Patrick Gannon has experience consulting on international policy as well as organizing in the local community. With one of the most impressive resumes on the ticket and plenty of community support, Gannon is a serious contender for Sarasota City Commission.
Candidate for Sarasota City Commission
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Coming soon.
R – Alright so we are live in studio with Candidate for City commission Patrick Gannon just as we’ve continued with the other segments in the series this is number five in the installment we will do the first 15 minutes live here in Facebook and then we’ll cut that feed and do you can watch the rest of the video a more in-depth dive with the candidate on our YouTube page next week along with our website as we feel that I need to candidate section and keep you guys up to date on everything you need to know about the upcoming city election so our guest today is an entrepreneur and international consultant on strategic product marketing and the application of Internet software standards which is the long way of saying he’s a badass he served as the advisor to the United Nations Global lines for ICT and development as well as serving with the United Nations economic commission for Europe which advise governments and transitional economies on best practices for electronic business here locally has served on the planning board since May 2015 and is also the president of the downtown Sarasota Condominium Association which is a good source of dozen of condo associations downtown that advocated for downtown residence so out any further Ado please tell me what go Patrick into the Sarasota underground Studios welcome.
C – Thank you!
R – How are you?
C – Wonderful, great day out here.
R – So let’s start this where we started all the other ones why do this why run for City Commission?
C – I’ve live in Sarasota over 10 years and I know the community really needs strong leadership that can bring balance practical solutions to solving some of the very complex inaudible problems but to do that we have to work together and this is the one thing that when I was asked to consider it took a look at the skill set in the background and realize that I was only candidate who had the Practical experience of leading local neighborhood organization, in fact, the largest being 6000 downtown residents over 2000 units of housing to effective change and effective Solutions there coupled with my background as a business executive knowing how to solve problems and reach Solutions there and so with those combination of skills it was unique it seems like the right time right place to bring that to the table to help Sarasota.
R – That answers question number two from a standpoint of what do you make you feel qualified to run but can you help people who might be watching this understand how some of those skills specifically translate into a leadership position inside of a city government like this
C – We don’t run a government the way you run a business there separate entities however the business skills that I learned the practical skills are actually bringing people together so I’ve served on over 12 Boards of Directors for for-profit and non-profit and in that process you learn how to resolve differences how to bring diverse people together to effectively solve problems at the same time you have a vision and you have to go move forward with that and find practical ways to solve problem because there is a Time cost of delays and so being able to move things forward with the appropriate public input is the most effective way to solve these problems.
R – All in your perspective been in Sarasota long enough to see the climate and things evolve what’s been the biggest change let’s say over the last decade in Sarasota from your from your perspective
C – The biggest change is simply been how Sarasota has had to ride the boom-bust and back up to another high economic cycle right now but the realization that it does come in cycles and so you have to balance things out so I think a lot of the issues that the city is facing today in terms of Transportation issues and homeless issues and other things are ones that we have to solve but we have to solve in a way that understands this change in cycles and the effect of the left for the long-term so
R – So in that context right along that same line then what are those the biggest hurdles you mentioned a couple of them you know almost medicine and what not from your perspective as a platform for City commission what are the biggest hurdles we Face the community
C – Well the biggest problem is dealing with smart growth having an effective multimodal transportation system and addressing the humanitarian crisis that we see on our streets with the chronic homeless.
R – And then if those are then you see as the as the biggest hurdles tell me as you lets say you get elected what you do what’s the initiative what’s the action plan for doing anything about that stuff or those issues
C – Clearly to deal with the growth in the development and I see it first-hand in fact it affects my neighborhood in downtown I live at 888 Boulevard of the Arts and right behind me is the Quay Sarasota and right next to it is the Bay front Cultural District all of which are beginning to undergo rapid and major transformation and so I see that I see it across 41 and rosemary District or I walk through quite often as I walk to downtown and see the transition there and so finding an effective balance to dealing with the growth issues because on one hand it’s a property rights issue residents don’t want somebody coming in telling them that they must put a sidewalk in their side yard take away property from them just like developer to invest in property have a certain expectation of property rights there and yet the community has needs and protecting the environment protecting the needs of the citizens for transportation as well as safe pedestrians access shaded sidewalks those our community needs and those have to be balanced and the way my business experience and what I’ve done effectively as the neighborhood leader is to actually sit down understand the perspective from both sides and then come up with Solutions that will work and allow us to move forward.
