all i marry ben's will be executive director here with my partner in crime chuck stevens i hear you were having a great time without me last my well but nobody can feel your shoes tony certainly was well trying but not as good his feet are too big for my shoe so i was in africa salute pending on when this runs it may have just happened or it's coming up here if you see this before the eighth we still have a very small amount of seats left to sell before he's come on down it's promises to be is because it is in his ninety's now so you great chicago i can't wait to see that and you're not going i know i'm not going to be i was i'm going to be in arizona i'm going to miss chicago on the october the thirty third right but i've been told i get your seat so i think oh right there you go i sit in front of the speaker in l he's got rock groups all the genres of the fifty's sixty's seventy's and eighty's groups like elvis presley a little richer woodstock janis joplin i mean he is covers the whole time the nice thing about his shows is he really explains a lot know and he's had quite the following and that's on october thirteenth at eight o'clock and then there's the my great willie nelson and family and family he was here oh gosh five seven years ago and was one of the not this is not the broadway show this is the well it was funny when it was announced one of the i think one of a b c seven was showing the footage from a broadway show but i don't know who was who was the host then but they were you can dance one of your all time favorites you're always there for you well i love these shows i must admit i tend to watch dancing with the stars a little more but when the energy comes for the so you think you can dance these kids are phenomenal this is a great way because it's a top ten finalist from this season that just ended back in august absolutely so also finalists the and it's on friday november third which is a lot of fun and they said to me who is it caylee and sassy and they have some al we have michael clabber coming on with us to talk about the sunset celebration on the bay and tell us a little bit more about how the whole different twenty twenty project got started so we will be back in just a minute at the season is upon us and city of sarasota residents are urged to have an emergency plan and be prepared before the storm make sure your disaster supply kit is well stocked with water food medicines extra batteries for flashlights and portable radios first aid kit and supplies for infants children and pets electricity may be out for several days so be sure to get cash and fill your car with gas also know if you live in a flood zone and be aware of evacuation routes near issue having a plan and being prepared to help keep you and your family safe in the event of an emergency for hurricane preparedness guide and information on shelters and evacuation routes go to welcome back to at the van ways all as i mentioned we have a really prominent if not famous sarasota in the in the room michael club or welcome mary i'm excited to be here i love this place could i know we enjoyed working with you over the year but when i talk about you being pretty famous i have to ask you this question before you of course are michael sunny east yes and it's not in the most visible location in sarasota and yet it is one of the most popular if not the most popular restaurants in town how did you make that become a spot you know first of all you know when i did my research and realized that the plaza was called mid town it kind of told you that it was close to go secondly you did have to have some vision back then because there wasn't really much around this and we were on the back side of their hospital was there yeah you remember that building with sears and roebuck when i went to sarasota high school my car so i you know i remember that building if i would have known in high school that i was going to do that i probably shouldn't but you have you know you have a wonderful chef it's great food and you know and of course i go there for so many lunches for women's groups and things like that you must do an enormous catering business there is a lot going on there the let's see there's a big event there today launches matter of fact so yeah lots going on you know thirty years and counting we're still going strong it's a very exciting time in our community and there's so much going on it's hard to keep up with it is it is hard to keep up with because at one point you had been the caterer here at the van ways and everybody enjoyed that so much and then i've gone to so many events where you folks have catered you know i mean i was out on minnesota key and there was a whole lobster event you know sure that was fantastic that's great and best clam chowder i've ever had but we're here to talk about more than just your business we're here because you really turned into quite the community activist i mean you have you have been everywhere for those of you that don't realize michael really was the impetus along with virginia haley starting the whole bayfront twenty twenty project how did that start for you and virginia how did that come about well it came about because i went i became the board chair visit sarasota county went on a trip to nashville with me and the chamber and a great learning experience and while we were there when there was conversation between some of the elected and community leaders about this property and some of the work that had been thought through in two thousand and six and seven that they were going to dust off those plans and maybe start to write some of that right well haven't had a lot of experience in the in this area and having had two restaurants over the quaoar said wait a minute is anybody thinking about the big picture here right right we had all these properties in play and it turned out that there's about seventy five acres of different properties in play all at the same time he said when they said what did you learn from this trip i said i learned that nobody's looking at the big picture and how are we going to