SRQ Daily Columnist Diana Hamilton, after living 35 years in Sarasota, labels herself a pragmatic optimist with radical humorist tendencies and a new found resistance to ice cream.

What Beats? (People Places Politics - the Heart of the City), has been my column to write twice monthly for two years. That’s 42 columns or 25,000 words and in the stringing together of those words into stories I’ve always done my best to be true to my promise to cherish the beating heart of this city and to respect, in the words of Charles Kuralt “the raucous give and take of the American democracy."

I generally begin writing at 4am on Friday and rarely finish much before my 5pm deadline. I wish it could be easier for me, but it never is, and it doesn’t help I’m the world’s worst typist.

My sweet Mom, whose own flying fingers kept us fed and shod, warned me, “Diana,” she said, “you need to learn to type so you’ll have something to fall back on.” My hard-headed, smarty pants reply, “ Mom I don’t intend to fall back.” And despite the toll it sometimes takes on my not so hard heart, its that same hard headed refusal to fall back that keeps me doing hunt and peck at 4am and hoping for the best in the face of the worst.

On Nov. 18, two newly vacated City Commission seats will be filled, not by a vote of the people, but by a majority vote of two of the three remaining Commissioners. What will come from this has been much debated with the most prominent concerns being who will take those seats, and how much damage a homogenous Commission majority might do in four months.

Personally I don’t care who gets selected on November 18, and as to damage, it’s hard to say. Maybe they’ll actually do some good, or perhaps, as some predict, we’ll have a City Commission that may get along too well, and in getting along, go along with some things we won’t like.

As I said, it just doesn’t matter—what we can’t change, we endure.  But what does matter, and what anyone looking for real change for the better in Sarasota should be asking today and not four months from now—is how do we locate and entice three knowledgeable, progressive minded candidates to run in March for the three District seats, and how do we help them win?

And speaking of the raucous give and take …

Mr. Frank Brenner last week wrote a windy letter criticizing my Oct. 18 piece describing Commissioner Susan Chapman’s difficulties with Florida’s Sunshine Law. Mr. Brenner has taken offense to my writing before, lampooning my Southern way of speaking and progressive train of thought, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that at first reading his letter stung, but by the third time through I mostly just wished he’d learn the meaning of succinct.

Sarasota has been my home for 35 years. I’ve witnessed sacred parts of her built history bulldozed, her character squandered piecemeal on the alter of good enough and something’s better than nothing, but her great heart beats on, and until mine stops I’ll keeping writing about it. 

SRQ Daily Columnist Diana Hamilton, after living 35 years in Sarasota, labels herself a pragmatic optimist with radical humorist tendencies and a new found resistance to ice cream.