Wallace leaves open option of refiling
South Siesta Key resident James P. Wallace III has dropped his lawsuit against Sarasota County over the county’s planned use of a stoplight erected at the Stickney Point Road intersection of Avenue B and C, to facilitate traffic flow in and out of the Siesta Promenade mixed-use development.
He initiated the litigation in April 2024.
A hearing in the case had been planned via Zoom on Jan. 6. However, on Dec. 8, Wallace’s attorney, Ralf Brookes of Longboat Key and Cape Coral, filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal Without Prejudice with the 12th Judicial Circuit Court in Sarasota. “Without prejudice” means that Wallace could file a similar complaint against the county over the stoplight at a future date.
At its request, Brookes provided The Sarasota News Leader a copy of a letter that he sent on Dec. 8 to the county commissioners, Deputy County Attorney David Pearce, who had been handling the litigation on the county’s behalf, and County Attorney Joshua Moye.
Brookes explained in the letter that Wallace had decided to halt the litigation because of “other obligations on his time,” though Brookes added that Wallace “will continue to advocate against current and future Sarasota County actions” that are inconsistent with county policies implemented to protect the lives of residents on Siesta Key by giving them ample time to evacuate the island if a hurricane is approaching and to ensure that they are not impeded in accessing emergency medical attention.
Ahead of the 2024 strikes on Florida of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, county Emergency Services personnel called for residents to leave the island because of fears about the effects of storm surge. With Milton, the surge was predicted to be as high as 15 feet, though it ended up being less than the 6 to 8 feet that residents have documented with Helene.
“Please be advised,” Brookes wrote in the De. 8 letter, “that James P. Wallace III … a private citizen and resident of Sarasota County, Florida … must voluntarily dismiss his current claim in circuit court regarding making operational the new traffic signal, now owned and controlled by Sarasota County, located on Stickney Point Road and Avenue B & C in Sarasota County, prior to or upon the completion of construction for the Siesta Promenade development project …” The emphasis is in the letter.
In 2018, Benderson Development Co. of University Park won County Commission approval to construct Siesta Promenade in the northwest quadrant of Stickney Point Road and U.S. 41. The project has been designed to include 414 condominiums/apartments, a 130-room hotel, 130,000 square feet of retail space and 7,000 square feet of office space.
One stipulation included in the board approval of that development order was the installation and operation of a traffic signal at the Avenue B and C intersection.
Wallace has stressed during meetings of the Siesta Key Association (SKA) that if that County Commission stipulation cannot be fulfilled, then Siesta Promenade cannot be built.
“As you are aware,” Brookes continued in his Dec. 8 letter, “our client has objected, and continues to object to the activation of the County’s approval of this traffic signal at Stickney Point Road and Avenue B & C that: “places human lives in danger during medical emergencies and hurricane evacuations and “is inconsistent with the County’s Comprehensive Plan for Siesta Key, including [Future Land Use] Policy 2.9.1,” which limits residential density on the barrier islands to that in place as of March 13, 1989.
Brookes also referenced the fact that only two bridges provide access to the mainland from Siesta Key.
Then Brookes pointed to a July 25, 2016 letter from a representative of the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), which went to county staff as planning for Siesta Promenade was underway. Brookes noted that the letter “warned that the evacuation route intersection at Stickney Point Road and U.S. 41 exhibited, and continues to exhibit, dangerous traffic conditions. The performance of Stickney Point Road as a bridge access road is extremely critical to Hurricane evacuation and medical emergency vehicle travel times onto Siesta Key and then back to a hospital on the mainland. FDOT has recently transferred responsibility for Stickney Point Road to Sarasota County,” Brookes added.
“The newly installed, new signal at Ave. B&C, if it were made operational, would without any doubt adversely affect daily traffic and would have a significant negative impact on traffic flow off and on the Key as it would stop both east and west bound traffic dead in its tracks approximately every 3 minutes for about 1 minute,” Brookes stressed.
“Such action by the County would further degrade, not improve, the existing conditions and level of service on the Stickney Point Road access route to Siesta Key,” he wrote, citing the April 2023 Final Order of a Florida administrative law judge in Ramirez v Sarasota County, as well as an August 2024 Circuit Court ruling in Ramirez v Sarasota County.
Siesta resident Lourdes Ramirez was the plaintiff in both the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH) proceeding and the 12th Judicial Circuit Court case. She alleged that the County Commission had violated its Comprehensive Plan by approving an amendment to its Unified Development Code (UDC) in October 2021 that eliminated the counting of hotel and motel rooms — what county staff refers to as “transient accommodations” — for residential density purposes. Ramirez cited the same future land-use policy, 2.9.1, that Brookes mentioned in his Dec. 8 letter to the commissioners, Pearce and Moye.
