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This story was edited for content on October 2, 2025. Architect Selma Goker Wilson gets giddy every time it pours at her Sarasota home. She watches with excitement as her labor of love — a rain garden she and her husband built themselves — is doing an effective job at diverting the heavy flow of water coming off their roof into a downspout and onto flowers and plants.“Working on it was very therapeutic, learning about all the plants, but seeing the water come out, we come out every time it rains, like ooh, how's it doing?” said Goker Wilson.She and husband Christopher Wilson, an architecture historian at Ringling College, find joy in adjusting stones and moving plants to increase the amount of stormwater that filters down into their yards instead of flowing onto their concrete street out front. They say it’s about being good stewards to the environment.

Ben Quartermaine has been selected as the county’s director of the newly structured Stormwater Department. Sarasota County leaders voted Tuesday to create a separate stormwater department — breaking it off from Public Works — just days after a joint investigation by Florida Trident and Suncoast Searchlight revealed systemic mismanagement ahead of catastrophic flooding from Tropical Storm Debby.The decision, which includes hiring a new department head, came during a tense budget workshop marked by blistering public criticism. Residents packed the small meeting chambers, demanding accountability from Public Works Director Spencer Anderson and County Administrator Jonathan Lewis for what they described as years of neglect and failed leadership.

Starting next school year, the State College of Florida will no longer offer college-level courses in Sarasota and Manatee county high schools. Instead,...

State leaders have agreed to acquire more than 5,000 acres of land in Sarasota County for conservation. Environmentalists have long had their eyes on...

Last month the Obama Administration sent a letter to school districts threatening to pull federal funding if they do not allow transgender students to...

Rates of homelessness around the country have generally been on the decline. Nationally, homelessness has gone down about 9% since 2007. Here in Florida,…

Florida Senator and Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio made a rare appearance in the Tampa Bay area today, speaking at a boat manufacturer...

The world-class musicians of the non-profit chamber music group Sarasota Musica Viva are in the midst of their third full season performing at venues in…

The Sarasota Sailing Squadron sits directly on Sarasota Bay. There are some 200 boats on trailers. Several boats not strapped down to the ground were…

A burn ban is now in effect for unregulated fires for all of Hendry County as dry weather conditions impact the area.Sarasota County also activated a burn ban as of Jan. 9 and Punta Gorda has activated a watering limitation.