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OUR WATERWAYS<br />
There is a boat work area. Parking is ample. This was all<br />
built with the sweat and money of the club members.<br />
The Squadron has three docks with two dozen berths,<br />
three of which are used by the regatta committee and workboats.<br />
On the north side, a sea wall with a wave fence protects<br />
the docks and boats from wakes made by big or fast<br />
boats coming into Sarasota Bay through New Pass. On the<br />
seawall is mounted the hoist. On the south side of the docks<br />
are two boat ramps.<br />
Sarasota Youth Sailing Program is Born<br />
On the other side of the boat ramps is the Sarasota Youth<br />
Sailing Program. The SYSP, although the nexus of the<br />
Squadron, wasn’t chartered until around 1990 and is now a<br />
“no fee” tenant on the Squadron land. The SYSP holds five<br />
summer sailing camps attended by 400 youths ranging in<br />
age from five to18. They are taught in five levels of classes<br />
from “tadpoles” up to Olympic training. The camp charge<br />
is nominal, just under $400 for both weeks. If a family can’t<br />
afford the full cost, they may pay what they can on a sliding<br />
scale. Or a student may apply for a free “scholarship;”<br />
approximately 40 are awarded every year, often through the<br />
“outreach” program to kids in the Boys and Girls or<br />
Brothers and Sisters clubs.<br />
The student sailors are taught by a volunteer staff of 20<br />
coaches and 15 junior volunteers who have been through<br />
the program. Only the director, David Livingston, and one<br />
other of the staff are full time. The fleet is just as phenomenal:<br />
40 Optis, 21 420s, 2 Vanguards and a few larger keelboats.<br />
Many Lasers, owned privately by youths, are racked<br />
there also.<br />
Like the Squadron, the SYSP is a not-for-profit<br />
501(c)(3) organization. It receives no government funding<br />
other than an occasional grant. Thirty percent of its funding<br />
comes from the Squadron and the generous Sarasota<br />
Yacht Club. Two annual fundraisers are held, Sailfest and<br />
Celebration of Sail. Private donations are very important,<br />
as is the free rent.<br />
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30 September 2010 SOUTHWINDS<br />
City Raises $1 Perpetual Lease<br />
The $1 per year lease the city gave the Squadron turned out<br />
not to be “perpetual.” In 1988, the city decided to charge the<br />
Sailing Squadron 10 percent of its revenue and gave it a 20<br />
year “uplands lease.” Today, that is about $40,000 a year. Two<br />
years ago, when the city was excited about its proposed new<br />
mooring field (adjacent to and to be operated by Marina<br />
Jack), the city managers asked the commissioners to consider<br />
charging the Squadron an additional flat $90,000 per year<br />
lease. According to David Jennings, the Squadron secretary,<br />
“That would have ballooned our real estate expense to over<br />
30 percent of revenue, which very few organizations can survive.”<br />
The commissioners voted down the staff’s recommendations,<br />
and the Squadron was given a one-year lease with a<br />
one-year option. That lease is up in November.<br />
The one-year, one-option-year lease was given to allow<br />
the Squadron to become “compliant” with the state mooring<br />
field regulations. Back in 1981, the Squadron was given permission<br />
by the Army Corps of Engineers to install 38 moorings<br />
in front of its leased land. They were not given permission<br />
to manage the mooring field. In the last 20 years, the<br />
number of moorings has “organically” grown to 120. Anyone<br />
who wanted could drop any kind of a mooring anywhere<br />
and tether onto it. Some of those boats are not small.<br />
In 1998, a group of board members realized it would<br />
behoove the Squadron, a nonprofit group of volunteers, to<br />
manage the burgeoning mooring field it birthed. It began<br />
the process of obtaining the rights to manage a Sovereign<br />
Submerged Lands Lease (SSLL) held by the city from the<br />
state. Twelve years later, after a lot of hard work by<br />
Squadron volunteers and legal fees paid by the Squadron,<br />
there is still no SSLL—nor does the Squadron have permission<br />
to manage one.<br />
It basically boils down to having the state stipulate<br />
what it considers “compliant.” According to Alan<br />
Pressman, the Squadron’s commodore, “To this day, I<br />
believe that no one actually knows what it means for the<br />
Squadron to be ‘compliant.’ It’s a Catch-22; if the Squadron<br />
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