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New College wasn’t reformed. It was politically vandalized. What is happening to New College of Florida is not “reform.” It is not “efficiency.” It is not some noble crusade to improve higher education. It is a political wrecking operation, carried out in public, with the blunt tools of state power: appoint the board, fire the leadership, terrorize the faculty, ridicule the students, erase the culture, then grab more land and call the whole thing a “transformation.” New Colle

The postcard version of Sarasota is easy to understand: blue water, white sand, palm trees, sunsets, restaurants, boats, and beautiful homes. That version is real. But it is not the whole story. Sarasota is also a working city, a retirement destination, an arts community, a beach town, a business environment, a place of rapid growth, a collection of neighborhoods, and a region facing the same pressures as many desirable coastal communities: traffic, housing costs, environment

For years, Sarasota elected leaders treated development like destiny. Now voters are living with the consequences: clogged roads, flooding fears, strained infrastructure, vanishing neighborhood character, and a county that feels less like a Gulf Coast community and more like a city struggling to manage a boom it never honestly planned for. Sarasota County’s 2026 County Commission races are not really about party labels. They are about growth — who profited from it, who enable