R – So in that context of kind of connecting some of these dots how do we make sure because there seems to be this divide in Sarasota whether it’s acknowledged or not of a lot of the people that live in those condos the high-rises the people that have a little bit of the means to come together and organize and assemble and speak out versus maybe the ones who don’t who are very busy trying to live and afford living in this town and so they may be don’t get represented as often as possible so how do we make sure that all facets of this diamond that is in the rough Sarasota get polished as we grow
C – Well it’s a lot of community outreach and that was one thing we did very effectively when I took over as president of the downtown Sarasota Condo Association I said we have to communicate with our residents better we have to keep them informed we have to get their feedback and right now one of the best way to use of the internet use of tools there and so we revamped came up with a whole new website we worked with the city had grants to enable us to do a more effective job with that’s for the public outreach and with that we’re able to provide more information to the residents keeping you informed on a time basis because it’s critical to understand when did decisions are being made at different stages and when is the most effective time for citizen input in that waiting for a final vote at a city commission chamber meeting might look good to fill the room with everybody in green your black T-shirt but it’s not effective ways to have the right people at the develop committee meetings at the planning board meetings or any other meetings that might be occurring in the area and so that’s the way to get the community involved and we’ve already done that effectively.
R – Not to cut you off I think this is a good place to then ask how do we, again you know, going back to the original premise, how do we get the people who aren’t typically involved, involved. If we look at some of the statistics more than 60% of the voter turnout over the last three years has been people who over the age of 65, and so overwhelmingly – and this isn’t anybody’s fault but their own – people under the age of 50 and Sarasota don’t necessarily participate in City elections, and so if you only get a certain group to come out, and yeah, you could do all the Outreach you want but if you’re only talking to a specific group, you still don’t get some of those voices, so how do we pull more people in? How do we lower that age of engagement? How do we make this more interesting enough so more people in my age demographic will want to get involved?
C – Well that’s critical, I have a step son here in Sarasota in his late twenties a young professional working here, he was a Pine View graduate and went off to Georgia tech and wanted to come back here and work in Sarasota, and wants to live here and get involved, and so talking with him and working with him – is one is making sure that you’re registered to vote and then using the vote by mail. Makes it simple, you get the thing in the mail, you sit down for five minutes, you go through or you do your research, you check them off and you put it back in the mail, it’s that simple. So the election of the voting process here in Sarasota County has made it simpler for the youth to get involved, but the statistics have been that more people over the age of one hundred vote in city elections than people fewer than twenty one, and so we’ve been trying to reach out for that.
R – Well we’ve shared that statistic in every other video and its that more people have now let’s make sure we clarify that it’s a percentage of the registered voter demographic not in a sheer numbers perspective it’s at the percentage of a registered voter base you have more people over there age of 90 than under the age of 30 but when you have a registered voter base of 3300 3500 people I need to 30 and 135 show up to vote that’s pathetic and those same people are the same one that the bars wishing to have more Night Live what you had more walkability and entertainment in blah, blah, blah but none of them were actually active or involved in any of these other things.
C – Part of it is reaching out and letting them know what are the issues that are affecting their daily lives – workforce housing and what’s happening with the entertainment to the city those are things that they care about one about and so that’s the sort of things that I’m advocating for.
R – Well let’s talk about a specific example for instance, and this could go into a couple directions however you want to take this it could go into a collaboration between City and indent in County government because that’s been an issue but if we just looked to Manatee County with how they’re handling the noise ordinance right now you got members from the manatee on professionals the M3 movement which is a group organized through the county of millennial that said we’re going to do something different and they’re kind of pushing the county to make some changes as well as realize Bradenton an independent jones some of the other groups up there are working very closely with the county and the city to figure out a solution to the noise ordinance which is been a huge issue in Sarasota so the questions twofold, first of all how do we increase of communication so we can get something like that we’re collaborating with the external groups the city commission and the county and how do we address issues like the sound issues that are big hurdles to attracting and engaging those young people?
