Contractors ripped off a few dilapidated wooden balconies mainly as a symbolic gesture for the crowd of reporters and interested onlookers. On Tuesday, Unicorp did consolidate final ownership of the outstanding commercial interests at the Colony.

The demolition is to make way for a new waterfront restaurant by the owners, the Columbia Restaurant Group.

From the mid-rise Klauber ran the operation like a benevolent dictator with his Sperry Topsiders, snug white shorts and shirts that even a Fauvist on LSD could not envision.

We are right now the land of two divine spectacles: The Town Commission election and the approval of the St. Regis Hotel and Residences. This past week was especially exciting since at long last a new vision was approved to replace the morbid and moribund Colony Beach & Tennis Resort.

Without an epidural and with numerous suitors claiming ownership rights to the offspring, Unicorp President Chuck Whittall, his attorneys and the members of the Longboat Key Planning and Zoning Board came together this past week and consummated the first signs of new life at the decrepit 17.6-acre site.

Politicians are a lot like babies: they must be changed often and for the same reason.

Unicorp submits revised site plan minus 24 units after contentious meeting. Final site plan heading to P&Z for review.

I find it hard to get on bandwagons. I do not wave flags for developers, but at the same time I see the rallying cry of Preserve Longboat Key as short sighted. Both are right and wrong.

When it comes to the Colony Beach & Tennis Resort redevelopment a bizarre form of land use porn has emerged and I hear otherwise sane people getting caught up in images and feelings that have little or no basis in anything resembling reality.

We do not need to wonder how this will play out. We do not need to analyze how well Trump will do or what the future of the Republican or Democratic party will be in America. All we have to do is lay down in bed, turn on a network or read on the Internet and we will know what to think.