Controversy arises over prologue in document
The Sarasota City Commission voted unanimously this week to accept the report of its ad hoc committee established to offer recommendations on the future of the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall and to direct interim City Manager Dave Bullock to use the immediate recommendations and the ongoing recommendations from the Purple Ribbon Committee as the basis for developing an action plan that will be brought to the commission for review.
The board members’ formal extension of their appreciation to the committee members for their work was part of the first motion.
Vice Mayor Debbie Trice made both motions, and Commissioner Kyle Battie seconded them during the board’s regular meeting on Aug. 18.
“What we do with [the action plan],” Trice told her colleagues, “is up to us.”
At one point during the discussion, a dispute did arise between the chair of the committee and another member of the group.
In response to a question from Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch, Selma Goker Wilson, an architect who served on the committee, asserted that no vote was taken on the prologue of the document provided to the commissioners in advance of their regular meeting this week.
“I did go back and watch [the video of the last committee meeting, held July 9], Wilson continued. “We did not read the prologue.” Yet, she pointed out, Jennifer Jorgensen, the city’s director of governmental affairs, had told the committee members that they all needed to approve the sections of the report that would be delivered to the commission.
“I just think we missed it,” Wison added of the prologue.
Among its points, the prologue cites “the growing threat of climate warming” and sea level rise. “Given these escalating risks,” it adds, “the Van Wezel’s current role as Sarasota’s premier performing arts center is increasingly untenable. Its aging infrastructure, combined with its vulnerable location on Sarasota Bay, poses significant challenges — not just for the building itself, but for the broader community and
its cultural investments.”
The following is the entire prologue:
Following Wilson’s comments, committee Chair Charles Cosler told the commissioners, “I don’t understand what the problem is. There’s nothing controversial here, I don’t believe. But second of all,” he continued, “this was proposed several months before we finished [our work].”
He explained that committee member Robert Bunting, a climate scientist, “was tasked with drafting this.” All of the committee members agreed on it, Cosler said. “So I’m surprised at what this objection is about …”
The objection, Ahearn-Koch responded, “is that, in her experience, when committees work on issues, with each issue raised, the members agree to specific statements. In the example of a city-appointed committee that worked on revisions to regulations regarding trees, she added, the recommendations ended up in an ordinance. Every member of that committee had voted on the language that was presented to the commission, Ahearn-Koch continued. That underscored to the commissioners the level of support for those recommendations, she said.
The prologue of the report by the Purple Ribbon Committee, regarding the Van Wezel, she told Cosler, is “very opinionated [instead of] fact-based. … A lot of this language is very subjective.”
When the City Commission accepts such a document, Ahearn-Koch emphasized, that document “lives … and it’s referenced, and if we don’t have an accurate framework for how this document made it on our shelves, then we have to be careful about what we do.”
At that point, Cosler asked Jim Shirley, the former long-time executive director of the Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County who served as the committee’s facilitator, whether he could “back me up on this.”
Shirley concurred with Cosler that the members did vote on the prologue.
Cosler maintained that he recalled having read the prologue to the committee members and their agreeing to it.
“Did we have a very strict procedure in terms of calling for a motion,” as well as votes, Cosler continued. “No.” After he became chair, following the December 2024 resignation of the original chair, structural engineer Le En Chung, Cosler added, he adopted a casual style of conducting the meetings.
Noting Page 48 of the final report, Ahearn-Koch read the line, “It seems clear that reuse of the hall is untenable.”
She then asked whether the committee members’ vote on that line was unanimous.
“Yes,” Cosler replied. “I wrote that and submitted it [for their review],” he added.
“No, it was not [unanimous],” Wilson told Ahearn-Koch when asked the same question.
If reuse of the Van Wezel is untenable, Ahearn-Koch continued, “Why are we putting a penny into it?”
The report explains that the Van Wezel will need to remain functional — with improvements suggested by the Karins Engineering firm of Sarasota to make it more resilient to storms — until a new performing arts structure can replace it.
Cosler did not respond to Ahearn-Koch’s question.
“So it seems to me that there are opinions in here, and there are facts in here,” she said of the final report, “and it’s being stated that everything [won unanimous committee approval].”
Further, Ahearn-Koch noted, the final report contains numerous sections, and some of the information is conflicting.
Shirley, the facilitator, explained that every member of the committee wrote a section of the report. They made recommendations on the basis of their expertise as a member of the group, he added. Then all of the members voted on whether to accept the sections, Shirley said.
