LONGBOAT
Observer Longboat Key’s weekly newspaper since 1978
Riding to remember.
PAGE 16
YOU. YOUR NEIGHBORS. YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
VOLUME 42, NO. 51
FREE
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MEET THE CANDIDATES
THURSDAY, JULY 30, 2020
YOUR TOWN
Q&As in races for Sarasota School Board and Manatee County Commission. PAGES 8-13
Nat Kaemmerer
Ty and Jasmine Connor
SARASOTA SCHOOL BOARD DISTRICT 2
SARASOTA SCHOOL BOARD DISTRICT 3
MANATEE COUNTY COMMISSION
DISTRICT 7
No venue, no problem When Ty and Jasmine Connor couldn’t find a wedding venue in Florida in the middle of a pandemic, Ty Connor called up Mark Meador of Casa Del Mar, whom he has known for years, to see if he had any leads. Just come on down, Meador told him. He supplied the venue, reception area and honeymoon suite. The Connors, from Hillsborough County, married July 14 on the beach at Casa Del Mar, just steps from where Ty took his first steps by Building A and where he worked as a cabana boy in his teen years. The wedding stayed small, with just their families present, underneath an arch built by Ty’s uncle and backed by an orange sunset.
Neighbors drive summer tourism
At a loss for words
Vacation visitors largely come from nearby this summer. PAGE 3 Town resort operators are seeing far more Florida residents.
Nat Kaemmerer
Few signs of sewage
Nothing to worry about Fall off in turtle nesting numbers simply a reflection of recent success, experts say. SEE PAGE 14
Nat Kaemmerer
Cyndi Seamon and Ann Tannen record turtle nest numbers.
Town testing of bay waters finds little evidence of effluent. SEE PAGE 4
If the twists and turns of Janet Evanovich’s 2011 novel, “Smokin’ Seventeen,” weren’t enough, Longboat Key Police have a conundrum of their own to solve. How did a copy of the book in the author’s long-running “Stephanie Plum” series come to be found by Officer Joel Ascencio in the middle of Gulf of Mexico Drive around 9:30 p.m. July 20? (Sorry, mystery fans, no clue if it was a dark and stormy night.) In keeping with police procedure, we weren’t allowed to photograph the evidence, but police said it’s safely sealed up at headquarters.
Turtle Tracks LONGBOAT July 19-25 2020 2019 Nests 68 68 False crawls 48 41 Year to date 2020 2019 Nests 1,088 1,298 False crawls 1,278 1,489 Source: Mote Marine Laboratory