Public Input Sought for Main Street, County Administrator

For residents who wish to have more input on major decisions about local government, tonight the city and county are giving the public the opportunity.

At 4 p.m. today at City Hall, the city is hosting a community workshop to get public input about Main Street’s streetscape. This is the second such workshop held by the city, .

Input from that meeting was used to create a workshop summary and to develop alternative plan concepts that will be presented Monday night.

In October, groups were formed based on four segments of Main Street: Bayfront to Five Points, Five Points to Orange Avenue, Orange Avenue to Osprey Avenue and Osprey Avenue to Washington Boulevard.

While the groups discussed trends for each segment, there were recurring ideas among the four: brick streets/sidewalks, parallel parking and increased landscaping.

County Administrator Search

Tonight, starting at 6 p.m., the public will get a chance to meet the four finalists for the county administrator position.

The public meet and greet, held at the Potter Building, Robarts Arena, 3000 Ringling Blvd., is the second scheduled meeting with the finalists.

County commissioners last week from eight candidates presented by the Mercer Group.

Each candidate Monday night will be given an opportunity to talk about his  experience, followed by a 45-minute period for questions from the public. The meeting will be moderated by a representative of The Mercer Group, which is conducting the administrator search for Sarasota County.

Candidates and the public then will have about an hour to socialize. The four finalists are Randall Reid, James Baker, Fred Russell and Ed Mitchell.