Beach Management is new Town focus
The Fort Myers Beach Town Council presented several bullet point ideas regarding beach management issues Wednesday, Feb. 3, during a continuation of its Feb. 1 regular town meeting. It then instructed Town Manager Terry Stewart to build a letter of intent from the ideas as a form of communication response to the Lee County Board of County Commissioners’ draft Interlocal amendment.
The letter will include criteria involving three main issues: the Navigation Channel Project; a Beach Management Program; and the current Interlocal Agreement between town and county.
The council members consensually agreed to have Stewart draft the letter which will deal with the high level issues by defining their own perceptions, before any bilateral agreement between the two parties.
“If we get into an interlocal agreement phase, it seems like everybody jumps into it immediately with attorneys and staff on both ends, and this thing goes on and on and on,” said FMB Mayor Larry Kiker. “I’m hoping that we can cut through that with this process that were talking about. We intend to develop a process to not use the ILA agreement process. We intend to use this criteria that we’ve developed for our town.”
Prior to the meeting, both Kiker and Councilman Tom Babcock drew up their own criteria summaries which mirrored each others’ thought processes.
“If we don’t find some way to deal with the interlocal agreement that’s on the table, we will continue to flounder as we have for 12 years and certainly have for the past year since that interlocal has been in place,” said Babcock. “We recognize that this needs to be a joint effort that we define a way to go forward to deal with the critical problem at the north end of this island, both at the navigational channel and the critical erosion for some part of our beach. We need to protect and manage a world class beach. We can’t sit back as a council and let it just go away. We haven’t found the right way.”
Public comment involved beach property owners Frank Schilling and Joanne Shamp, two residents who have been most opposed to the current beach ‘re-nourishment’ project. Both residents thanked the council for their vision, recognition, progress and hard work on the controversial issue.
“This council has taken on the heat of saying that you would make a decision about beach re-nourishment,” said an emotional Shamp. “The town will be proud of the leadership you showed today. You are very capable of writing an LDC (Land Development Code) and a Comp Plan.”
Afterwards, each council member weighed in with their comments, such as Vice Chairman Herb Acken requesting voluntary vegetation, the use of a town-developed beachscape program and adding criteria like the benefits of the county-supporting shrimping and charter fishing industries who need both north and south end channels to be maintained.
The council appears to be sending a clear message to county personnel. It’s time for town officials to take the initiative to write, instead of react. It’s also time to stop calling the restoration project beach re-nourishment, get all sides on the same page and refer to it by what it really is — a beach management program.
Bullet Points for Three Issues in Letter of Intent
Navigation Channel Project
– continuous maintenance (6 years; $750,000)
– clearer organizing plan (the right groin design)
– scope of dredging project
– permitting
– funding
– recognition of sandbar in pass
– joint decision making for project development
– both channels involved
Beach Management Program
– recognize completed studies
– beachscape
– recognize the finding of fact from existing permits
– easement acquisition
– hot spot maintenance
– abnormal man-made erosion issues
– storm water management
– pending U.S. Supreme Court decision
– sand placement
– introduction of new technologies
– developing of educational stewardship
– existing ordinances (i.e. dunes and vegetation)
Current Interlocal Agreement
– recognize 90 percent easement conditions not met
– unilateral termination
– easement administration
– remodify existing agreement