Posted on February 26, 2025
SARASOTA, Fla. – Despite being almost three months removed from hurricane season, the recovery efforts are far from over.
“Our homes are still being worked on now and we’re four months after the last hurricane. People are displaced, lives are being disrupted,” said Sarasota County resident Edward MacKenzie.
His community was flooded during last year’s three major storms, and now he and his neighbors are pushing the county to take the necessary steps to minimize the threat of future flooding, starting with cleaning up Phillippi Creek.
“You see a lot of sand and silt and the creek is fairly plugged up,” MacKenzie said.
The Sarasota County Commission recognized the need to dredge major waterways at a meeting on Tuesday.
They came into the meeting with a proposal of $60 million to dredge Phillippi Creek, but reallocated $27 million to boost their spending to $75 million on dredging a host of waterways.
This funding is coming from the federal government and is being allocated with the help of citizen input.
MacKenzie is grateful the commission heard the calls for waterway infrastructure to be addressed, saying this is a good example of how local government should operate.
“They went out to the community and listened to people through four or five meetings, which is very important. The community reacted to those meetings, and that’s very important as well,” MacKenzie said.
This was just a first draft for how to use the federal assistance. It will now have a 30-day period for public comment, before coming back in front of the board and then being submitted to the federal government.
