Report to the Board of County Commissioners
February 15, 2011
1- Inform Board that I attended the DACS oyster workshop last Monday, Feb. 7, for the purpose of talking to Ms. Leslie Palmer, DACS bureau chief, regarding the request the Board made for Mr. David Heil to be available to the Board to discuss oyster industry issues. Ms. Palmer said that she appreciated the faith the Board had in Mr. Heil but that all the agencies, including DACS, are under new budgetary guidelines. Ms. Palmer said that the focus of her agency will be back to their core mission as a regulatory agency. Any request the Board had for Mr. Heil will need to be made to Ms. Palmer to see whether the request fits the core mission.
2- Inform the Board that Commissioner Parrish and I participated in the meeting on Friday, Feb. 4 in Walton County of the 7 counties impacted by the BP oil spill. Four main points came out of the meeting:
A) County Commissioner Grover Robinson is encouraging each county to send a delegation to the meeting Mr. Feinberg is holding in Tallahassee on Feb. 18. Mr. Fienberg is scheduled to appear from 9-11 AM at Webster Hall at 212 Knott Bldg in front of the House Economic Affairs Committee in the state capital complex. Commissioner Robinson would like 200 people from the impacted counties to pack the room. (I have an email saying the meeting starts at 8:45AM but that is to allow for roll call for the Legislative members attending the meeting).
B) Former DEP Secretary Mimi Drew was in attendance and explained that each county would be receiving a request to submit projects for funding through the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process. We received the letter electronically on Feb. 8, and I have copies for the Board. Each of the impacted counties is eligible to propose potential restoration projects. A list of potential restoration projects will be provided to the Natural Resource Trustee Council, of which Florida is a member, and will be evaluated for eventual submission to the responsible party for funding. Quoting from the letter, “This is your opportunity to directly participate in the process of identifying potential projects that are related to natural resource injuries and service losses requiring restoration.” The deadline for submitting is March 4, 2011.
Mr. Lee Edmiston has also contacted me and encouraged the county to provide him with costs for the project.
Board discussion on other projects it would like to submit. The description of eligible restoration projects leads me to believe that Alligator Point, Dog Island, and Carrabelle Beach would be eligible to receive funds if the Board wants to list them as projects. Please realize that being eligible is no guarantee that funds will be allocated.
C) Commissioner Robinson led the discussion on a Joint Resolution from the 7 counties. I have the attached the draft Resolution to my report. The desire by Commissioner Robinson is to have each county adopt the resolution before Mr. Feinberg’s Feb. 18th meeting so that the joint resolution can be presented to him and the news media on that day.
D) There was discussion about the legislation that Senator Gaetz has introduced regarding the handling of the potential BP fine money. It appears that the 7 counties are going to have to accept that the funds will go to Florida’s Great Northwest, but the money will be set up in a separate 501(c)(3) that will be controlled by the 7 counties.
3- The Crooked River Lighthouse would like the county to write a letter of support for its acquisition of 3 additional acres of land around the lighthouse. While the county is submitting its own projects to FCT, Mark Curenton has checked and there are no points awarded for letters of support so it will not impact the county’s application if the Board chooses to support the Lighthouse application. Board direction
4- Board direction on 2 requests for the Board to consider abandoning public right of way. The Board is aware that several weeks ago a request was submitted for a platted street to be abandoned on Alligator Point. Now we have received a request for a section of St. Teresa Blvd, in the St. Teresa area, to be abandoned also.
Both of these requests come with signatures of the bordering property owners supporting the request.
It has been more than 20 years since the Board abandoned any property in either one of these areas. In the case of Alligator Point, the road to be abandoned has never been opened, but it is within a block from the water. In the case of St. Teresa, the road to be abandoned has not been maintained by the county, and there are encroachments into the ROW in various places.
However, once the roads are abandoned they are lost to the public forever. I have been contacted by various members of APTA and a great many questions have been raised as to the public need of abandoning the Alligator Point ROW. I am unable to describe a public need in abandoning the ROW. I have had no communication from anyone in St. Teresa but I am also unable to describe a public need for abandoning the ROW. In both cases the land is not costing the county any money so the question is why abandon something now that might be needed in the future. At this time I recommend the Board not proceed with the abandonments.
5- Inform the Board that the City of Apalachicola has requested assistance with installing a large culvert pipe on a road recently paved in Chairman Lockley’s district. The City is paying for the pipe and the county is installing it.
http://www.oysterradio.com e-mail manager@oysterradio.com with comments
No comments:
Post a Comment