S.W AND RICH HERMANSEN
Staff Writers
wine@lbknews.com
Economics does not have an agreed upon solution for problems of who pays taxes and who receives government benefits. Decisions about who receives benefits must balance the desire to provide a support system for those in need against investments in the infrastructure that supports important sources of tax revenues.
Wine Times usually stays in its food and beverage lane. We are making an exception here because the food and beverage sector of the St. Armand’s Circle business community is recovering from a disastrously destructive 2024 hurricane season and is asking for help in preventing similar destruction by weather events in the future. Sarasota County has begun receiving some $210 million in federal funds for recovery from Hurricanes Helene and Milton improvements in flood and wind damage control during hurricanes and other extreme weather events. The City of Sarasota has requested that Sarasota County assign $25 million to implement an extreme weather Resilience Plan for St. Armand’s Circle. The Sarasota County commissioners will have to decide during mid-December 2025 whether to move ahead on the plan.
We recognize two concerns about the St. Armand’s Circle Resilience Plan. Why should disaster relief funding go even indirectly to residences and businesses in a location that would not in any sense qualify as one in economic distress? Why would not the residents and business owners in St. Armand’s Circle step up and pay the costs of rebuilding St. Armand’s Circle?
The case for Sarasota County $25 million funding of the St. Armand’s Circle Resilience Plan begins with the second of the aforementioned concerns. In fact, residents and business operators have poured millions of their own dollars into mucking out sea water, drying out, tearing out walls, rebuilding more resilient interiors and exteriors, and hauling off ruined contents and merchandize to the dump. In many locations, owners had to tear down residence and commercial buildings and offer empty lots for sale at prices equal to or less than their values as estimated by the County property appraisers. Residents and Businesses have funded a remarkable recovery of St. Armand’s Circle despite uncertainties about tropical weather and the appeal of a battered island to tourists.
The first of the two concerns has particular salience in an ”America (Me) First” era. No doubt the federal government has left numerous gaps in support for those in need. No doubt also that funds earmarked for hurricane relief will find their way to hurricane relief programs more than a year after the damage done by the hurricanes.
The St. Armand’s Circle Resilience Plan looks beyond relief for the hurricane damage more than a year ago and asks for funding for measures that will help St. Armand’s Circle avoid another round of neglect by Sarasota County. Residents and business recall the multiple failures of pumps installed by the County to help drain flood waters quickly from the Circle, the debris and mulch that blocked the storm sewers, and the parking lot and roadway channels that the County approved and maintained for years leading up to the storm surge of Hurricane Helene when the eye of that storm sat eighty miles away from the Circle. The aftermath of that storm blocked the paths to Lido Key to the south and Longboat Key to the North, and laid waste to one of the major economic engines of the West Coast of Florida. The City and County of Sarasota lost many millions in sales taxes, business taxes, and parking fees. Under cover provided by the State Legislature, Sarasota County appraisers ignored damages to anything outside buildings in their revised appraisals of property values.
The City of Sarasota and St. Armand’s Circle deserve a wholehearted effort by Sarasota County to live up to the flood control responsibilities that it has ignored for the past few decades. The flood risks have intensified not diminished since Helene. The sales and property taxes and parking fees from the Circle, Lido Key, and Long Boat Key that have supported Sarasota County could disappear in a storm surge. In light of the more critical storm surge concerns, we have not mentioned the threats to the recovering food and beverage sector of the Circle, but that too.
Disclaimer: the writers own a residence around St. Armand’s Circle and have a vested interest in the Resilience Plan.
S.W. Hermansen has used his expertise in econometrics, data science and epidemiology to help develop research databases for the Pentagon, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Agriculture, and Health Resources and Services. He has visited premier vineyards and taste wines from major appellations in California, Oregon, New York State, and internationally from Tuscany and the Piedmont in Italy, the Ribera del Duero in Spain, the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale in Australia, and the Otego Valley in New Zealand. Currently he splits time between residences in Chevy Chase, Maryland and St. Armand’s Circle in Florida.
Rich Hermansen selected has first wine list for a restaurant shortly after graduating from college with a degree in Mathematics. He has extensive service and management experience in the food and wine industry. Family and friends rate him as their favorite chef, bartender, and wine steward. He lives in Severna Park, Maryland.
