Manasota Regional Neighborhoods Summit
Saturday April 12, 2008
8 am - 11:30am
Manatee Community College
Lakewood Ranch
7131 Professional Parkway East
Sarasota, FL 34240
Every neighborhood has its own unique characteristics, those things that make it a special community where you can raise a family. While neighborhoods can differ in many ways including size, demographics, amenities, infrastructure, etc., the common denominator is that each contains residents who care about what goes on in their neighborhood. The Manasota Regional Neighborhoods Summit will show residents of vastly different neighborhoods how they can combine their resources, strengths and abilities to achieve a common goal; to make their neighborhood a better place to live.
Keynote Speaker:
Matt Leighninger is the Executive director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, an umbrella group that includes the major organizations in the field of deliberation and citizen involvement. Over the last twelve years, Matt has worked with Citizen Involvement efforts in over 100 communities, in 40 states and two Canadian provinces; roughly 25,000 people have taken part in those projects. Most of this work was supported by Everyday Democracy (formerly the Study Circles Resources Center), of which he is a Senior Associate. Mr. Leighninger has also been a consultant to the National League of Cities, NeighborWorks America, Center for Disease Control, and the League of Women Voters. His first Book, The Next Form of Democracy; How Expert Rule is Giving Way to Shared Governance – and Why Politics Will Never Be the Same, was released in 2006 by Vanderbilt University Press.
Aerial View from SMH
It is great to see the City from up high. We really have excellent tree cover (once you get past the businesses on US41
Sarasota Memorial Hospital Sounds ______?
Sarasota Memorial Hospital has been rebuilding its campus (our campus that is) since I have lived here. The new parking garage and emergency center are pretty big -- but sort of in scale for where they are. They have improved the look of the area.
The Hospital now is going to build another doctors office tower and move much of there emergency / AC / noisy equipment to west of one of the parking garages. Best I can tell it is about a block and a half from the nearest house.
I rode my bike all over the campus to figure it out and I really didn't hear the sound test that was running -- a bus was running about a block away it was much louder -- also the traffic on Osprey is pretty constant... this was on Saturday morning. Maybe at night it is a "humming" -- I wouldn't like a new noise if I heard it.
It is good that the neighborhoods and the hospital are working on a "Service Level Agreement" that the noise will not be more than expected.
Best of all I got great views from the top of the parking garage...
Nice Cool Lake in the Park
Riding my bike this morning it was nice to watch the people and birds around the lake at my neighborhood park..
