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When Sarasota rescinded its extended parking hours at a fiery meeting last week, Vice Mayor Kathy Kelley Ohlrich reiterated her desire that the city’s parking division be able to sustain itself.

As an enterprise fund, the parking division is supposed to cover its own bills and payroll with fees and fares rather than rely on the city’s general fund. This point has been emphasized again and again at city commission meetings.

However, a Suncoast Searchlight review of more than a decade of city budgets shows that the parking division has for years relied on Sarasota’s general fund to stay afloat, clashing with claims by officials that recent measures to increase parking revenue are meant to preserve the division’s status as an enterprise fund.

In total, the parking division now owes Sarasota’s general fund over $1.6 million. That figure is higher than the parking management fund’s entire balance going into the 2026-27 fiscal year.

This election cycle is once again dominated by anti-establishment candidates running grassroots campaigns, pledging to finish the job. But even longtime Manatee County political observers fear the anti-development movement has lost its momentum from the milestone 2024 victories.

“The people spoke, and that was amazing,” said Ed Ference, a Republican candidate for an at-large county commission seat this year. “I’m hoping they speak here in 2026 and finish what we started.”

Sarasota County arts organizations seeking a share of $2.1 million in public grant funding this year are facing a new requirement tied to recently approved Florida restrictions on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Some have signed a county acknowledgment of the law despite deep reservations. One has refused, forfeiting funding it can scarcely afford to lose.

The acknowledgment, added this year to Sarasota County’s cultural grant agreements, cites a state law — Senate Bill 1134 — signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in April and going into effect on Jan. 1 that prohibits counties from using public money to support DEI initiatives.

Criminal citations for sleeping outside have surged across Sarasota during the last six years, climbing from two dozen issued in 2020 to 343 last year — more than a 14-fold increase. 

The citations are meant to be an entry point into a system of homelessness services like housing support, mental health treatment and recovery programs for substance use disorders.

But the system is limited — with waitlists that can stretch on for months — and many people experiencing homelessness don’t feel comfortable receiving help through the police and court system. Some said they would rather just accept a citation, even if it means they’re saddled with a fine they can’t pay or they spend a few days in jail. 

Sarasota County will not even consider the notion of any large-scale data centers for at least a year, citing concerns over utility resources and environmental degradation.

Commissioners voted on Wednesday to halt the “acceptance, review and approval” of any major data centers until at least July 2027, but seemed eager to push for an outright ban in perpetuity. The move comes as data center developments become a flashpoint for local governments across the country, including neighboring DeSoto County, which approved a similar moratorium this week.

Sarasota County’s measure followed an inquiry by XF Group to build a proposed data center along Cattlemen Road.

Two decades ago this summer, a bottlenose dolphin made international headlines after he was spotted swimming through Sarasota Bay wearing an extra-large men’s Speedo.

The dolphin, named Scrappy, was found caught in the swimsuit, unable to escape as the fabric cut deep into his soft, gray skin.

Today, Scrappy is still alive, still swimming in Sarasota Bay — and thanks to researchers who freed him — helping tell a much bigger story about dolphin conservation.

To run for local office in Sarasota County, any association with real estate developers has become a scarlet letter.

The tens of thousands of dollars from builders to pay for campaign mailers and social media advertisements are now outweighed by the tainted label of being a “developer-backed candidate.” Concerns about over-development — from clogged roads and the erosion of greenspace for seemingly endless suburbs to housing affordability — are now top of mind for Republican primary voters.

For Sarasota County Commissioner Joe Neunder and his reelection challenger Jim DeNiro, this year’s District 4 primary has become a battle of who can paint the other as most friendly to developers. 

Manatee County underpaid emergency medical service workers by at least $336,607 over a recent nine-month period after its payroll system failed to properly calculate overtime, according to an audit obtained by Suncoast Searchlight.

The audit found that more than 200 EMS employees were owed back pay between June 28 and March 30. Some workers were shorted a few hundred dollars. Others were owed thousands. One veteran paramedic was underpaid by $9,000.

The Sarasota County Commission approved a $91.8 million budget amendment to fund hurricane recovery projects, a stark reminder that efforts to return the area to a sense of normalcy after a rash of major storms remains a work in progress.

The amendment comes after an unprecedented stretch of storms battered Florida’s Gulf Coast over the past several years. Since September 2022, Sarasota County has experienced five hurricanes — Ian, Idalia, Debby, Helene and Milton — that caused widespread flooding and wind damage and helped drive disaster-related spending to $352 million over the past decade, according to county records.

Milton accounted for the largest share of those costs. County staff reported spending $152.4 million on 140 Milton-related projects to date — more than any other recent storm. Ian generated nearly $94 million in costs, while Debby added another $54.6 million.

Sarasota County Schools is restructuring its human resources department after a third-party investigation found leadership at Riverview High School and district investigators mishandled complaints of cheating, sexual harassment and misuse of school resources.

The April report concluded the district failed to properly handle three separate complaints: one involving a Spanish teacher in the school’s prestigious International Baccalaureate program allegedly helping students cheat on oral exams; another involving the IB program director allegedly profiting from a personal business using campus resources; and a third involving a teacher allegedly behaving inappropriately with female students.