C – The main way is what I’ve already tried to do – is reaching out to the young professionals group under the downtown Sarasota – greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce and when Mike was first appointed or elected as chair of the group there I’ll reach out to him said let’s meet, I want understand your issues there and then he put me in touch with Rob young who is the government Affairs gentleman there, and then met with him and not only that invited him to come to the downtown improvement district meeting, because I said you have statistics on housing and from the survey that was done of the five hundred or so of the young professionals responding to that survey of where the wanted to live, where the were currently living it was the fact that if we need to get in front of the Business Leaders so they clearly understood that the down to prove it this but it was fun for the Rosemary District Association which had the developers of the three major apartment complexes over a thousand units being built now to hear that demand and to find Solutions so that it’s affordable and so that the Young Folks would feel attracted and so if there able to work in the downtown area they can walk or bike to work or from there take other transportation to other jobs they have those are steps that we need to do but I’ve already reached out to them and want to continue that and as commissioner will make sure that we have active involvement from the YPG and other groups and do some more outreach together I love it when they had their meetings at Mandeville beer garden to great place to hang out and it’s a family place young place, one of my favorites.
R – Yeah I actually sit on the board of the in professionals and I think that that is a fantastic organization to get involved in and be active in obviously in addition to what we’re building here because it’s gives us this platform to talk with people like yourself who were not only active in the community but are also working towards more change. We’re right at that 15-minute mark that we’re going to cut on the Facebook feed is there anything else you want to wrap up before we send this off and go on our deeper dive here?
C – When you talk about noise ordinances I love music. I start playing in the band when I was told 12 years old I played in bands from the high school I almost wanted to go off and form my own band like John, Paul, George, Ringo did but I figured maybe I should shoot for other things like space shot, so I went down that direction but I played in the Huntsville Alabama Symphony Orchestra and I love music and if we had to music player right now we’d be segwaying using Meghan Trainor bang them sticks.
R – So let’s jump back – let’s go right there into some of that noise ordinance stuff with a little bit a nuance if we can because I think Sarasota kind of feels like we’ve addressed this and it’s over and that seems kind of status quo for Sarasota lot of times where they just say we’re done with it and let’s move on when a reality that’s a very small piece of the pie saying those things everyone else like a lot of things to talk about here you’ve just said in that little segment that you’re a big fan of music, as a city commissioner, what would be your position on opening the conversation again for that noise ordinance and more specifically finding ways to find a win-win for people who want to see a little bit more of that vibrancy and that life downtown?
C – Continue working on that and having the discussion misunderstanding about that one thing I learned about living in downtown you’re living in the community and in fact if you’re in a downtown condo that’s what community is all about I lived here in the single family homes neighborhoods and that’s great you see your neighbors down the street out walking dogs whatever but when you’re living in a condo it’s the guy next to you it’s the noise in the shared wall or the noise above as below so you have to develop rules that people can agree upon as to okay noise stops at 10 o’clock and not before 7 a.m. or 8 a.m. etcetera that’s the only way you could live harmoniously in community and so the city has adopted a rules how do we meet the needs of everybody and still come up with a reasonable way to go forward so if outdoor Amplified music has to end at 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. on the weekends are so forth are my special events things then that’s the compromise because you have people to go to sleep but at the same time people who have purchased condos downtown know that they’re living in the downtown area they wanted to be in a noise free area, well there’s plenty of quieter places to go live so it’s part of that you no contract of being downtown so it’s finding the right balance but it’s not a done deal it continually comes up every time there’s another established I’ve seen several that came before the planning board that I had to sit in and understand the balance of need so for instance, The Cask and Ale just opened on Main Street the right before New Year’s Eve , my wife and I spent New Year’s Eve at the Cask and Ale Listening to Chandelle Norman doing the Reggae band right outside the street there and it was great music, but we understood that they have certain noise ordinance and one of the things they agreed to is that they would close their garage door at eleven o clock on the weekend so any noise or any music playing would be done inside, similarly for their east on main street, the beer – world of beer has had an ordinance or it came through with a change that needed to be made in terms of their status and we had a discussion about that as to which music could they have playing where, so those sets of issues will still come up and it’s a matter of understanding the set of rules that we’ve thrashed out and agreed upon but how do they get played out and applied and how do we make sure there’s a good balance, so I do know that in terms of world of beer they’ve worked very harmoniously with the condominium there, and most of those neighbors were supporting their change in status and for that, and so it comes about when you can sit down together and understand the needs and reach compromise, that’s how we can continue you to deal with that and if there are organizations or restaurants that don’t adhere and start violating the noise ordinance then that becomes an implementation for the police and city manager to deal with and implement the rules so that we retain that balance and harmony.
