An Important Message from the SEERD Board of Directors

Greetings SEERD members, Bee Ridge neighbors, and other interested followers.

The following message is to announce the start of a minimum annual membership contribution effective January 2026, explain why we are requesting this support from our neighbors, and to invite you to a meeting later this month for all of our SEERD followers.

First, allow us to reiterate a few points which may be helpful in understanding where we are, what we have learned and the challenges ahead.

1. Your donations and continued support do have a positive effect on the future of our neighborhood.

2. Recent efforts to withhold public information or silence public participation in local governance are bound to fail. Our access to public documents and citizen participation are protected under law and are rights of all Americans. While behavior to prohibit public involvement may be acceptable in failed states, efforts to limit our rights will be rigorously opposed.

3. Recall that SEERD and its president were targeted in a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) intended to discourage public participation, which was dismissed, and the plaintiffs were ordered to pay costs. This does nothing to foster an atmosphere of “Good Neighbors”, a phrase often wantonly bandied about in public hearings. Actions have consequences.

4. Although the Wheels of Justice move incredibly slowly, they still move often in

the right direction, whereby patience, resilience, and resources are necessary to fight the good fight.

Most of you are aware that our previous petition for a Writ of Certiorari against TCA was successful. Nonetheless, the school is still operating with the temporary modular classrooms that were found to be in violation of the County Building and Development Code and ordered removed by the 12th Circuit Court in February of 2025. Consequently, traffic volume, parking, and noise have risen to new and intolerable levels, creating a situation more dangerous than ever. The county, in its infinite wisdom, apparently has, in response, simply “closed the case” and removed SE1874 from its public-facing database of Zoning and Special Exceptions. This was based on what we believe to be its flawed interpretation of one of several new Florida state laws pre-empting a tradition of local self-governance. You just can’t make this stuff up.

We have not given up, and neither should you. In addition to the impacts of the school, we are considering the combined effects, and how to mitigate them, of several residential developments, other schools and intensive land uses that have recently come online, together with those soon to break ground to the east and south of the Bee Ridge neighborhood. Over the summer months, we have updated our strategy, with the assistance of our legal team and planning experts. This will better allow us to address the cumulative impacts of development from multiple sources now affecting us all and to take the appropriate actions to protect our interests.   

To answer questions from our neighbors about developments in and around Bee Ridge, listen to your concerns and share our plans for the new year, we are announcing a SEERD meeting on Monday, November 24th 6-7:30 pm at the Fruitville Branch Library, 100 Apex Road, Sarasota. One of the changes to be discussed relates to how we raise the necessary resources. Beginning January 2026, all but the most basic information about SEERD will be available only on a Members Only portion of the website. Membership will be subject to a $100 minimum annual contribution. 

We have thought long and hard about this decision. At the outset of our efforts to advocate on behalf of our neighborhood over two years ago, we decided that information should be available to anyone, regardless of their ability to donate. This necessitated a fundraising drive each time we needed to finance the costs of expert advice, legal counsel, court costs and countless other organizational tasks, often “donating” our own money to do so. As we took on more complex challenges, we agreed to underwrite the costs for professional services ourselves, in case there were not enough of you to answer the call for the donations we hoped would cover these services.

Although only a small percentage of our readers have actually donated over the years since our inception, owing to the generosity of a few, we have done remarkably well in terms of financing the initiatives we have undertaken to protect our neighborhood. As we have grown the number of readers we attract, we have also learned a great deal from like-minded citizen action groups and other not-for-profit organizations in both the County and across the state. As a result, we realized two things:

First, our county planners consider each new proposition/application on its own merits, but do not take into account the totality of its ramifications when viewed together. Each land use decision is short-sighted if it is not considered in conjunction with other plans that have been approved or may yet be approved, given their propensity to rezone or award Special Exceptions. The county is constantly trying to play catch-up with the decisions they make, resulting in our infrastructure being far behind what is necessary. We now, for example, experience this phenomenon daily in terms of traffic on Bee Ridge, Lorraine, Clark and Palmer Roads. 

Second, we share a common cause with many other groups involved with land use within and around our community. Exchanging information with others has proven to be an invaluable tool. The possibilities of teaming up with other organizations and offering support in efforts from which we too, will benefit often exceed our current reach and resources.

We see it necessary to form new partnerships, conduct fresh analysis, and possibly pursue additional code enforcement and legal action on several fronts that affect us.   To do this we need a more predictable financial base, with the burden shared among all members to cover necessary operating costs.  We can no longer afford to take on complicated and lengthy tasks to challenge well-funded and staffed developers as well as our County without knowing that we will be able to see them through to completion.

Specific details about changes in membership and how to contribute will be available toward the end of the year. Please keep in mind that annual membership contributions are not a replacement for the periodic voluntary contributions we have received in the past; we require both to be effective and successful. We urge you to consider your paid membership as of the beginning of the New Year, while we maintain and expand our advocacy efforts. We look forward to continuing to work on your behalf, challenging those developers and county officials who are responsible for negatively impacting the quality of life we enjoy and expect in our neighborhood.

Sincerely,

The Board of Directors of SEERD, Inc. 

Miles Toder, President

Roger Zacks, Vice President

Steve Baran