To Our County Commissioners: Give the Sarasota County Law Library A Permanent Home in the Historic Courthouse We, the undersigned citizens of the County of Sarasota, believe that the Sarasota Law Library should be permanently housed in the Historic Sarasota County Courthouse. Now more than ever, the general public, local attorneys, and all those interested in legal research need the law library near the Sarasota courts so that everyone has free and meaningful access to justice. The Historic Courthouse is the proper place for the law library. Locating the law library in this historic building would accord with the grant from the Ringling Trust – to preserve this historic building for court purposes. The best practice of courts all over the country is to provide a free public law library on the environs of the courthouse. It is not acceptable in a democracy to subject persons to a written law without giving them free and meaningful access to the laws to which they are subject. We believe that the current collection, the equipment for online legal research, as well as our esteemed law librarian Roger Fischel, can all be accommodated for the foreseeable future in on the ground floor of the Sarasota County Historic Courthouse, near the cafe. "If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: thou shalt not ration justice." - Judge Learned Hand