R – Let’s talk about your support for the campaign where are your supporters coming from obviously you’re the – you know you’re fairly active with a lot of people who are core voters because of a condo association – so if you were talking to some political consultants in the area I think they might call a lot of them super voters, and that’s there official status, so it seems like you’ve got a baked in advantage from that standpoint, but where is that support coming from? Whose helping you raise money? Who’s going to get into office?
C – Well as somebody mentioned in our launch event last week this is the most diverse audience that we’ve run across it was coming there Safe and that self-enabled people to say that yes this is a campaign that I want to get behind, I want to help, how can I do this for that the support comes from the residents, being a community leader I’ve obviously touched a lot of lives and so initially from the down town residential neighborhood a lot of those residents come out the leaders of those different condos have been very strongly supporting that and will be go out we got a meeting with individual Residence in those groups but also from the downtown business Community the fact that I’ve sat in and listened to and help to advise the downtown improvement district for you have Business Leaders or owners of retail businesses and developers in the downtown area trying to make it more vibrant City at the same time being in harmony with the residents and the so they’ve looked to me to bring that Resident Viewpoint to the table so they can make better decisions that are in harmony with that and so that group has seen the effectiveness of working together they’re supporting it and from all over the political Spectrum people who see there’s a person who can study the issue apply very rational analysis of the issues the pros and cons listening to both sides there and then come up with solutions for moving forward and that’s the thing that they said it I’m all in favor of stop but what we needed stop is stop the waste stop the delay there is a way to get community involved haven’t Community input and then move forward.
R – So swaying from that, Sarasota as a city is kind of a broad spread out beast, right? It’s not like a – it’s not just that downtown core, you’ve got obviously the north trail area you’ve got some on longboat key, you’ve got mid-town area where the hospital is, you’ve got this broad spread that is the city of Sarasota and you’re talking about practical solutions, how do you find practical solutions that fit downtown as well as on north trail or in midtown or – how do you do that? Because I think that’s part of the problem, you have so many different interest groups, so you get people that harp on this very specific issue, but then again the city is so spread out, so how do you get those win-wins across the board?
