I've touched every other third-rail of Sarasota politics on this website, why not downtown? Well, downtown boosters, I hope you are open minded.

To begin with, I do have a favorite Downtown Store: The Bullet Hole. I don't always buy, but I always enjoy my visit.

Sarasota Hardware should be next on my list, but every time I have gone there since Scotty's closed they have not had what I was looking for. In fairness, my next stop at Ringling ACE would a fair number of times also require a third effort ten miles round trip to Home Depot.

If you want fancy front door hardware Sarasota Hardware has a large selection. I just never buy front door hardware because there is already hardware on my front door.

Thus, the real next Downtown Store on my list is Sarasota Lock and Key. Recently moved from State Street to 1668 Main, they still have some of the old time Sarasota photographs that have decorated their walls for 49 years. I only need a key every few years, though.

The other stores seem to fall into three categories: Stores for women, stores stocked with things I never use, and stores that are way-the-h*ll too expensive!

What do they call it, "tourist prices"? Try $25 bucks for a cap! The last ten caps I got were free, but in downtown Sarasota caps are $25! Then the "on sale" t-shirts for $14.95. The last t I bought was $2, but what do I know about what things should cost?

It would seem that between those prices, the $5 per square foot rent that we we learned about at the forum the other day and the ubiquitous undocumented labor that downtown Sarasota entrepreneurship should be a gold mine but we keep hearing that we have to save them, so . . .

My first suggestion - we need passenger trains to take A LOT of people downtown at once.

Maybe not so much passenger trains for customers, but workers. If ALL the downtown workers' cars were out at McIntosh, Bee Ridge or University in Park-and-ride facilities it would free up a lot of that holy grail 30 feet from your store parking for people who can pay $25 bucks for a cap without quickly putting it down lest it singe their fingers.

Next, small shuttle vehicles, smaller than those that have been tried, to carry folks around downtown for a few coins fare. I would even say this would still be a good deal if it operated at a deficit. Michael Saunders recently said that there are people who won't walk more than a block and a half, and I think she is right about that.

The downtown merchants could even sponsor the small shuttle, or the taxi companies run it as a concession. I am thinking 8 passenger golf carts here. Cute, "green", electric, charge them at the wall plug at night. You would hardly notice it on the electric bill.

Oh, yeah, a HUGE, DENSE downtown "rich people residence" presence. The last time I looked, the newer expensive condos downtown were practically empty. The ones that aren't practically empty still have a lot of vacancies. This is an opportunity for our real estate folks, but it is an opportunity for downtown as well.

When I first came to Sarasota you couldn't go anywhere without being handed sales stuff for expensive condos, but looking around downtown just yesterday I didn't see any of that. Have business folks nowadays forgotten how to scratch each others backs? Just wondering . . .

After the downtown business folks make friends with some real estate folks and get those vacant condos sold, remember that both Bayside and The Proscenium have both been approved over whatever neighborhood objections there had been. Maybe after all the vacant condos have been sold these already approved projects will actually be built? And sold? These are a little distant for walking to downtown but the small shuttles might make it happen.

This is not to mention having a shuttle from 888, Watergate, Golden Gate Point and the hotels. Think about it.