Current stories in progress
These are stories that we are currently backgrounding and are considering for future publication -- last updated 03/19/08

The Missing Building
     A strange and unbelievable story involving yet another scandal in the city's utility department. This involves the tale of the city's drinking water treatment process and how monies were diverted from what city council and the state's DEP approved for construction and what was actually built without the knowledge of either the DEP or city council. Where did the money go? Nobody wants to say and nobody is looking very hard either. This story has been in research for over a year and has been sidelined several times due to successful blocking of information, the roadblocks coming from the city manager's office and from the DEP.

South County Tiger Bay Club and Steve Albee
     When Steve Albee formed the South County Tiger Bay Club, he claimed in the papers to have the blessing of Marj Baldwin, the head of Sarasota's Tiger Bay Club -- not true, according to Baldwin. Then there are those pesky plagiarism allegations against Albee that this web site made, Albee's pro-development leanings and his several failed attempts at injecting himself into the airport development process. Add on to that his peculiar firing last year from the Sarasota Clerk of Court for reasons that nobody wants to talk about and you have one very enigmatic man on a questionable journey towards -- well, nobody knows but Albee.

Web site legal update
     You may recall that this web site is being sued by former city manager George Hunt. Hunt originally claimed that this site's editor, John Patten, sent emails to Hunt's prospective governmental job leads. Patten denied the accusation. It's been almost two years and now Hunt has dropped the allegation of emails. Now Hunt claims defamatory phone calls were made by Patten to five individuals. Problem: after checking, four of the five had never heard of Patten and the fifth has already taped a statement that no such defamatory call was ever made. Meanwhile Hunt continues to maintain in his lawsuit that he cannot find a satisfactory job anywhere and that there are two people on the planet that have prevented him from finding work: Patten and Barefoot Bay resident Sylvia Parrish. Hmmmmm.... can you say malicious prosecution?
     Additionally, further vindication came Patten's way when the Florida Bar Association found probable cause for further disciplinary proceedings against Patten's original attorney, Peter Baranowicz. Patten was cited by the court last year for failure to turn over documents that had been subpoenaed as part of the discovery process. Patten maintained that he had turned them over to Baranowicz on repeated occasions and that Baranowicz failed to turn them over and failed to inform Patten of the failure. Patten fired Baranowicz and filed a complaint with the Bar Association after being forced to pay attorney's fees. The Bar Association investigated the charge and recently found probable cause to pursue disciplinary proceedings.