C – Well it’s through that outreach and involvement and part of the people who are supporting it are from those outreach neighborhoods, folks in Loral park even down to North Siesta key have come out in saying yes our neighborhoods need that input, I mean you’d be able to provide the input and still see moving forward, so the issues differ slightly so a lot of the neighbors don’t have the mass traffic issues here but they still have issues dealing with traffic coming down the streets or backups due to – somebody else had that issue, but dealing with traffic from schools when the parents come sit and the kids get let out, that traffic might back up there so what’s being done, and a lot of these solutions are simply dialogue it’s getting the effected parties to sit down there and one make somebody know hey did you know that this activity here is effecting us over here, oh no I didn’t know that, let’s talk about that, and so the neighborhoods are dealing with the tree issues, well so I’ve been working with folks in Arlington park and others who are also trying to create solutions within the city and so looking at what their problems were and understanding what the current zoning code allowed we saw a glaring hole in that, and one example was working with the Rosemary district neighborhood there, right now that’s the most impacted development area right there, there are ten major projects underway in the rosemary district residential area, mixed use community, but with all that creating more residential they create over a thousand units, and half a dozen smaller condos, but in that process they’ve removed over three thousand diameter inches of trees, and the current zoning code only required mitigating less than one thousand, so they’re losing seventy percent the tree canopy, and similar things are happening, but not nearly to that magnitude, somebody calculated it, it’s like four football fields of trees, so I looked at the code and actually came back and documented the entire problem set by listing every project, how much trees, added them all up, came to that then looked at the code and here’s where the formula is for mitigation and what if we changed that from a complicated formula to simply one for one, if you take out one hundred calipers of trees, you replace on your property, or your neighborhood, and presented that to the coalition and the city neighborhood association, one of the commissioners brought it in front of the city commission, asked staff to work on that and within a week we had the proposal for a new zoning text ordinance, the unanimously approved movie forward that so now it’s going to the public hearing cycle, and then it’ll be moved forward as a change in the code, and so that’s a way to work with the neighbors who see the problems and most the time it’s gee, we have a problem here and I wish someone would so something about it and what I’ve been able to do is say there is a way to do it, I can’t do it myself, you’re going to have to participate, but let me show you some ways. If you want to send emails, here’s the person to email, to have them go out and get a third opinion on whether these trees need to get cut down or build around it, here’s the person to contact if you want a meeting, under administrator review it may not be required by code, but you go to the neighborhood services in the city and say we have these ten residents that would like to have a meeting with this developer, and they organize the community meeting and they get our input and typically the voters come away with hey that’s good thoughts, we hadn’t really considered that, we want to be part of the neighborhood, we’ll consider taking it in and in some cases we did, we had a developer in the Rosemary District who was using the zoning code to go lot line to lot line, zero set back, heard from the community neighbors about why we couldn’t put trees along the street median and the street – cities amenities right away, and agreed that they were going to have to set back, so they changed their set back from zero to four or five feet, so they could plant trees between side walk and build, so they gave up space, you know five stories, two hundred feed, you know that’s a sizeable decrease in their square footage but they understood that to achieve the design they wanted to make – to make it a good partner in that neighborhood, that was well worth it, and that’s the kind of business understanding, to sit down and say I understand you have development rights, and you need to make money – or they’re not going to invest, they’re not going to bring that kind of economic development, but at the same time advocating for the neighbors rights, and we can do that in almost any neighborhood –
R – Just for the sake of time I want to talk or when I get your perspectives on retaining youth in Sarasota we’ve got some world-class educational institutions in the area you hear a lot of lip service from people talking about wanting to retain and attract this youth here you see organizations like the Gulf Coast CEO for more actively working with USF and Ringling and then the C4 institution in the University how to do that but the overwhelming consensus from young people is that there are no jobs here that this is not the place for them to start a career that they just can’t find a way whether it’s because I can’t afford to live here or find the right job how do we change that how do we start reversing that trend?
