Sarasota County

Alice Herman, Investigative and Watchdog Reporter for Suncoast Searchlight has been covering the story and shared details with WGCU's Marc Garber.

Two Sarasota County projects won 2026 Heritage Awards earlier this month. Given to individuals, organizations and buildings by the Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation, the Awards honor efforts to maintain pieces of local history.

Sarasota County Capital Projects has made temporary repairs to Manasota Key Road and the road is now open to traffic.

A 20-year-old Sarasota man has been indicted for possession of an unregistered firearm, a firearm with a removed serial number and receiving child sexual material. Lucas Alexander Temple faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison if convicted. Temple was previously arrested on a criminal complaint.

The Sarasota County Fire Department wants the community to have a safe holiday season by sharing safety tips and demonstrating the possible dangers of a dry tree and flammable holiday décor. Dried-out trees are a fire danger and should not be left in the home or garage or against the home outside. Decorations should be at least three feet away from heat sources.

As the federal government intensifies its immigration crackdown, the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office has emerged as one of the Suncoast’s most active partners with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In recent months, Sheriff Kurt Hoffman’s deputies have patrolled the Everglades immigration jail known as “Alligator Alcatraz” and shuttled immigrants between detention facilities in Florida, earning more than $280,000 in state funding for the work. Meanwhile, the number of ICE detainers — which keep people up to 48 hours past their release date for possible detention and deportation — have quadrupled this past year inside the already crowded county jail.

The same Suncoast lawmakers who voted earlier this year to let charter schools move into underused public campuses have stayed quiet as a Miami-based charter operator’s early push to occupy local schools set off confusion and concern among parents and educators.Mater Academy, one of Florida’s largest charter school networks, filed notices last week to co-locate inside five Sarasota and Manatee county schools — part of a broader wave of early filings across the state that districts say were submitted prematurely. According to officials, charter operators must wait until Nov. 11 to submit a notice.

Sarasota County is hosting a community cleanup day for South Venice on October 18 from 8 a.m. to noon. Residents are encouraged to throw out old household items and yard waste. Free dumpsters for residential customers of Sarasota County Neighborhood Services will be stationed at the South County Courthouse.

A burn ban went into effect Saturday morning for Sarasota County due to local drought conditions and an increased chance of fire hazards.Under Sarasota County’s burn ban ordinance (Sarasota County Code Section 58-2), burn bans automatically go into effect countywide and prohibit almost all open burning when the Keetch-Byram Drought Index (KBDI) meets or exceeds 500.

Marion County was riddled with storefront gambling dens — until it passed a local ordinance in 2021 that gave deputies more power to shut them down. Within months, the slot-machine parlors vanished.Sumter County saw similar results after adopting its own rules that same year. The 13 gambling businesses once scattered across the rural county are now gone, local officials said.Now Manatee County is preparing to follow their lead. Commissioners voted this week to move forward with a proposal modeled on those counties’ ordinances, hoping to replicate their success in wiping out illegal “arcades” that have long operated with little consequence.