Newly elected Sarasota County Commissioner Joe Barbetta hasn’t had time to warm his seat yet, so it’s too soon to tell if his slow-growth stance will cause seismic changes. He replaces David Mills, who often cast the pro-development swing vote. An attorney and former chairman of the county planning commission, Barbetta defeated fellow Republicans Casey Pilon and John Lewis in one of the nastiest local primaries last fall.

How did you weather such a nasty campaign? I had to be true to myself. I had made a promise I would not engage in a negative campaign, and I held up to that. It was unfortunate that I had to respond to the messages. 

You’ve been referred to as a [fellow commissioner] Jon Thaxton-like environmentalist. Are you? I’m a moderate growth environmentalist, and I don’t think it’s an oxymoron. I think those concepts can interchange without any problems.

What are your priorities as a new commissioner? To get a handle on true growth management. How are we going to grow in the coming years? My feeling is more along the lines of redevelopment and infill, going over the areas that are stale and depressed and rejuvenating them first. The second priority is transportation. Everything we do seems to be automobile-oriented, and we have to get back to concentrating on another way to move people besides the car.

The planning commission has had a contentious relationship with the commissioners. Have relations improved? I don’t think there’s real contentiousness. The planning board is the first sounding board, and if they deny something there’s a pretty good reason. It’s a healthy discussion.

What’s your style as a leader? Innovative and proactive. I realize I have to be a good listener and a good learner. I’ll always look for cutting-edge ideas. I’m not real big on reinventing the wheel. I feel somewhere, someplace, someone’s got a solution.

How concerned are you about the real estate slowdown? I think it’s a healthy thing and we’ll be out of it shortly. I do think there’s been a heavy reliance on the baby boomer population moving to Florida. The anticipation may have been a little over-hyped.

What do you think of our touch screens? I understood the concerns of people prior to the election, but we had spent considerable money on this system, so that’s why I said then that we’ve got a couple more years of useful life. But with the ballot initiative, we don’t have a choice. The credibility of the touch screen has been jeopardized tremendously. I have no problem supporting what the voters passed—a state-of-the art paper trail.

Tell us something that most people don’t know about you. I’m a motorcycle rider and an Eagle Scout and a former developer. —Kim Hackett

Philip Heylen, Vice Mayor of Antwerp, Belgium—the home of Peter Paul Rubens—has made several trips to Sarasota in the past few years, meeting with municipal and arts leaders to form stronger cultural links. He hopes to do a series of projects with the galleries and museums and has been talking with Jill Kaplan of the Sarasota Season of Sculpture about bringing an artist from Antwerp here. He likes to stay at the Helmsley Sandcastle Hotel on Lido, where he once managed to offer Mrs. Helmsley a fresh towel as she was getting out of the pool before a half dozen staffers were able to rush over with one.

How romantic can a museum be? How about reuniting two lovers who have been separated for many years? That’s just what is happening in Sarasota this Valentine’s Day month of February. The City of Amsterdam has loaned the Ringling Museum the companion portrait to its Frans Hals portrait of Pieter Jacobsz Olycan, purchased by John Ringling in the 1920s. Olycan’s wife, Maritge, who died five years later, was painted by Hals in 1639. A conservator at the Rijksmuseum whose parents live in Williamstown, Mass., has been cleaning Maritge’s portrait at the Clark Institute; the two paintings will move from the Ringling to the Clark in April. Hals painted more than 20 portraits of various members of the Olycan family.

This month Nikitas (Nick) Kavoukles will have a show of digital media work at the JABU Center Gallery on Ivanhoe Street to benefit the Crowley Museum and Nature Center. Nick, a painter born in Greece and trained in Old-World techniques, doesn’t think of himself as a nature photographer, but he spent quite a bit of time at Crowley and Myakka gathering ideas. One morning, some yards away from him, a Florida panther materialized from the mist, paused to eye him, then continued on its way across his path. (He reported it to the ranger station, but no one believed him until they later found its tracks). He's also had close encounters with armadillos, hawks, wild pigs and “an amorous alligator” whose advances he discouraged. Most recently he found himself “ensnared in the vast, invisible web of a banana spider.” Who says artists don’t lead exciting lives?

Transitions: Ramses Serrano has moved his Sonnet Gallery from Main Street to Towles Court’s historic Perry/Little House on Adams Lane, constructed in 1931 and designated a historic structure by the city in 2000. Just next door, on the corner, Tim Jaeger has joined forces with chef Rita Tyler to open the Canvas Café Leysin, which will offer Mediterranean cuisine with a restaurant and wine bar in a gallery setting.  Jaeger, who most recently directed the Little Gallery, says he wants a place “where artists can hang out and have a glass of wine…a relaxed place where people know there is going to be someone they know.”