look at this property in a way that fifty years from now they're going to say good job yeah and you know i can remember sitting somewhere where and where john taxed and was still the county commissioner and he said you know you have the most beautiful view sitting there with asphalt and you know we've got to do something about that and you were the one that really started the ball moving and i i really feel that people have said to me the part that was really brilliance is the way you built the small groups together you built the access for the whole community so you didn't just try to do just come to me and say hey you know mary or hey joe with the orchestra you really have built a grounds root grass roots campaign how has that been like because i know you've gone to hundreds hall here for i talked with with tom try on it's been awesome to really get to know our community yeah that's so many people in so many neighborhoods and so many groups that i never knew so to understanding the diversity and the passion of our community right i mean that's a gift and you and i went on a couple of fact finding missions we had gone to orlando and we went to gosh kansas city and indiana and looked at a lot of but nobody has the view that we have today while the parking lot here has some of the best usa do and i'd like to tease if you're loading in on the back end there you know a little better view you do and i tell you a lot of our performers you know really enjoy it m favorite story is we had a group of irish performers and they're young and they come and they spent the night you know because when they get here sometimes they orchestras or the bands live in there their buses or their trucks and so they slept here that see the water in the morning and then i see the water when i leave and that's it so because my office faces the parking lot too but you then we've had now the sarasota planning board organization and what a great group of people i know you know tom barwon our city manager is on it and a g lawfully i mean how did we get him to care that we have so many people in this community that we don't even realize are here but exactly there are some really brilliant folks in our community and the goal was to have a nine member board to really oversee the you know creating the master plan because that's what twenty twenty is been doing for almost four years and it was building that consensus in the community we created the vision in the guiding principles that ultimately the commission adopted which is kind of like our safety right right and a great platform for our elected and you know now we're we're in that process of actually there's an hour of q out  there on to back by september first there were people out in the per party was now working on their own flew in from holland or something they were here from boston and they've got consultants from from amsterdam so we're going to have the best and the brightest in the world looking at this forty two acre property and i know we're going to get something great so that board had to be people that were not a specific advocate for anything only for the future of our community and it's a wonderful group to work with i bet it is i bet it is and and i think you know you've guys have sort of corn the name the bay now and one of the things is a g came to me about putting an event together because of course we have the world growing championships here yes and that's all  park but they want to have some sort of event where they invite the world if you will to the bayfront so can you tell us a little bit about that event if not all fill in ok well one of the goals of the s p p o is to start to create activation on the bay front we want to show we want to invite the community to come down here and see what's going on so right the idea was thrown out about trying to create some advance to engage the public and educate people more about what's going on in the bay front so this is going to be the first of what we think are going to be multiple events great just going to get people used to coming down here and seeing the waterfront from this view having an opportunity to learn more about the process and what we're doing but yes this event the first one and it's a lot like your friday found yes that sort of inspired this is a sunset celebration which is wonderful yeah right best when it doesn't rain which we rarely have rain but you know when it doesn't rain outside people are dancing people float by in boats my favorite was when we had there was a wedding chapel boat that used to float by and that people would go on the wedding chapel boat and they anchor out on the water you know to listen to the music and  this sunset celebration is on a saturday on a friday and it's september thirtieth and you know it's the weekend of the finals of the rowing championships so we knew we were going to have fifty some odd countries athletes here and then most of them will be kind of come completed their reeses because the only thing that will be left on sunday is the finals and we want to get something to bring them all together to celebrate with them selves and to bring the community together to welcome we say welcome the world absolutely shoulder and it's september thirtieth a saturday it's from four to eight the sun set that night is at seven thirty so it should be perfect the weather is great it is a free event just like all of our friday fests and  we have for the entertainment two great groups normally we have one but we wanted to make this a little more special so we have the band yesterdays which plays all of the fabulous songs my generation and your generation and and then we also have the west coast black their troop performing in between so it should be if they're going to really get things moving to those guys are amazing and there's lots and lots of food with our food trucks and medicines is helping out and of course our great friend john supporter with gold coast brewing it's a great place to get a beer and we'll have the food trucks we have a lot of sponsors i know city of sarasota has has helped