Matt Walsh

2 days ago | yourobserver.com | Matt Walsh

Most of us don’t ever really know how much of a difference we make in our lifetimes. For sure, we don’t get to see how many people turn out for our funeral or a celebration of life, a measure of our effects. Charles “Charlie” Stottlemyer — the modest, most-likable giant of Sarasota — likely would have blushed and perhaps  over-whelmed April 11 at First Presbyterian Church in Sarasota. He made a huge difference.

1 week ago | yourobserver.com | Matt Walsh

Which is the greater: Christmas, the birth of Jesus Christ, or Easter, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? For Christians in the United States, the likely answer in Man-on-the-Street interviews with the secular press would be Christmas. Not because of Christ’s birth, mind you, but because of how we have morphed the gift-giving story of St. Nicholas in 280 A.D. into Santa Claus and ultimately into the biggest, commercial retail extravaganza of the year for the American economy.

2 weeks ago | yourobserver.com | Eric Garwood |Matt Walsh

Sarasota County Commissioners on Wednesday agreed in a split vote to terms of a proposed agreement that would allow developer Hi Hat Ranch access through county-owned land to Bee Ridge Road in return for about $15 million in road improvements and more than $3 million in right-of-way elsewhere along Fruitville Road. The County Commission approved the agreement 3-2 in a workshop at the Sarasota County Administration Center, with commissioners Tom Knight and Joe Nuender dissenting.

3 weeks ago | yourobserver.com | Matt Walsh

Ah, yes, the never-ending debate: What to do about New College of Florida and the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee. And now we have two more components — the Ringling Museum of Art and its boss, Florida State University. But don’t ask anyone inside these institutions what’s going on. They won’t tell you a thing. (We’ve asked.) Don’t ask anyone here in Sarasota and Manatee outside of the institutions — like, say, people who would be affected. They don’t know anything.

3 weeks ago | yourobserver.com | Matt Walsh

The late Guy Paschal, the Longboat Key civic leader who most led the effort for the town to incorporate in 1955, is probably turning in his grave. This is not the Longboat Key he promised when he was lobbying town residents to incorporate. At that time, many Longboat Key citizens were quite agitated with the way Sarasota County government was treating the island.