gets us closer to that first hurricane we’re going to have in 2025.”
McWhorter did thank the board members, “very much,” for their focus on pursing the dredging. Their response has been so fast, McWhorter said, that he found it unprecedented for a local government body.
During his remarks that morning, Jacob Crabtree summed up that last point thus: “We spoke, you listened, and we feel like we’re headed in the right direction with your help. … Funding, we understand, is a dire need to help expedite [the dredging].”
‘Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure’
At the start of the board discussion, Commissioner Teresa Mast reminded her colleagues that they agreed during their December 2024 retreat that county infrastructure would be one of their top priorities for 2025. “Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure,” she added with emphasis.
“I’m trying to stay true to what we as a board said we would really focus on this year,” Mast said.
She “struck it home,” Commissioner Tom Knight added. Infrastructure “is the most important thing we have.”
Mast also stressed the need for the board members to “urgently not kick this can down the road any farther,” in an effort to expedite the award of funds for projects.
On a motion by Commissioner Ron Cutsinger, which Mast seconded, the biggest “pot” of the new HUD funds — $75 million — would be used for “Dredging of Major Waterways,” a phrase that Spencer Anderson, director of the county’s Public Works Department and chief county engineer, proposed to encompass the types of projects the commissioners said they envisioned.
Another $57,089,300 was set aside for “Sarasota County, Public Entities, Non-Profits.” Steve Hyatt of the county Office of Financial Management, manager of what county staff calls the Resilient SRQ program, told the commissioners that “public entities” includes the county’s municipalities and the Sarasota County School Board. Thus, that money could be used for other local government infrastructure initiatives.
The commissioners also agreed to put $30 million into the category titled “Multi-Family Affordable Housing,” with another $25 million set aside for “Homeowner Rehabilitation/Reconstruction” in regard to dwellings damaged by the three storms with which the county contended last year: Tropical Storm Debby in August, Hurricane Helene in late September and Hurricane Milton in early October.
“I do believe one of our high priorities in strategic planning was affordable housing,” Commissioner Mark Smith noted, also referring to the December retreat discussions. “This is the only time we have substantial money to put towards affordable housing.”
Commissioner Cutsinger concurred.
Smith added, “I’m all for infrastructure,” but he encouraged his colleagues not to pass up [the opportunity to pay for affordable housing].”
Mast initially proposed $25 million for the multi-family affordable housing, but Commissioners Smith, Cutsinger and Knight advocated for $30 million.
Further, the commissioners agreed to $8.3 million for reimbursements to homeowners who had handled damage for which they had received no other funding aid, including assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
At staff’s recommendation, 5% of the money will go toward administrative activities, with HUD setting that percentage as the maximum, Hyatt explained. The funding is used to protect the county’s interests, he added. In the past, Hyatt has noted the necessity of a thorough analysis of funding applications that the county receives, to ensure that they are eligible and that the projects could be completed within HUD’s six-year timeline for expenditure of all the funds.
Another 2% of the money is allocated to “Planning Activities,” as shown on Hyatt’s initial chart, before the commissioners directed him to start shifting amounts in the proposed pots.
He has stressed that, under the terms of the grant, 70% of the money must be used to benefit low- to moderate-income residents. That means those persons cannot make more than 80% of the county’s Area Median Income (AMI), which HUD sets each year. Generally, HUD releases the new AMI figures in the spring of each year for every Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) in the United States. Sarasota is part of an MSA that includes North Port and Bradenton.
The allocations the commissioners settled on, Hyatt further emphasized, had to have a tie-back to one of the three storms in 2024 that wreaked damage on the county, except for $15,504,700 in mitigation money, and the spending out of the HUD grant cannot replace another funding source.
Hyatt did note that the commission had more flexibility in spending the money HUD had given the county in a “Mitigation” category. “It’s a very unique pot,” he said. “Those … dollars are kind of a bonus,” Hyatt added.
After the action plan has been addressed in April, Hyatt said, staff will send it to HUD, whose staff will have up to 45 days to review the document and approve it or call for modifications.
