Kelly Bauman and the group Oppose Manasota Beach Road have been pushing back against the Manasota Beach Road project since February 2026. Kelly took things further, filing for a formal administrative hearing with the Southwest Florida Water Management District. The district thought her case deserved a closer look, sending it to a state hearing officer, and set a hearing for September 2026.
But on September 9, 2026, just days before the hearing, Kelly moved to withdraw her case. Kelly explains, “It is extremely difficult to make this motion. It’s a heavy weight to carry, and even harder not to complete. I just don’t have the time to review discovery and prep for a final trial. I’ve never done this before, but I was willing to try my best. At this point, I can’t properly represent myself or the other witnesses given the rushed timeline. I’d only have a single weekend to review everything and get all the paperwork together by the 14th.”
Kelly went into detail in her motion, laying out exactly why she couldn’t move forward. She tried to preserve the record, stating:
“You can see the language from my filing. I’m relying on it and keeping the record intact. It’s a travesty that ordinary people must endure this process when their livelihoods and safety are at risk.
“I’m deeply disappointed seeing the county’s failures up close. Development keeps favoring developers again and again. Developers lead, not elected commissioners. Commissioners pass responsibility to developers. They let developers negotiate buffers, and later they don’t even maintain them. Developers make promises to residents with no backing. All at the taxpayer’s expense! Meeting after meeting, residents plead with commissioners not to flood their property, not to destroy what they’d worked for. Yet new development keeps taking priority over the people and families who’ve built these communities for decades, even their entire lives.
“The hypocrisy is stunning, like Commissioner Mast saying, ‘If you’re new to Florida, welcome to Florida, it floods!’ The responsibility-shirking is appalling. The county spends money building fancy trails, but can’t take care of its own people. Maybe commissioners would act differently if their pay depended on actually representing the people. We wouldn’t have trouble with term limits, either.”
Kelly Bauman’s official motion to withdraw included detailed reasons:
She started this proceeding in good faith to challenge the agency action. She tried to pursue the case as best she could, but the existing schedule made it impossible. The technical discovery left: stormwater, drainage, engineering, and environmental-resource-permit matters is crucial.
She served written discovery on Sarasota County in July, and the county was supposed to reply in August. They asked for more time, needing help from their expert engineer, Ben Quartermaine, who wasn’t available. Kelly didn’t oppose the request, and the extension was granted. The county served responses in late August, but pointed Kelly to third parties for technical information.
The county also identified Quartermaine as its expert witness, stating that he reviewed application materials about stormwater and permit compliance. So, after getting extra time to answer, the county handed off responsibility to ESWG/Stantec while naming Quartermaine their expert on the same issues.
Kelly pursued discovery from ESWG right away, filing notices and motions to request more discovery time and a delay for the hearing. She raised concerns about the compressed schedule before the discovery period ended and before her computer broke down, which added insult to injury. Her laptop was in for repairs during crunch time; not expected back until the discovery deadline. This tech failure made an impossible timeline even worse. Still, her concerns about the schedule came first, not the laptop.
The Administrative Law Judge held a hearing on September 1 to address these issues. The judge recognized the county’s responses as a material issue, saw that Kelly was forced to pursue new discovery after August 21, and acknowledged that the time needed to finish discovery would run out before the parties could prepare for the hearing. The judge asked Kelly to narrow her interrogatories to thirty total, including subparts, and she complied. All discovery, including depositions, needed to be done by September 11, with the final hearing scheduled for September 21.
Kelly laid out that the remaining window wouldn’t let her receive, review, or understand the technical materials, identify follow-ups, decide which depositions were necessary, or prepare for the hearing. She couldn’t make sense of which witnesses or experts she actually needed without first reviewing the technical discovery. She didn’t want to waste witnesses’ time or depose experts without first understanding the materials herself.
She stated clearly: proceeding under these circumstances meant either going forward without meaningful use of the technical discovery, or rushing to analyze complex engineering and environmental data, decide on witnesses, prep for depositions, and get ready for trial, all in days.
Given the situation, Kelly chose to withdraw, not delay or request another extension. She reiterated: this was not about stalling, and fundraising concerns were separate and related to the broader legal fight, not this administrative case. She’d gotten legal help for other aspects, but represented herself here. The fundraising wasn’t for delay.
Her withdrawal wasn’t because her concerns about flooding, drainage, permitting, or the broader issues had been resolved or abandoned. She didn’t concede their merits, nor did she ask the Administrative Law Judge to decide on them now. She requested only permission to withdraw, that the Division close the file and relinquish jurisdiction, that the September 21 hearing and prehearing deadlines be canceled, and that each party pay its own attorney’s fees and costs.
In addition, if anyone seeks fees or costs against her, she wants proper notice and a chance to respond. She’s conferred (or tried to confer) with all the other parties. ESWG agreed; the others’ positions weren’t stated.
Kelly Bauman, appearing pro se, respectfully requested the court to allow withdrawal, close the file, cancel the hearing, terminate any remaining deadlines, let each party cover its own fees and costs, and grant any other relief the Administrative Law Judge sees fit.
Kelly Bauman and the Oppose Manasota Beach Road group have bravely pushed back every step of the way. They showed up at protests, stood in front of microphones at public meetings, and called out developers, asking pointed questions that mostly still hang in the air, ignored. Along the way, they’ve felt triumph and disappointment. It takes immense courage to stand up for yourself, and equal courage to recognize when the system’s timelines prevent a fair fight.
