Anna Maria Public Records Furor Churns On
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VOLUME 18, NO. 23 APRIL 14, 2010 FREE The Best News on Anna Maria Island Since 1992 www.islander.org Small crafts take center stage at Season ‘wonderful’ for Island retailers Cortez festival By Rick Catlin April 16-18. Islander Reporter Anna Maria Island retailers are echo- ing the sentiments of their accommodation counterparts: This has been one of the best Skimming seasons in recent memory. And the season didn’t end with Easter. the news … “Absolutely wonderful,” said Signa Island Bouziane of Mister Roberts Resortwear in happenings the S&S Plaza in Holmes Beach. “And there’s still a lot of people here. I Community think we have some more colleges on Easter announcements, break. The past three months have been very community news. busy, and this is the best season in the last Pages 10-13 few years,” she continued. No Easter break Bouziane welcomed the influx of visi- Even after Easter, beachgoers flocked to Anna Maria Island as evidenced by this scene at tors the past three months, as the February- the Manatee Public Beach April 7. It’s been one of the best winter seasons in recent years, April period is the time many retailers have according to many Island accommodation and store owners. Islander Photo: Rick Catlin to do well to offset the slow periods in the Scenic highway summer and fall. visitors to lighten after mid-April as winter business. extension on hold. “We used to have a six-month season, residents and visitors head north. “I don’t know what the figures are going Page 2 but now it’s three months, so we’re really At the Sterling Anvil jewelry store on to show, but we’ve been very busy since pleased with all the traffic,” she said. Marina Drive in Holmes Beach, co-owner March. I think it’s been a great season. Just Bradenton Beach Bouziane said she expected the flow of Roxanne Robinson also was pleased with PLEASE SEE TOURISM, NEXT paGE seeks role in bridge design. Page 3 Regatta De Soto Meetings: The gov- Daughtrey ernment calendar. Elementary Page 3 School races Astheworld Terns refine their strokes in the bottle boat regatta held April 10 along I’ll have the pancakes the Palma Sola Causeway. The Astheworld Terns by event was part Joe Bird. Page 6 of the De Soto Heritage Anna Maria officials Festival. ponder parking solu- Islander tions. Page 8 Photo: Lisa Neff Anna Maria public records furor churns on Committee recom- By Rick Catlin request two weeks ago as part of his investiga- and warned that litigation about public records mends UPS for Islander Reporter tion into e-mails that pertain to city business is coming. He said city officials should save beach concessions. The lines drawn in Anna Maria over to and from Stoltzfus. and make public all e-mails that might be con- Page 9 public records grew substantially last week, Barfield alleged that Wall, Hunt and sidered public record. and city attorney Jim Dye cautioned that Miller were operating a “shadow govern- “As we know, some kind of litigation regard- more legal action should be expected. ment” with Stoltzfus and may have e-mails ing public records is imminent,” wrote Dye. A writ filed April 8 by two lawyers for showing they conducted official city busi- “I’ve been told the city will not be named public records expert Michael Barfield of ness “off the radar.” Barfield also has alleged as a party. Still, please, let the city officials, Pelican rescuers Sarasota on behalf of Pine Avenue Restora- Stoltzfus may have used Wall, Hunt, Miller both elected and volunteers, know that they report spike in inju- tion LLC asked the court to order the com- and his wife, Cathy, as conduits to send and are not to delete public records from their per- ries. Page 18 puter hard drives of Commissioner Harry receive information to other elected and sonal computers. Stoltzfus and planning and zoning board appointed city officials. “I’m afraid for right now this instruc- member Jim Conoly be surrendered for Efforts to reach Hunt, Miller and Cathy tion needs to include those e-mails they may Stoltzfus were unsuccessful, but Wall said she receive on their personal computers that are Page 19 inspection. At the same time, Anna Maria residents has retained Tampa attorney Richard Harrison also copied to the city e-mail system. Robin Wall, Nicky of the law firm of Alan Dell, P.A. She directed For more on the Stoltzfus-Conoly records Hunt, former Commis- all further inquiries to Harrison. request, the parking issue and the subsequent What to do, where to go, sioner Duke Miller and Calls and e-mails placed to Harrison were actions, see pages 4 and 8. Court documents what to see. Page 22 Cathy Stoltzfus, wife of not returned. are online at www.islander.org. Harry Stoltzfus, have Meanwhile, Dye sent a memo April 7 to • Conoly’s discarded hard-drive. Fast tides spark spring yet to respond to an city clerk Alice Baird for distribution to all • Details on the writ filing. fishing. Page 25 official records request elected and appointed city officials and city • Commissioner Chuck Webb’s take. from Barfield. staff reminding them of their duties under • Parking safety revisions. Stoltzfus Barfield made his Florida’s Sunshine and public records laws • PAR seeks to quell rumors. 