As examples of conflicting information in the report, Ahearn-Koch said that three different parts offer three different statements about how long the Van Wezel had to be closed after it was damaged during the 2024 hurricane season. “What that tells me,” she continued, “is that three different people have three different opinions about something that’s factual, in a document that will live on our shelves.”
People will quote from the document, she pointed out. Yet, “I’m not seeing a unified recommendation here.”
Conflicting community views of the Van Wezel’s future
The future of the Van Wezel has been controversial since a new performing arts venue was proposed years ago as part of The Bay Park on the 53 bayfront acres the city owns in downtown Sarasota.
An organization called Keep the Van Wezel has gathered more than 3,000 signatures on petitions calling for the City Commission to ensure that the building, which was constructed in the late 1960s, remains in use as a performing arts hall.
On the other side of the issue, many city and county residents have cited the age of the Van Wezel, its lack of a center aisle in the auditorium — which, they say, would impede any emergency evacuation of the facility if that were necessary — and its vulnerability to storms as reasons for it to be replaced. Those views are reflected in portions of the prologue within the Purple Ribbon Committee’s final report.
The Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation has been working with architects on the team of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, based in Genoa, Italy, to design a new performing arts facility for The Bay Park. Last week, Jan Thornburg, general manager of the city’s Communications Department, told The Sarasota News Leader that another discussion between Foundation representatives and the City Commission is planned for September.
The Foundation is committed to paying for 50% of the expense of that new Sarasota Performing Arts Center through private funding. During the most recent discussion of the plans for that SPAC — held on March 17 — the Foundation group estimated the cost at $407 million. However, Jorgensen, the city’s governmental affairs director, cautioned that the longer it takes to start construction, the more likely that inflation will escalate the cost.
The Foundation CEO, Tania Castroverde Moskalenko, asked during that meeting that the commissioners schedule another discussion about the SPAC proposal no later than early May. However, that subsequent session never took place.
Vice Mayor Debbie Trice, Commissioner Kathy Kelley Ohlrich and Ahearn-Koch all have expressed concern about the city’s ability to cover its share of the expense of the structure and the requirement of the city, in a 2022 agreement with the Foundation, to provide sufficient parking for the facility.
Preserving Sarasota’s reputation for cultural arts
At the outset of the Aug. 18 presentation, Shirley, the committee facilitator, told the commissioners, “The arts are near and dear to the hearts of virtually everybody in Sarasota and Sarasota County.”
The future of the Van Wezel, he added, has become an emotional issue for residents.
The Van Wezel, he continued, “has served the community exceptionally well for many, many years.” Nonetheless, Shirley said, the committee members had to focus on the facts.
The members did hear many ideas for reuse of the structure, if a new venue replaces it, he added, but that reuse “is completely contingent on … increasing the storm resilience of the building, [as well as] the effectiveness of [proposed climate-proofing measures and] the progress and location of a new performing arts hall.”
Vice Mayor Trice did note the two recommendations she found most meaningful of those in the report. First, she said, was the call for the city to make the necessary investment “to repair, upgrade, maintain the Van Wezel for as long as we need it as our primary performing arts center,” as she put it.
The other one, Trice said, was No. 10: “The very capable staff at the [Van Wezel] should continue to monitor and assess how well the hall withstands the environmental challenges it faces and report their findings to help make more informed final decisions on the reuse and/or repurpose of the building.”
Chair Cosler told her that the committee members believe that the Van Wezel staff is best situated to make recommendations on the building in regard to the environmental challenges.
Trice also referred to No. 12: “Should the [Van Wezel] sustain unrecoverable storm damage, it would seem prudent to clear and incorporate the site into The Bay Park.” She said she understood that to mean that if the structure were severely damaged, it should not be rebuilt.
Shirley responded that that was the interpretation that the committee members intended.
Cosler then asked to read a paragraph on Page 8 of the report. That said, “The Findings below are a distillation of facts and expert opinions from building assessments done by others and chapter narratives written by committee members.” He added, “So that’s the framework for all of the findings and recommendations.”
“As you can imagine,” Shirley said, “this is a very complex issue. There are not simple answers. I have to admit,” he continued, “that I have lived in Sarasota for 42 years, and last year was the first time I ever saw a hurricane here.”
Then Shirley pointed out, “I think the important thing from this report, and — I believe this would be representative of everyone in the committee — … clearly, arts and culture are the soul of Sarasota. We have beautiful beaches. We have great climate. But what brings the philanthropist here? What makes this community continue year after year to have great school systems, to have great quality of life, is the presence of such a rich and vibrant arts and cultural community.”
Then he posed the question, “Do you want to prepare for continuing to be the Cultural Coast of Florida, or do we just kind of want to give up?”