Carrie SeidmanSarasota Herald-TribuneLast year, when Siesta Key resident and community activist Lourdes Ramirez prevailed in lawsuits against Sarasota County for approving the development of several high-density hotels on Siesta Key, community members long used to losing out to the money and megalomania of local developers, rejoiced. (Even back in the ‘80s, the plan noted that “development on Siesta Key has strained or exceeded the ability of many natural and man-made systems to support the existing human population living on Siesta Key. But, as we’ve come to see time and again, developers in Sarasota County don’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Those who don’t live on Siesta Key – or, like me, avoid going there despite its charms, due to the previously mentioned obstacles – may think this has nothing to do with them. Because their passage would not just allow the developer to build a megahotel in the middle of Siesta Key Village.
