Withdraw from race over Proud Boys tie

I spent more than two decades of my professional life fighting hatred and antisemitism in my former role as CEO of the Jewish Federation of Sarasota-Manatee. So when I read that Robyn Marinelli, a candidate for the Sarasota County School Board, is willingly accepting support from the Proud Boys, I cannot adequately express my horror, disgust and fear (“Sarasota Proud Boys activist helping host School Board candidate campaign event,” June 15).

Marinelli claims she did not know of the association. She does now.

Simply put, the Proud Boys are a hate group. They have actively called for violence and perpetuated conflict.  They have disrupted School Board meetings and protested outside the homes of School Board members, threatening them with bodily harm.

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They continue to create a safety risk to our community, our School Board members and, most importantly, our children.  

The last thing we need on our School Board is a Proud Boys-endorsed candidate. I can only imagine what the future will hold for our community if this comes to pass. 

There is only one thing that can right this wrong at this moment. I call for Robyn Marinelli to withdraw from the race before the situation gets too toxic to control – and before our children get caught in the crossfire.

Selby Gardens continues its “good-neighbor outreach” by starting construction on its garage between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. 

This means cement trucks pulling up and unloading, a giant concrete pump sucking concrete mix at a decibel level that rattles windows and walls, continuous backup alarms and workers banging away. 

Fortunately, the workers are required to wear ear protection to prevent hearing loss.

City code requires that construction begin after 6 a.m. weekdays (and the loading and unloading of construction materials after 7 a.m.). 

So, I called Code Enforcement to find out what was going on. I was told that Selby found it “inconvenient” to adhere to code because trucks would have to negotiate rush-hour traffic (this, of course, is off-season “rush hour” between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m.). 

I’m not sure what route trucks are taking after 7 a.m., because they’re still arriving.

It’s encouraging that “Free Florida” has finally arrived in Sarasota – now that it’s official policy that you can simply ignore laws that you find to be an inconvenience. 

Ziegler wrongly criticized in letter

It was disappointing to see the author of a June 17 letter resort to wildly misrepresenting what a panelist didn’t actually say during a June 2 Tiger Bay Club meeting in order to criticize her.

I moderated that discussion, which involved candidates for the Sarasota County School Board. During that discussion, School Board Member Bridget Ziegler never said that she placed her child into private school because School Board members doxxed that child, as the letter writer wrongly claimed.

During the discussion, Ziegler did criticize others for publicly sharing where her children attend school. However, she never stated or implied that such activity was the reason for her choice of schools.

The author then used this erroneous claim and juxtaposed it to a Fox News segment including Ziegler, which itself requires layers of loose inference and implication to validate the letter writer's narrative – and to reach the lazily constructed argument that Ziegler changes her story to get votes.

If the author is serious about saving Sarasota, perhaps the letter writer should start by sparing the community from such gross misrepresentations.

Republican flip-flops on empowering parents

How absurdly ironic to read about state Rep. Anthony Sabatini urging the governor to convene a special session to pass a bill making it a felony for parents to take their children to a drag show for some family fun. Parents could also lose their parental rights.

The Republican from Howey-in-the-Hills called them “sick parents,” citing “Pride on the Block: Drag Show for Kids,” in West Palm Beach.

By all accounts, the third annual street party June 5 included drag performances, crafts, musical performances and Drag Story Time for kids, a popular event around the country.

Our reactionary state leadership is big on arguing that “parental rights” should exclusively drive our decisions about how and what children should be exposed to. And yet Sabatini believes he knows better, along with too many of his colleagues.

Sabatini should follow his party's advice and leave these decisions to the parents. You can’t claim to empower parents and then threaten legal action when they make choices you don’t like.