I came to Sarasota as a teenager in 1970 and my AARP card says I have been a member for six years now. I’ve lived here two thirds of my life. I met my wife in Sarasota and our son was born in Sarasota Memorial Hospital. One way or another I have experienced all the stages of life in Sarasota.

I’ve lived in both the City of Sarasota and the unincorporated county. My wife and I have mapped all the habitats of the county (twice), I’ve walked the length of all the beaches in Sarasota and Manatee counties, canoed the length of all the bays as well as the Myakka River from Myakka City to Charlotte Harbor. I’ve contributed to two reports on North Port, some of the only history written about the city.

Now, after three decades of civic engagement in southwest Florida, I’m running for a seat on the Sarasota County Commission, representing District One. ¹

In addition to living here I’ve been involved in the life of the Sarasota community for three decades. I was one of the youngest invited participants to the Sarasota 2000 American Assembly (held in 1978), I served six years on the New College Alumnae/I Association Board (three as Chair), I was appointed to the Emma E. Booker Elementary School Student-Parent Management Team, appointed to SCOPE (where I served as both Board Chair and co-Chair of Aging: the Possibilities), I was elected to the Board Indian Beach Sapphire Shores (Neighborhood) Association Board, and last year I was recruited by the Sarasota County Commission to serve on the Sarasota County Citizen Oversight Committee on Voting Systems (and elected Chair).

This diverse record of volunteer service to the community would be noteworthy on its own, but it is largely unknown to many because these contributions have been overshadowed by my various roles on behalf of the local and regional environment.

My father instilled in me a lifelong interest in the natural world, and my mother was an active volunteer, working in the school library, the Garden Club and with the AAUW. As a result I guess it seems obvious in retrospect that service on behalf of the environment would become a part of my character.

I can actually trace my concern about the environment back to age 12, when I read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring when it was first serialized in the New Yorker. When I got to New College I started with an Environmental Biology course when I first arrived and have been learning ever since. After graduating with what may have been the first Environmental Studies area of concentration (similar to a major) I left Florida briefly only to return in late 1975 to start an environmental consulting partnership with Julie Morris. The next few years were a fantastic education as we took a wide variety of jobs: interviewing old timers on the Peace River, guiding people working on National Geographic stories, working on several different county comprehensive plans, searching for endangered cactus in coastal hammocks, etc.

With a backdrop of environmental consulting in the region, three significant new directions emerged in the late 70s: Working at New College, the Sierra Club and civic engagement.

In the late 70’s we started collaborating with New College Biology Professor John Morrill to offer classes like Our Changing Local Environments and Botany. In 1981 we were hired to coordinate the Environmental Studies Program, a staff position that enabled us to work with faculty to offer classes explicitly linked to the environment.  That has continued to this day (now I’m the director of the Environmental Studies Program.)

In 1977 we were approached by local members of the Sierra Club and asked to get involved. Since then my wife and I have held a wide variety of volunteer roles with the club. I have been most active at the local and national levels, and Julie at the state and Gulf Coast regional levels. I served on the local executive committee for a quarter century, but about five years ago cut back on local involvement to devote more time to land protection and other commitments.

Those other commitments included civic responsibilities only tangentially related to the environment. These include being elected to the Board  of the Indian Beach Sapphire Shores (Neighborhood) Association Board, and last year I was honored to be recruited by the Sarasota County Commission to serve on the Sarasota County Citizen Oversight Committee on Voting Systems (and ultimately elected Chair by my peers).

I’ve been recruited to participate in several efforts to bring different community factions together to search for common ground. These include an informal effort by Bob Richardson, the “April 22nd Group” convened by the Sarasota Herald Tribune, the County’s Multi-Stakeholder Group (MSG) that explored many of the issues that were later addressed in 2050, and SCOPE (Sarasota County Openly Plans for Excellence) where I have served as both Board Chair and co-Chair of “Aging: the Possibilities”.

These efforts have contributed to my image as a bridge-builder – someone who can listen to all sides and generate possible solutions without getting lost in posturing . It sounds glamorous, but it comes at a cost because there is a certain amount of suspicion from both sides. Despite having one of the longest and strongest environmental records in the county and having worked diligently to protect over 30 square miles of environmentally sensitive lands in the county, I have been called the “developer’s favorite environmentalist”. And some developers no doubt think I have green skin and bark impressions on my nose from prolonged tree-hugging. That’s okay. People who know me and have worked with me know I will always be an environmentalist and will always be open to making Sarasota a better place, even if the environment has to take a hit now and then.

Let me be specific about these matters and not abstract and general. Part of my job at New College involves providing advice about how we manage the landscape. When plans emerge that do not consider the possible impact on trees, I argue forcefully to go back and do it right, protecting the trees. I even argue on behalf of dead trees on occasion. But when trees are considered from the outset and some needed improvement involves removing some, I’m okay with that. As one Sierra Club saying puts is “ Not blind opposition to progress, but opposition to blind progress.”

There is, obviously, a lot more to who I am. But I want to get this website up and running. I’ll add material later in the campaign, but in the meantime, check out my blog (address below), which should provide added insight about who I am and what I believe in.

http://jono08.blogspot.com/