Good evening

As you will soon see this has been a good year for all of our beach and parks projects. After the ’04 hurricanes and several fits and starts, the City allocated three million dollars to rebuild and/or enhance the following parks; Jaycee, South Beach and Kimberley Bergalis/Surfside. The project was given to the Public Works Department to Complete. Obviously South Beach Park was a priority, but because of the lengthy negotiations with DEP, and Mr. Hood’s commitment to always go forward, work began at Jaycee as no state or federal permits were needed. Even though that park has been open for over a year, there are still some small projects, such as resurfacing the tennis courts and increasing the landscape, to be completed. Those will be done if monies are still available after the completion of Bergalis/Surfside. At the same time the new restrooms were installed in Jaycee, one was also installed in Jetty Park-the sale of the Rollins Property to the City was not then in the picture, and the drop in restroom was woefully inadequate.

As you all have seen, South Beach Park is now completed with a ribbon cutting ceremony occurring in December. I was so touched to have been asked by the Mayor to do the ribbon cutting The boardwalk was replaced with a small observation deck nestled into an area where the dunes had yet to fill in. The structures are built to withstand 180 miles an hour winds. The steps and observation deck are all plastic wood and, all the fittings are stainless steel. Some dune crossovers have been eliminated in that park, as well as in other areas along our shore line. This allows more growth of dune defense against intruding sea water during storms and hurricanes.

I would encourage those of you who have not yet stopped by to walk the observation deck and check out the restrooms, to do so.

Bergalis/Surfside are in final permitting negotiations with DEP; the plans are done, the money is available and Mr. Hood is more than ready to proceed. The scope of the project is somewhat small—some new centralized small picnic pavilions and a restroom in Bergalis, and a large pavilion in Surfside

Causeway Park—Every year I have given you a frustrating and negative report. This year it will be positively euphoric. As you may recall, and Carole has already stated, the SBA has been involved with the County since 2002 in trying to get some—ANY improvements to the beach part of the park. The conceptual drawings have been on the books since 1995, and although the County did a spectacular project in the Smithsonian area, the beach part was never addressed. There was a Charette in ‘04 and three planning meetings in ’05 where then Assistant County Administrator Wazny stated that construction would begin in ‘06.
In ’06 the city and county began negotiations to enter into an interlocal agreement to share the 10 million dollar cost of the project. The agreement was signed and the plans finalized. After sometime, when it became obvious that the county was not going to improve the park in the foreseeable future, the city asked, and was granted, the responsibility for maintaining and making “short term improvements” to the Park. These projects were not to be Capital Improvement projects, and they were to keep within the general footprint of the County’s master plan for the park. Public Works was allocated $621,000 for the project. The majority of the work is completed, the restroom work has been started, and negotiations are ongoing with Harbour Isle and certain state agencies to permit a fishing pier to be constructed over the outfall pipe.

ALL the work was done by the Public Works Department including the monument sign which, a couple of the guys told Bob, after watching the monument signs go up at Jaycee and South Beach, that they could do it—and they did. Because so many of you told us how great the park looked and what a great job the men had done we gave those workmen a luncheon as a thank you.

The Jetty and Inlet Linear Park projects are securely in the pipeline and moving along towards construction. The Jetty plans are 60% completed. The survey is almost done and the next step will be to apply for a permit and complete the plans to the 90% level. The funding source has been earmarked. The Inlet Linear Park’s plans are 60% completed. No DEP permit is necessary, but a lease agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers will be needed. This is almost completed. The funding of $680,000 has been earmarked for Phase I, which would be the heavy construction projects such as land clearing and walkways. The funding for Phase II, which would include lights, benches etc. has not yet been earmarked.

You’ll be happy to hear that, in these days of fiscal austerity, our ongoing Beach Cleaning and Dune Vegetation
Projects are still in place. South Causeway Beach Park has been added to the beach cleaning list. Rob Baron, the landscape architect in charge of the vegetation project has inspected the entire length of project and found that 99% of the public land area is now complete. The exceptions are some minor fill ins and erosion around the Jetty. There are some private properties so close to the dune line it makes the planting of the second and third lines of vegetation defense on public lands impossible. I will meet with our city arborist Paul Williams to see what our options might be. We will be applying for another grant to finish and further improve our dunes. You will be interested to know that our project has attracted national attention as a model of what municipalities should be doing to protect their beaches. The County is trying to schedule another Beach Re-nourishment project (we are due one this year), but money might be an issue.

In April of ’08 the City Commission passed a revision of the Sea Turtle Lighting Ordinance. The purpose is to further reduce hatchling disorientation by applying more stringent requirements of beachside residents to reduce their interior and exterior lighting on their seaward side. If violated, it will be treated as any other code violation-so many days given to come into compliance before fines begin. Since April, 14 notices of violation were sent out. Those were forwarded to the county for follow up. Since no updates were received back, it can be assumed that compliance was met.

In the early fall of ’08 a request to the City Commission was made by Lisa’s Kyaks to rent kyaks and bicycles in certain city parks. It was a hot button item and the consensus of the public was equally split-for and against.
She was allowed a trial period to set up and rent from Causeway Park. Because of the outcry, the Commission formed the Parks Advisory Committee, a 10 member committee with city wide representation. Mr. Hood is our staff advisor and Chief Baldwin, or his representative, has been asked to also be a staff advisor and I am the chair. The task was to discuss and bring back recommendations for all city parks on 1. allowing vendors in our parks and 2. RV and tractor trailer parking. In December a report was given recommending that: non-motorized watercraft and bicycle vendors be allowed. The comprehensive report can be found on our website. As we felt that all the park ordinances, including parking and the parking of oversized vehicles, needed to be reviewed we asked to be allowed to continue our work. It was granted and we have begun our new task.

While I’m on the subject of park ordinances and parking, I know that many of you have some concerns with the sudden and sometimes perceived uneven enforcement of certain ordinances. Until we rebuilt or enhanced some of our parks and, until our park population seemed to explode, the enforcement of the ordinances was almost non-existent. I have been working with the police department for 2 years to try to get pleasant and consistent enforcing of, at least, the most critical ordinances. I am hoping that with the review and rewrite process that the Parks Advisory Committee is now tackling that we will achieve that goal. Vandalism is rampant!! The drop in restroom which was in South Beach Park was removed and placed in another park. The day after it was put in when the men came to remove the frame around the cement slab, there was graffiti on all the walls. Our parks and grounds crews are having to pick up not only dog feces, but human feces as well. Instead of our tax monies going towards further enhancement of our parks, much of it must go towards repairing and cleaning them up. We MUST have increased patrols, citizen reporting and tough enforcement when called for. The police department needs our help—if you see anything or anyone suspicious—call 911.

In closing, I would like you to know that of the 8 items that I reported on tonight, 7 of them were either initiated by your association or we had direct planning input. I also want to thank the City for their great support for beach projects and to give Bob Hood and his staff a huge thank you from all of us- our parks on the Island look great.