2 n APRIL 14, 2010 n THE ISLANDER AMI TOURISM CONTINUED FROM paGE 1 Scenic highway extension on hold look at all the traffic on the roads,” she said. By Nick Walter for grants other than through FDOT,” she said. Robinson found the steady stream of visitors to Islander Reporter A letter from the DOT to district scenic highway the Island after Easter encouraging, and a sign of a Because the Florida Department of Transporta- coordinators stated, “The department believes it can good April for Island retailers. tion has put a hold on recognizing new or existing better serve the current collection of Florida Scenic “We haven’t seen a slow-down in traffic even scenic highways, the Palma Sola Scenic Highway Highways by adjusting the current program focus and after Easter. I’m hoping the season keeps going for a won’t be extended to the Manatee Public Beach or on realigning its resources to providing more training, few more weeks,” she said. East Bay Drive to the Bradenton Beach boundary. and supporting the needs of existing Corridor Man- Diane Havelka of Beach Bums Island Attitudes, a “I think the idea is we have applied for these agement Entities. In addition, the National Scenic gift shop with kayak, golf cart and bicycle rentals in extensions and the applications are frozen, but at Byways Program would like all the state programs to Anna Maria, said the season has been great and she some point we hope they’ll be unfrozen and we can focus more on the sustainability of byway organiza- has yet to see a slowdown. go ahead and make those extensions formal,” said tion.” “We’re doing real well right now. In fact, we’re Molly McCartney, chair of the Palma Sola Scenic Sarasota/Manatee Metropolitan Planning Orga- so busy, I don’t have time to talk right now,” she said Highway Committee. “That doesn’t mean we can’t nization planning manager Bob Herrington said that apologetically. start thinking about what we might do if it became massive cuts in transportation programs would impact For the Island’s restaurant industry, the season formal at some point.” a lot of prospective projects. has been a mixed bag. McCartney said extensions could have led to “It could be that basically everybody’s tightening Restaurants that specialize in outdoor dining more DOT funding for those areas. “But we can apply their belt,” Herrington said. were hurt by the cold weather from January through early March, but indoor dining for some exceeded expectations. Looking “Our outdoor dining took a hit with the cold east toward weather,” said Dave Russell of Rotten Ralph’s, which the Palma has restaurants in Anna Maria and on the Historic Sola Scenic Bridge Street Pier. Highway “But now that the weather has improved, we’re from the doing great. The season looks like it’s going to last Kingfish through April and we’ll be OK,” he said. Boat Ramp. The cold weather also affected the Island’s Islander charter fishing business, but Capt. Mark Howard Photo: of Sumotime Charters said the last few weeks have Nick Walter “been really good.” So good that his total numbers for this year are now ahead of last year’s pace at this time. Laura Shely of Tide and Moon Jewelry in the AMI Plaza in Holmes Beach, concurred that April should be a good month. She had a considerable amount of business after Easter weekend, which surprised her. “I thought it might slow down, but it didn’t. I think we’ve got one more week of a lot of visitors, then it will slowly come back to normal,” she said. $29.95 SQFT 3CM GRANITE Template, fabrication & installation 45 sqft minimum OFFER GOOD WHILE SUPPLIES LAST Visit our Showroom at 601 6th Avenue West, Downtown Bradenton Open Mon-Fri 8am-5pm • Sat. By Appointment Only 941-747-5000 MARBLE • GRANITE • ONYX • TRAVERTINE • QUARTZ COUNTERTOPS • FLOORING • BACKSPLASH • QUALITY INSTALLATION THE ISLANDER n APRIL 14, 2010 n 3 BB group seeks role in bridge design Meetings By Lisa Neff Chiles said a new bridge should be as associated Anna Maria City Islander Reporter with the Island as the Sunshine Skyway Bridge is Bradenton Beach’s ScenicWAVES committee with Tampa Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge is with • April 19, 10:30 a.m., capital improvements is seeking a role in the process to replace the Anna San Francisco.