SEPTEMBER 21, 2017
SARASOTA
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Rowing guide
Observer YOU. YOUR NEIGHBORS. YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
INSIDE
Welcome,
WORLD Mary Jones, single sculls competitor including U.S. lightweight Rowing Championships. The rowing community, son Park for the 2017 World glides into Nathan Bender
PARK NOT A PIT STOP
VOLUME 13, NO. 43
FREE
H O ME YOUR HOME + GARDEN SEPTEMBER 2017
CLASSIC VIEW
This Siesta survivor offers an ideal vacation location. PAGE 12
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Key figures built worldclass facility.
DON’T-MISS RACES
LOOK EASY?
A sampling of must-see events.
Try Ellen Tomek’s schedule.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2017 PAGE 6
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Storm troupers
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Your home and garden INSIDE
Sarasota’s Bill Wise dies at 92
YOUR TOWN Welcome to Florida In the days after Hurricane Irma, it wasn’t unusual for neighbors to welcome neighbors without power. It was unusual for a neighbor to welcome a neighbor ... without clothes. On the morning of Sept. 13, Melissa Tomasso awoke to just that. A woman, clothed solely with a hand towel, in her backyard. Tomasso’s guest had come to watch her brother’s home after Irma. She had arrived after midnight and took a dip in the pool. No swimsuit. And a locked door behind her. Naked, she knocked on the Tomassos’ front door, to no avail. But the side door was open to the garage, so she slipped in and fell asleep in the Tomassos’ convertible. “God bless her,” Tomasso said. In the morning, the woman grabbed a hand towel and found Tomasso. She welcomed the woman and arranged some essentials: a robe, breakfast, a locksmith. Tomasso said she was the perfect guest. She even returned the robe. “She was a little bright spot in some really dark days,” she said. “You gotta have something to laugh at.”
‘That love at first sight thing — that’s what it was,’ his wife says. BY ANNA BRUGMANN STAFF WRITER
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After the storm, plenty of people pitched in to make things right. PAGE 3
SEE PAGE 9 Courtesy photo
Divina Elan, second from left, Hershorin Schiff Community Day School’s admissions and business systems coordinator, is joined for a day of Irma clean up by Michel Mayer, Jacob Lirio, Gustavo Mayer, Alex Hryniewicz and Mila Meyer.
AS OF SEPT. 10 TOTAL NESTS: 2017 2016 Lido Beach 180 170 Siesta Key 634 450 Casey Key 1,864 2,053
Source: Mote Marine Laboratory
A+E
Change is on the horizon
TURTLE TRACKS
TOTAL FALSE CRAWLS: 2017 2016 Lido Beach 210 178 Siesta Key 649 1,326 Casey Key 3,124 3,243
ill Wise was known by many titles — the “most handsomest man” in Sarasota, every “Sarasota lady’s favorite dinner partner,” a real Southern gentleman. An active presence in Sarasota’s arts and philanthropic scene since he moved here in 1987 with his wife, Margaret, Wise died Sept. 12 at 92.
File photo
Parking Manager Mark Lyons said the city will work with the public as parking plans continue to develop.
Paid parking will come to downtown streets and garages in 2018. PAGE 5
The show goes on after the storm. INSIDE