At their Tuesday meeting, Sarasota County commissioners indicated they were in favor of getting rid of a citizen-initiated process that allows a group of 20 voters to petition the county to initiate a comprehensive plan amendment and revise its 2050 Plan, the county's official growth roadmap. 

The Miakka Community Club, a group of rural landowners in east Sarasota County led by Becky Ayech, who we profiled last year, was the first group to use the process to propose zoning rule changes on 6,000 acres of land at the corner of Fruitville and Verna roads. However, Ayech and the club were handed a bitter defeat in September, when the commission unanimously voted against amending the county’s comprehensive plan to limit future development on that 6,000 acres.

Although no formal decision about eliminating the citizen-initiated process was made on Tuesday, the commissioners indicated that it  would be eliminated in the future.