Siesta parking lot to be re-striped on May 11

With street parking limited in Siesta Village, many visitors and residents rely on the municipal lot off Avenida Madera. Photo by Norman Schimmel

In response to complaints about vanished striping in Siesta Village’s municipal parking lot, county staff has hired a contractor to repaint the lines and delineate the handicapped parking spaces on Friday, May 11, beginning at 6:30 a.m.

Barricades will be placed at both entries to the lot, according to a county notice distributed May 8 to representatives of various Siesta Key organizations.

“They’ll get (the striping) done in one day,” John Lally, the county’s code enforcement officer for Siesta Key, told The Sarasota News Leader May 9.

During a report at the May 1 Siesta Key Village Association meeting, Deputy Matt Binkley of the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office had remarked on problems in the parking lot while the Siesta Fiesta fine arts show was under way April 14-15. Motor homes took up numerous parking spaces, he pointed out, but owners of those vehicles said they were unable to discern lines for individual parking spaces.

Binkley added that sand and grit over time apparently had worn away the paint marking the spaces.

The lot is situated between Avenida Madera and Avenida de Mayo.

Lally told the News Leader May 9 that miscommunication had been the reason the lot had not been re-striped sooner.

Gary Spraggins, the employee in the county’s Mobility/Traffic Office who almost daily has been overseeing the Siesta Village maintenance since last August, had been under the impression the entire parking lot was going to be redone, including the construction of a pervious surface, Lally told the News Leader. However, the county did not have funding for that type of project, Lally added.

Once Spraggins learned that information, Lally said, Spraggins put in a purchase order to get the restriping done.

Lally noted that purchase orders have moving more slowly through the county’s Procurement Department since a scandal erupted in that department in 2011. “It takes a lot longer time” to get a purchase order approved, he said.