Attorney William Merrill III, of the Sarasota firm Icard Merrill, had contended to the County Commission on Oct. 27, 2021 that the North American Industry Classification System — what he referred to as the “standard used by federal statistical agencies in classifying business establishments” — made it clear that it was incorrect to count hotel and motel rooms for residential density purposes. He made his argument on behalf of clients who wanted to build a 170-room, 85-foot-tall hotel on the edge of Siesta Village.
Instead of seeking a Comprehensive Plan amendment to eliminate the residential density factor for transient accommodations, Merrill sought only an amendment to the UDC, which contains all of the county’s land-use and zoning regulations. A simple commission majority — three out of five of the board members — can modify the UDC. Amending the Comprehensive Plan necessitates a supermajority, or four positive votes.
Opponents of the proposed hotel on Calle Miramar contended that Merrill’s clients feared that it would not be possible to get a supermajority of the commission to change the Comprehensive Plan. As it turned out, then-Commissioners Nancy Detert and Christian Ziegler opposed the UDC amendment, resulting in a 3-2 vote in support of it.
Continuing in his Dec. 8 letter, attorney Brookes wrote, “Turning on this traffic signal, and approving additional hotel density and intensity on Siesta Key’s primary access road would lead to increased traffic and would endanger human lives because it would increase and further aggravate emergency medical vehicle response times and evacuation route times without any means of adequate mitigation.
“This will be even more critical as aging infrastructure and the two bridges both must be repaired and then replaced in the near future,” Brookes pointed out. “The Stickney Point bridge is currently involved in its last extensive repair,” he added.
Deputy county attorney points to lack of facts to support ‘special injury’ claim
Representing the county in Wallace’s complaint, Deputy County Attorney Pearce noted in a Motion to Dismiss the case that Wallace “alleges he relies on Stickney Point Road to access mainland Sarasota, and that making the traffic signal [operational] would adversely affect his, and [others’], ability to safely enter and leave Siesta Key. … These allegations in the complaint do not articulate a special injury. Rather, it is an injury he shares with all other persons who use the roadway.”
Yet, Pearce continued, “The County anticipates that Wallace will insist that his interest is distinct from the general public by alleging that the entirety of the general public does not live on Siesta Key. Accordingly, the County respectfully requests that the Court take judicial notice of the 2020 United States census, which states that Siesta Key had a population of 5,454 residents, with 2948 households.”
Further, Pearce argued, “Wallace is no more impeded by the traffic signal than any of the other thousands of residents of Siesta Key or any person that visits Siesta Key.” He added, “Something that affects traffic flow for one traveler (such as a stop light) affects traffic flow for every traveler along that roadway. These residents and visitors use the same roadway entering and leaving the southern end of Siesta Key. Anyone using the road, regardless of whether they live on Siesta Key, could conceivably get stuck in traffic near this intersection.”
Moreover, Pearce pointed out in that motion, “Florida courts have consistently held that decisions concerning traffic control device installation are not matters which would subject a governmental entity to liability, because such decisions are basic capital improvements and a judgmental, planning level function for which there is sovereign immunity.” He cited three different judicial precedents in making that assertion.
Avenue B and C light in use for hurricane debris efforts
In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene — which caused major damage to Siesta Key — Spencer Anderson, director of the county’s Public Works Department, notified the leaders of the Siesta Key Association via email on Oct. 4, 2024 that storm debris contractors were going to use the Siesta Promenade site as a staging area for materials collected on the Key.
“Truck traffic will enter and leave this site at the intersection of Stickney Point Rd and Avenue B/C,” he explained in the note, which the SKA shared with the News Leader. “To ensure the safety of all motorists,” Anderson added, “Sarasota County will be temporarily activating the new traffic signal at this intersection to provide protected left turns … The signal will be flashing yellow for a period of time prior to full red/green/yellow functionality.”
In response to a News Leader inquiry this week about the status of the traffic signal, the Public Works staff confirmed in a Jan. 7 statement that the Avenue B and C stoplight on Stickney Point Road “is still operating as a fully signalized intersection. [The signal] will remain fully operational until activities at the debris management site are complete (estimated to take a few more weeks).”
Once those efforts are complete, the staff added, “the signal will be placed into flash (yellow flash for Stickney Point; red flash on cross street), until development activities at the Siesta Promenade site warrant a return to a fully signalized intersection control.”