out as well as the van ways a foundation michael so to county so all of these people are working together to have one great party and i'm really looking forward to it and so i hope this is the first of many events that we will see from from your organization and of course we're all eager to see the plans once you've got a group hired and everything's going very well it's going to be a very exciting fall as you know we get all of the all the earth cues in number first and our plan is to be able to announce a winner sometime in october that's fantastic so things are moving along i will tell you as we wrap up when michael called if a friend twenty twentieth's gave me a heart attack because that seems so close c n n and he's convinced he's going to put a shovel somewhere by that time and i twenty twenty you know the idea was land want to see significant work being done and the ocular twenty colin twenty because it's going to take clear focused vision to see it's there and to make sure that fifty years from now the grandchildren the children in the residence at that time say is great to see and i can't think of a project that is more going to be more spectacular for the sarasota community so thank you so much for being with us please enjoy everything that michael has to offer because he does so much for our community and he helps out so many charity events i should have mentioned that he also has been our charity auctioneer where we raise money for the kids to have free bus rides here to the theater so i can't thank you enough for every think you do for the community and we will be back in a moment at the van way every day forty four people in the u s die from drug overdose but they don't have to do in florida if you're trying to save the life of another person you're protected from prosecution by the good samaritan you just save your life make sure you're watering your yard at the proper day in the city of syria so that residents with the odd house number those ending with one three five seven or nine are allowed to irrigate on thursdays residents with an even house number zero two four six or eight can water on tuesdays for more information call the city of sarasota as public works department at nine five five two three two five or visit  i almost with michael cloudera launched into it because he came back from africa the summer after six weeks and i was there for twelve days and you know opportunity have dinner with this him down i have to disappoint he didn't bring any samples from the restaurant oh i know and then well he has a wine cellar to check you know i have to go there we're not allowed the trains but there you go there you go city city city city but we do have a restaurant bar here so you know we enjoy it and we have a great caterer here we have madison and so on the bay he does a great job but terrific what we've seen we have a we have some video on this one as well but i'm really looking forward to it as well and this is friday november fifteenth so less a little seventy or little best to and from what i understand they're going to do things from legacy voyage and some christmas thrown in to throw some christmas their classic christmas album and then their upcoming celtic thunder inspirational will have music as well from that their new album yeah so and life there you go but this is the speakeasy tour and what if they say they neither speak nor is it easy you know so let's look at a little video of straight no chaser  spectacular go on you tube and take a look at that you'll get a really good idea i have a girlfriend from high school who got a hold of me i don't know five seven years ago and you have to have this group and of course i never heard of them at the time so my girlfriend pat just talked me into it and i took her there they're fun and they're here saturday november eighteenth and o'clock and then we have our four friends coming back we have dave things and his christmas anniversary christmas tour it's the twentieth anniversary and it and it's it is and  and and then he's introducing a new singer and so and i was lucky enough to go to his meet and greet and his mother makes the most fantastic chocolate chip cookies and they serve as hot chocolate right they search touch i could hear a couple years  so anyway those are just a few of the shows that we have but before we get to those we still have night before this is a friday saturday yeah there you go sorry it's already and it's really focusing on the fact that we have all these right international visitors and sarasota which is really quite cool they're here our view our vision of what the waterfront is going to look like to a lot of international visitors and i think they're going to be warmed by it so as far as tickets go to buy tickets to our season you can still buy a subscription to the broadway or classical or dance series the phone numbers nine five three three three and there's a lot of people here so we're going to have free breakfast on our on sale day check yes good good i asked him i don't know what's going to be healthy but we're going to let you know so that'll be great fun but there's so much going on at the van ways that's so that should be a great following season so come on down and sign up for so anyway folks let us know because there are also it's a family night right where you can bring a student for free there's special reynolds shows that are happening we of course have the seasons for the orchestra and the ballet and all we really need to tell them here is what is really tight and also make sure you get your brochure and then just know that like i just announced chicago we're going to be adding some great bands and i also have a gal star i am working on that i wish i could have gotten in the brochure but there's three or four a sig big names that i really hoping will happen the unbelievable i mean if you get the one i like most tickets go out if you're in the about fifteen minutes there you're going to half an hour so well anyway we've enjoyed this segment about the band ways and we hope to see you next month right here