“All funds must be used in Sarasota County within six years” after final HUD approval of the spending decisions, Hyatt stressed. However, he noted, the allocations can be amended over that period, as hurricane recovery efforts in the county evolve.
Public and board priorities
During his Feb. 25 presentation, Hyatt also pointed out that staff had conducted four public meetings on the new grant, to learn how residents would like to see the funds spent. Most of those sessions, he said, “were quite well attended … over-attended, in comes cases. … There’s a lot of advocacy out there for use of these dollars.”
Additionally, staff provided an online survey for residents, business owners and nonprofit organizations, he continued.
Of the 1,396 individual responses to the survey, Hyatt noted, 27.6% of listed infrastructure as the top priority, followed by housing assistance at 23%, and affordable housing at 17.7%.
Infrastructure also was the top priority for the 59 business respondents, he said. That figure was 28.9%. Housing assistance was in second place, at 21.9%.
The 27 survey responses from nonprofit organizations put affordable housing first, at 24.7%, followed by infrastructure at 19.4%.
In regard to staff’s initial proposal for the housing allocations, Hyatt noted that the three 2024 storms had a broader impact on the county. With the prior HUD grant the county received — in 2023, to handle unmet needs resulting from Hurricane Ian in September 2022 — the damage primarily was in North Port and Venice.
Commissioner Cutsinger was the first member of the board to suggest that he and his colleagues eliminate single-family homes from consideration for the affordable housing initiative. He added that he believed the county would realize a greater benefit from focusing on multi-family housing. With the HUD grant for Hurricane Ian damage, he pointed out, the commissioners did direct much of the money to single-family home projects. Moreover, he noted, the state has provided financial assistance for owners of single-family homes. He added, “I’d like to see us give as much money as we can to infrastructure.”
Cutsinger did ask how staff had arrived at a proposed $60-million allocation for the dredging of Phillippi Creek.
“That was an estimate” from the county’s Stormwater Division, Hyatt replied, based on the prior expense for such work, as the commissioners already had expressed their desire to staff for a longer stretch of the creek to be addressed.
Anderson of Public Works did point out, “It’s very early to give any kind of reasonable estimate” for that dredging. In 2002, he added, the county spent $1.3 million to dredge Phillippi Creek from its mouth to Tuttle Avenue. The new project on which staff has been working, Anderson continued, “is several more miles upstream, to Beneva [Road].” Anderson stressed, as well, “There is a significant amount of sediment” in the creek.
A feasibility study that is underway, he added, will help staff refine the estimate for the dredging.
Referencing the proposed allocation of $60 million for the dredging, Chair Joe Neunder expressed frustration over what he characterized as “the ability to negotiate, or, in laymen’s terms, haggle,” over the expense of the work, with that figure having been made public. Yet, he acknowledged of the plan for Phillippi Creek, “It has to be done.”
Hyatt explained that staff is required to engage in a process to ensure to the best of its ability the “reasonableness of cost” for any project in an application it receives for the federal funding. The goal, he added, is to make certain that the county pays “true market costs.”
“We should be exceedingly prudent and … specific with our computations,” Neunder said, “because we have a lot of unmet needs.”
Public comments sought
A county news release issued after the Feb. 25 discussion provided a link to the draft action plan and encouraged residents to review it and provide their comments by April 3. This is the link: 2024storms.resilientsrq.net/action-plan.
Persons wishing to offer their thoughts in person were welcome to attend a public meeting on March 4 in Venice, with another meeting set from 6 to 8 p.m. on March 14 at the County Administration Center that stands at 1660 Ringling Blvd. in downtown Sarasota.
Further, the news release offered the options:
- “Submit comments online at 2024storms.resilientsrq.net/action-plan
- “Email comments and feedback to ResilientSRQComments@scgov.net
- Mail written comments to Resilient SRQ, 301 N. Cattlemen Road, Suite 200, Sarasota, FL 34232.”