    Valentine’s Day is near and love is in the air. But here in the Sunshine State, our government wants to make sure we don’t get carried away by it. 
    While we don’t care about impulsive marriages for out-of-towners (there’s even a 24-hour wedding chapel in Venice), folks who live here have to mull over the pros and cons of matrimony for at least three days. That’s how long residents have to wait between getting a license and saying “I do.” 
    “It’s sort of a cooling-off period,” says Nancy Taussig, owner of Barefoot Weddings in Sarasota. “It’s like buying a gun; you can have it but can’t use it right away.”
    Taussig, a notary public, has been marrying people on the beach and at country clubs and hotels for 15 years. She gets calls from concierges, wedding planners and people all over the country—at all hours of the night. 
    Before 1998, anyone could get a license and tie the knot in the same day, but then the state enacted new marriage laws to cut down on the divorce rate. You can get around the wait if you take a pre-marital course, but that requires a lot more advance planning. 
    It’s one of those “we-know-better-than-you” laws, like no booze before noon on Sunday. We’re now one of nine states that have a “cooling-off” period and one of a handful with different rules for residents.
    The law hasn’t affected Taussig’s business, but it’s caused a few wrinkles: A Georgia couple came in on a Friday to get their license for a Saturday wedding. The bride failed to tell Taussig she once lived in Florida and still had a Florida driver’s license. The Sarasota Clerk’s office told them they’d have to wait.
    “They freaked out. They had the flowers, the guests, everything,” Taussig says. But clerks of the court aren’t heartless. “We were able to get an exception. They gave her a big lecture about the importance of changing her documents.”
    Once, a hotel concierge called Taussig to come over and perform a wedding. Taussig told the couple they’d have to wait until Tuesday. “I never heard from them again,” she says. (Sometimes Big Brother knows best.)
    Another local couple was in a hurry to get married before the man left town. When they heard about the three-day waiting period, they insisted Taussig marry them at the earliest possible time.
“Just after midnight, my husband went with me to their home and I married them,” Taussig says. “The man was just going out of state, not even out of the country. People are funny.”
    Despite the romance swirling around February, Taussig says April and October are her biggest months for weddings. The exception was a few years ago, when Valentine’s Day fell on a Saturday.
    “I had four weddings on four different beaches on three different islands,” Taussig says. “The weather was bad and getting worse as the day went on. That was a year to remember.”

I DID AND I DO  People who have already said their “I do’s” get to re-ignite the spark with the annual Valentine’s Day “Say I Do Again” ceremony on Siesta Beach.
    For more than 20 years, couples have been gathering on the beach at sunset as Judge Becky Titus leads them through wedding vows. “It’s a lot of fun and the vows are wonderful,” says Martha O’Connor, who registers couples for the event, which is produced by the county’s parks and recreation department, and got hitched again herself last year—to her husband of 33 years.
    Martha donned blue jeans, but some couples wear veils and full wedding regalia. All the “brides” get a flower courtesy of the county.
    A couple married 64 years were honored for the longest marriage, and another celebrating their first anniversary got a gift certificate for fewest years. Titus had the couples give each other an Unconditional Surrender-like kiss after the vows.
    With 20-plus years of outdoor weddings, a few disasters have occurred—red tide, storms and controversy. When the Sarasota Herald-Tribune ran a picture of two lesbians kissing after saying “I do,” the paper was flooded with e-mails and phone calls, leading then-editor Janet Weaver to write an editorial defending the photo.
    The ceremony isn’t legally binding, so anyone can participate. It begins at 6 p.m. Feb. 14 at the main pavilion at Siesta Beach. Photographers will be there to take pictures. Call 861-7275.

SINGLES' CITY If you haven’t had much luck finding that special someone, don’t despair–-Sarasota is the best city for singles, according to a recent Fortune article on retirement.
    There are a few qualifiers to go along with the designation: It’s the best place for singles over the age of 55 with an income above $200,000. If you don’t quite fit into those categories, get to know Patti Hirsch, the new local queen of singledom. She’ll help you find a hook-up whether you’re middle-class, extremely tall or like to contra dance.
    “My passion is trying to find someone for someone else,” Hirsch, 50, says over a margarita at a local Mexican restaurant. “It’s the lost puppy syndrome.”
    A peppy, plain-speaking, plain-dressing woman, Hirsch works as a marketing director at a glass company by day and by night organizes singles events for the group she started, “Singles Organizations Unite.” Presidents of local groups serve on her board and recruit members at SOU events. A recent dance featured a sexy Santa giving out thongs.
    “I’m not Dr. Ruth. I just coordinate and get people together,” Hirsch says. 
    On Feb. 25, Hirsch is bringing the third annual Singles Expo and Dance to the Sarasota Cay Club. Relationship experts will be there, such as Lynn McDonald, local author of How to Use Your Shopping Skills to Get a Man, and Bradenton resident Dr. Robyn, who has a nationally syndicated talk show and has been featured on Dr. Phil and CBS’ 48 Hours. SARASOTA Magazine’s very married resident foodie, Judi Gallagher, will whip up a romantic dessert.
About 2,000 singles attended last year’s expo, Hirsch says, and a similar event in Tampa drew 4,000. 
    Hirsch also recently published Finding the Right Connection, a directory of 90 single groups from Tampa to Naples. “Nobody believed there were that many,” Hirsch says. “A lot of them are non-profits and they don’t know how to get the word out.”
    The book (which sells for $14.95 at local book stores or online at therightconnection.com) is the culmination of Hirsch’s “detective work” beginning four years ago when Hirsch moved to Sarasota from Kansas City to care for her ailing parents. In the glossy-covered directory featuring a photo of Hirsch, a tattooed 20-something man, an 81-year old grandma with a tennis racket, and a local single representing just about every other demographic, you’ll discover Shake a Leg, a new Sarasota dance club; 13 Ugly Men, a group of Tampa professionals (they’re actually quite cute, Hirsch says); and Tampa Bay Tall ‘n Terrific (women have to be five feet 10 inches or more, men, six feet two inches or taller).
    "They have a yardstick, just like the amusement rides,” says Hirsch. “That just cracks me up.”
Kim Hackett blogs about civic issues and politics on City Beat, at sarasotamagazine.com.