C – One is to make known and highlight the groups that are here, one of the key technology companies here in Sarasota at least in the county area is Volt that does the voice alert and voice applications for hospital systems, they had a great idea they were able to pair up with the Sarasota memorial health – hospital, and produce an application there and from that fine tuning application and then were able to go out and sell it elsewhere and so that’s where the community was able to go out and help and get that business a leg up and that’s one of the key things I’ve been advocating for is more or that here six years ago I got started with the Sarah Hand and her group that was looking – bar camp Sarasota which was trying to introduce technology people, I said this is something I’ve been doing all my life, when I was twenty something odd years ago in Nevada, another kind of resort destination city, I served on the chamber of commerce there on economic development committee introducing the internet to businesses, how this community could attract more people, and people that would live there because it was a great place to live but it was just how could we work and so we demonstrated that you could actually work here and telecommute a time where people didn’t have a clue, let alone spell the internet or anything and so it was a way to introduce the technology in a way that benefited the economic development community, and similar to Sarasota there’s a need to move from the typical industries that we have here in terms of construction, hospitality, real-estate these are great, but it doesn’t take long to remember how it was in 09 and 2010, and when those industries cratered, we didn’t have a strong base to keep people here and so we lost six or seven thousand residents, had to move somewhere else to find jobs and so that was a big loss, city staff was cut dramatically, and they barely made that back, and we’re yet up to the population level that we were back in 07 for the city, so building on the youth and as I mentioned earlier I have a very vested interest there with a family member whose working for technology here in Sarasota, was a Pine view Graduate, went off to Georgia tech for computer science, actually went to work fro IBM for a while and said this is a great company but I love Sarasota, I want to be back where I can go fishing and hang out on the beach and enjoy the lifestyle, but how can I get a job – and I was able to introduce him to 2 or 3 business leaders so having that kind of introductory process other than just somebody in your family, where other people that are interested can find those jobs, and the co-working is a key way – here at Clear Idea is one, I think there’s now five or six in the city, one of the ones that I’ve mentioned they launched the innovation – or station two up in Bradenton, partly because they saw the support there from the city the economic development then the chamber, and that’s something I’ve been reaching out here. About a year and a half ago, I’ll tell you about another story –
R – I just wanted to ask you there, is Bradenton kind of kicking our ass right now?
C – They have been in terms of the courted nation –
R – Yeah and that’s like a back handed way of saying it, it seems like there a lot more forward looking right now in the way that there working together and cooperating in Bradenton versus what we’re doing here in Sarasota –
C – One of the groups was through the chamber and economic development cooperation have held these leadership expeditions to advance progress, and I was invited a year and a half ago on that group and there it was going to different cities but you spent the time with community leaders, the county at the city level from the EDC, from the chamber, from the colleges, Larry Thompson from Ringling, and New College, talking about their needs and they say they want to retain their graduates here, and I said we want to keep them here, so I said how do we do that? Well I said we have to solve the transportation. How do we get those between the campuses downtown, solving those problems, housing, we need to make sure that we have reasonable work force housing where they can live and work and this is where the idea so the mixed use kind of communities where you might have apartments and retail as part of the same building or nearby, and so make sure the zoning code supports that kind of mixed use for that, and also just entertainment, places that they can go and hang out and make some match, and so all those things have to come together for that, the whole work at the gulf coast community foundation is working with the bright ideas of the gulf coast to mentor startups that has really been a good way for people in fact now they have sit down and critique some of the business plan presentations done by the students while there still taking courses at New College or Ringling, so that’s a key part of it, one other key that I’m really excited about is the work that was done to bring the university of Florida engineering to start the innovation station, that investment, when they picked Sarasota, and the city of Sarasota to launch that. That’s huge, not only is there going to be outreach efforts to kids all the way from elementary junior high, and high school to understand the value of the science technology, engineering and math and art, and get them into community college if they can’t quite afford to go off and get accepted at Gainesville or some place, and from there move into engineering programs, and at the same time have businesses here that are going to hire them for their internships or co-op programs, and then when they graduate they have jobs ready waiting for them right here in Sarasota.
R – Yeah we’ve got some pretty exciting things happening that I don’t think a lot of people on the – that aren’t on the front lines see, the things that are happening the with side stage at Ringling, I mean when you drive past that Ringling campus now on MLK, some of those buildings there building are world class, and I don’t know a lot about what’s going on there, we have some communications back and forth, but you’re right with that, with the innovation station that University of Florida is doing, with the schools here with the C4 with Ringling, with the amount of intellectual capital that’s here from a retired business owner stand point, people who have built empires and wanted to come here and are now bored and they love vibrancy, and you know, there’s only so much time you can spend on your boat before you want to just start getting involved in something again so I think In the next five ten years were going to start seeing something spectacular in Sarasota, my question is do we see enough leader ship and vision in this city government, in the county government to make that happen?
