2011 Beach and Parks Report
2011 SBA ANNUAL MEETING
February 10, 2011
I categorize this year as, — tying up loose ends, strengthening projects started last year, continuing to work on ongoing projects, and, trying once and for all, to find a solution to those niggly problems which are affecting our island.
As you no doubt have seen, Bergalis/ Surfside is completed. This project was the last from the 3 million dollars received from the City to rebuild or improve our Beach Parks. Park use has increased, which is nice to see, due to the pavilion and the rest room which were constructed at the N end of Surfside.
Jetty Park Project. I will try to simplify this, as it is a very complex process. Let me start by putting up the rendering of the total project. Acquisition of the Old Days Inn property-roundabout- Linear Walkway-Jetty Park project. This was designed as a total package, but will be built in phases due to monetary and other constraints. The Jetty Park is the first phase. PUT UP JETTY RENDERING. It is included in your packet. First let me say that the 2 million dollar grant that we have is for green space and CAN NOT be used for parking, thus you see where the parking is located. The project is under the LAP (Local Agency Planning) program. It is a long process with many, many requirements that must be satisfied before a shovel full of dirt is turned; some are simple to comply with and some are incredibly complex and time consuming- a bureaucratic nightmare for our staff. The first requirement was to send the appropriate staff to be trained to work within this program. The project was initially a stream-lined design-build with Burkhardt Construction doing the work. AU CONTRAIRE MON AMI- under the LAP System, the project MUST go out for bid. As of now there is a 80-20% match meaning that $400k of the 2 million is the City’s portion. Fortunately, we do have funds that can only be used for capital improvements within our parks.—– SO-the timetable has been reset for 2013, but if all the requirements have been satisfied, the project can begin earlier.
Our Park Volunteer clean up program has grown to 12 members, covering all our parks, xovers, sidewalks and rights of way and now the vacant lots by the Jetty. Each is assigned to a park or area to work in when they can. In the time we’ve been in operation, we have given the City over 600 volunteer hours of service. We always can use more help- if you are interested see me after the meeting.
The Citizen’s Parks Advisory Committee, comprised of residents from all over the City sent 2 recommendations in 2010 to the Commission for approval. The first was a 2 tiered park pavilion rental fee, designed to give local residents a break when renting a pavilion. The second, was to allow 1 vendor to rent non motorized vehicles and watercraft at Jaycee and South Causeway parks. Lisa Fasnacht of Lisa’s Kayaks Inc. was awarded the contract and, is the ONLY vendor LICENSED by the City, who can LEGALLY drop off and pick up kayaks and bikes, and give lessons or tours. She is a beach resident and a business member of our association, so I ask you to support her. The third recommendation is the final draft of the re-write of the Park Ordinances. It was just completed and will go to the Legal department for review before going to the commission for approval. Yes, this project took forever-but it was a gargantuan undertaking. My thanks to Chief Baldwin for his time and effort on this last draft.
PUT UP BENCH PICTURES
The Memorial Bench Program, originally spearheaded by Christine Coke is up and running. As Carole has mentioned, your association has donated 4 benches-2 on the Inlet Linear Walkway, and 2 by the entrance to the Jetty itself. If you are interested, Mr. Mimms is here tonight with copies of the brochure and will meet with anyone, group, business or organization either tonight after the meeting, or you can contact him at the Public Works Department. As an aside, you’ve undoubtedly notice that there are some plaques on some of the rocks at the Jetty- Those are illegal, so please don’t follow suit.
The vacant lots W of the Jetty have become a huge public nuisance. Folks have been pulled their vehicles in anywhere and every where (even on the walkway itself), to fish (which is illegal), sit or walk. As soon as the owners of those parcels give their permission, and an engineering design is available, the vacant parcels area along Seaway Drive will be bollard off, and parking will be allowed in the Old Days Inn property until that phase of Jetty Park is built.
There have been complaints about the lack of adequate lighting in the Harbour Isle roundabout, and currently there is no electricity there. The City is working on a re-design of the interior of the roundabout to include lights.
The parking at Chuck’s is still a niggly problem and a conundrum. You have a restaurant, which has NEVER had sufficient parking, but needs a certain amount of seating in order to have a full liquor license, rebuilt to city code and is on County owned land, which is next to a County owned park, maintained by the City. On the other side you have the old fire house owned by the fire district, and again on County owned land Three possible solutions have been advanced by the City. 1. Leasing part of South Causeway Beach Park to Chuck’s. IF, some area is leased who gets the $ from the lease-the County or the City? What about the issue of public lands being used for private enterprise and the ordinance stating that our parks close at dusk? 2. If a deal is struck with the Fire District to park there, is the Fire District in danger of having that property revert back to the County, as the property is not being used as it was intended? The last possibility is to try to negotiate a deal with Harbour Isle to use some of their Marina property for valet parking. This last suggestion seems to be the least complicated, and the easiest to achieve. The City Manager has offered his services as a facilitator in an initial dialogue with Mason Simpson to explore this possible solution.
Ultimately, the responsibility for a solution lies directly with Chuck’s owner, Mr. Peter Angelos, not the City, or the County or the Fire District. The South Beach Association is not picking on Mr. Angelos, we want to see his restaurant succeed. We are business friendly- just look at the increase in our business memberships- Chucks being one of them, but we have dealt with this problem FOR YEARS—ENOUGH. Until Mr. Angelos is really pressured to come up with a viable solution this problem will continue to exist.
As always our association prides itself in working along WITH our two governments in reaching fair and amicable results to problems and certainly will do so in this situation. This is NOT a “sky is falling Chicken Little” catastrophe but, a niggly problem that must find resolution. Please—Let’s do it in 2011!!
The last item, is the County’s plan to deal with the erosion in the Jetty area, caused by the severe winter winds of the last few months. First a little history. Last year our 1.3 miles of beachfront lost 485 thousand cubic yards of sand, and is expected to lose another 600 thousand cubic yards this year. This is due to the Jetty and the Inlet disrupting the natural N to S flow of sand. We were due to have another re-nourishment project last spring, but— there was no money in the federal budget or any earmarks in Congressman Rooney’s for the project. The proposed emergency plan-a band aid at best, is to modify the existing permit which allows sand from the off shore shoal to be used, to use 40-50 thousand cubic yards of sand from upland sources—sand mines. This sand would be a close match to what we currently have, and would be trucked in and placed from the Jetty to St. Lucie Court. This project, hopefully, will be ready to go by April 1 and will last a month. In the meantime at the end of this month there will be a meeting between Congressman Rooney and the ACOE colonel in charge of the Jacksonville Region to discuss finding funds for a full scale re-nourishment. The funding for this emergency project will be taken out of the County’s Erosion Control District budget- which we ALL pay into.
We must remember, that regardless of whatever else we do to retain sand, be it groins, bypassing or some other system, we will ALWAYS need additional sand as those systems will never give us 100% of what is needed. Man’s payment for disrupting Mother Nature.