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.

To date (4pm Friday April 17), the least estimate, an educated guess really, I could obtain for City Commissioner Susan Chapman’s legal fees in her battle against Government in the Sunshine is right around (probably more, not less, given the billables clock tic-toc hourly) $200,000. Two hundred thousand dollars. My my my. 

Years ago, I took the first time homebuyers workshop. We were given the task of adding up all the incidental bits of money we spent each day on items like $3 coffees and then multiplying that amount out over a year. The idea being, of course, to get us focused on how not spending money on inessentials would affect our ability to achieve our goals. $200,000 buys a lot of coffee, or the down payment on 25 affordable homes for first-time homebuyers.

Or how bout this $200,000 investment in our City’s goals: a one-bedroom apartment at $800 a month. That’s 250 months or five units of housing for four years, three for two years, 20 units for one year.

And then, there’s this: entry Level 1 pay for a Sarasota police officer is $38,042. Level 4 is  $47,179.  $200,000 equals out to roughly four, maybe five, officers for one year or one officer for five years. 

You know where I’m headed with this. It’s not about $3 coffee, though that $1,000 saved per year could pay one year’s property tax on 200 Habitat-built homes for families. And with all the talk swirling around about Housing First, those 16 units of rental housing are nothing to sneeze at either. Hiring more police officers ought to be high up on the top of our list for how we might could better spend $200,000.

So, how is it then that appointed City Commissioners Eileen Normile and Stan Zimmerman can claim all smiley faced and innocent on their mail pieces to be FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE when their very first act as policymakers was to make and second each others’ motions to reinstate the payment of Susan Chapman’s legal fees on a lawsuit that could have been settled in a twinkling for $500 paid to charity with a $500 match from the opposing attorney to the same charity? You tell me.

As children scuffling with one another in the schoolyard and hauled off to the principal’s office, we learned the hard way that being choosy about our battles was much preferred to what puffing up to every slight might cost our behinds. In the case of Susan Chapman’s battle with the Sunshine Law—a battle she will not win—the behinds that will suffer will be ours—not hers, ours.

There’s one more thing. My last column spoke to our City government’s failings on the North Trail. At the NTRP forum I attended and later wrote about, the candidates were asked to support city funding of $50,000 to pay for the second phase survey/study ARTspace  (please Google them) would require prior to committing their own resources to building artist housing—quite possibly on the Trail. Appointed Commissioner Normile told the North Trail folks the City couldn’t afford to help.  Perhaps, she suggested, a philanthropic organization would be their best bet. Really Eileen! And with a straight face! 

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.