C – The reason I’m running is to make sure we have the leadership in the city commission part of the government, I know from the city management they see that support, I know from the business community they do, and you and I have both experience the Sarasota bay front 20/20 effort that got launched a couple years ago, actually the genesis for that effort came out of this leap effort, the leadership expedition when they went off to another city and from Michaels on East meeting with others business leaders and government leaders, you know why don’t we do something to implement phase two and three of the bay front cultural plan, so the city has had tons of plans, there is a bay front cultural plan the first phase was implemented in 1965 and actually produced the Van Wesel from that and there was phase two and three that never got implemented, the downturn hit, stuff never went on beyond that so he said how do we do that? One of the ways he did it was bringing people together, Michael had been working with Virginia Haley from this is Sarasota, reached out in the community and said we want the arts and cultural community to participate, we want the business community to participate, and reached out to all three groups and within a year or so they had over fifty organizations as stake holders who had a set of principles that were hashed out through a whole series of community meetings or meetings that were held at the Van Wesel community room there, they were held at the J Dubs brewery, most of them were great places, so that kind of community outreach brought them together, we came up with the principles, brought it in front of the city commission, and they said okay the way to go forward is we need a way to – a private organization since were a nonprofit group and so they sent out finding 9 people to serve on the board of directors and certainly Tom Barwin as the city manager is key, because we’re talking about city of property but what gets done with that is mostly going to come from funds outside the city and the key – one thing I’m really excited about is the person they elected chair, talk about smart people, Ajee Laughlin former CEO of – I mean this is a business leader who knows that and is now heading up the board that’s going to move the bay forward.
R – The only concern I’ll bring up and I’m active with the bay front as the stake holder representing the young professionals is that in my first meeting and I was listening – and all of this sounds really good I just meekly raised my hand and asked how many people under the age of forty have been or are involved in this planning process at a high level, and then it was crickets in the room, and so it just gets back to this point that we’re the generation the demographic that going to have the most to gain from the growth over the next twenty years in this town, so It’s silly for us not to get involved, and the only reason they’re not listening is because – listen the squeaky wheel gets a grease and I’m going to take a second here to tell you guys as we – I got two more questions for you, but I want to his this point home, there not listening because we’re not talking, because we’re not specifically giving them a reason to say hey they’ve got really interesting things to say, they’re active in the community they’re actively trying to improve the city, and so we’ve harped on it – we’ve probably mentioned it three or four times – getting involved, I’m getting a little excited about it year, but you know I have to take this opportunity when I get a chance to get – you know you set them up and – this is what it comes down to, it comes down to people just getting involved and taking those steps and finding ways to apply the right pressure –
C – But it’s really hard for the young professionals, you’re either starting out and you’re working ten twelve hours a day trying to make it in your profession, get established, make sure your company sees you as a hard worker, that’s where your time is spent then you’re relaxing, or your raising a family and you’re busy with the kids – and we need to be able to tap into those groups, so whether it’s the chambers YPG and other groups like that, absolutely, I’m reaching the hand out there and wherever they’re meeting, we’ll go sit down with them.
R – Cool, one question that you might like to know about the other candidates or from the other candidates or that I should have in here as we talk with – leading up to this election, one piece of information – a question you might ask of the other people who are running.
C – You can ask them what they’ve done to be able to reach out and produce practical solutions, bringing together the business community, the developers, and the residents, that are what I’ve been doing, that’s what people want to see here in Sarasota.
R – The final question I’ll close with, is do you have any questions for me or the Sarasota Underground audience for the people that might be watching this and you know are excited about you or any other candidates, what questions do you have for us?
C – I’d like your feedback, we’ve been put out with our literature and the first part of it is I want to hear from you, I’ve got six questions I’d like your feedback on those, so we’ll be posting that on our website, we’ve got our Facebook page, and you can contact me at Gannon for city commission dot come, website or Facebook, Gannon for city commission on Facebook and give me your feedback, that’s what I want to hear, your needs, and work on solutions
R – That’s fantastic, thank you, we’ll have links to all the candidate information to his website, as well as an overview we’re going to dice them up into little sections, make them easily digestible so you’ll have a bunch of assets in that regard, and we hope to kind of become the headquarters for the election, again this was episode five in the series, we’ve got three more, we got Fred Atkins coming up tomorrow, and I think that’s it.
Fredd “Glossie” Atkins 
