When the late Manatee County commissioner Carol Ann Felts made a motion on Sept. 16, 2025 to direct county staffers to come up with the budget, funding and personnel needed to take “into account water quality standards and environmental standards that we should have been doing all along,” she was clearly talking about the Myakka River.
With Commissioner Tal Siddique absent, commissioners voted 6-0 in favor of Felts’ motion.
But seven months later, Felts’ plan to hire two additional staff members to monitor the river has morphed into two part-time technicians under the Planning and Zoning department who will work throughout all of Manatee County…