In each case, the report by consulting firm Hultman + Joshi pointed to a broader culture of fear and mistrust — noting that in some instances, staff who filed complaints were subsequently investigated themselves — leaving students and staff afraid to speak up for fear of retaliation. 

The Sarasota-Bradenton real estate market has seen a dramatic pullback in vacation and second-home sales, suggesting the pandemic-era buying spree is over and consumers are holding off on big-ticket discretionary purchases.

What was once a “feeding frenzy” of out-of-state buyers snatching up second homes or vacation properties has slowed due to higher mortgage rates, soaring insurance costs and growing uncertainty about the broader economy, economists and some local Realtors told Suncoast Searchlight. 

Local officials say an effort by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature to cut property taxes could be a knockout punch amid efforts by the state to erode home rule, strip power away from local governments and shift crucial community decisions up to Tallahassee.

By advancing a plan to slash property taxes on main residences, the state would strip away the primary funding source for local governments – forcing them to compete for earmarks in the state capital– and end decades of local decision-making on issues ranging from parks to new jails.

Suncoast Searchlight spoke with eight mayors, county commissioners, and policy experts across Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties; nearly all said the showdown over property taxes is the clearest example yet of the state asserting power over local governments. They worry the ramifications will be devastating for years to come.

Sarasota County’s attempt to stop thousands of apartments from being built in rural communities is now facing the legal challenge the county attorney warned was likely all along.

Two developers and a church have sued the county after commissioners voted in April to block six of the seven projects proposed under Florida’s controversial Live Local Act, setting up a court battle that could determine whether local governments have the power to keep the state’s affordable-housing law from reshaping agricultural and open-use land.

The lawsuits come amid a rush of new Live Local applications before a July 1 deadline, after which new state restrictions will make it more difficult to build apartment complexes on rural land. The new applications — including one by D.R. Horton to build near Celery Fields  — would add more than 2,300 apartments and push the number of units caught in the dispute past 5,000 rentals.

D.R. Horton is currently involved in a separate lawsuit with Sarasota County to build the project.

For years, growth has dominated politics in Sarasota County.

Residents have packed commission meetings to oppose condo towers, subdivisions and hotels. Candidates routinely campaign on promises to protect neighborhoods and rein in development. And developers have become power brokers in local elections.

Once again, that dynamic is shaping one of the county’s two commission races.

Republican incumbent Mark Smith faces challenger Kristina Sargent in the District 2 Sarasota County Commission race, a contest to represent the county’s most politically moderate district. Both candidates say they support responsible growth. Both have criticized county spending and infrastructure shortcomings. And both have faced questions about campaign support from development interests.

The race comes as Sarasota County confronts mounting concerns about traffic, flooding, infrastructure and property taxes — issues many residents tie to years of rapid growth. 

The last Democrat to win a seat on the Sarasota County Commission was a man named Bill Carey in 1966, when gasoline was 30 cents a gallon and “Last Train to Clarksville” by The Monkees topped the charts.

Since then, Democrats have been so marginalized in county commission politics that the real contests are typically the August Republican primaries, which draw the money, attention and turnout.

But with President Donald Trump’s declining approval ratings amid an unpopular war in Iran, skyrocketing gas prices and mounting economic anxiety, national polling shows a favorable political environment for Democrats in 2026. That could extend all the way down-ballot to a county commission race. This year, the District 2 seat, viewed as Democrats’ best chance at breaking the streak, is back on the ballot.

The only problem is that no serious Democratic candidates are running in the race.

If approved by the Legislature this week and then voters as a ballot amendment in November, the plan would cost Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties together more than $380 million over the next two years alone — with no clear way to replace the revenue that funds core services. 

During a statewide call Monday morning, the Florida Association of Counties, which represents all 67 Florida counties, scrambled for answers on how basic government services would go on, saying the overhaul strips away local decisions and could force unprecedented budget shortfalls. 

Cultural and political division in Florida and across the country has spread beyond heated arguments on social media and around Thanksgiving tables.

Since Donald Trump took office in January 2025, federal funding policies based on culture-war debates have created uncertainty around grants, contracts and other kinds of government support that charitable organizations rely on to provide food, housing, and other critical services.

In November, an extended federal shutdown caused by partisan debates about how funding should be used led to millions of people losing food stamp benefits, and turning to an already overwhelmed nonprofit food system for support. 

The fate of a more than century-old downtown Sarasota building could be headed to court following a last-ditch effort from a preservation group trying to stop it from being razed for luxury condos.

Members of the Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation said city officials sidestepped the public review process typically required before potentially historic structures can be demolished. The U.S. Garage building should have undergone a formal historic review after developers sought demolition permits tied to plans for two luxury high-rise towers downtown, Alliance members said.

After more than a decade, Nathan Benderson Park is moving forward with plans for a long-discussed boathouse project, with construction bids already out and a contractor expected to be selected in June.

While Sarasota County has already committed $20 million toward the project, the conservancy overseeing the effort has yet to raise any of the tens of millions of dollars in private donations still needed to build it.

Critics say the proposal reflects a familiar pattern at Nathan Benderson Park: ambitious expansion plans backed in part by taxpayer dollars but heavily dependent on private fundraising that has yet to materialize.