Fort Myers Beach hires traffic safety firm
Following a call by Fort Myers Beach Mayor Dan Allers for town staff to search for a security firm to handle traffic issues in the town, Town of Fort Myers Beach Manager Andy Hyatt and Tom Yozzo announced to town council that a new firm has been handled to hire traffic.
AWP Safety, an Ohio-based road construction safety firm with an office in Fort Myers, began working for the town last month despite the town council not voting on the contract.
Town Manager Andy Hyatt executed the contract with the new firm on Feb. 18 despite not having a resolution to hire the new firm. Under state of emergency resolutions the town council has been continuingly passing since Hurricane Ian, the town manager has wide authority to approve contracts without town council resolutions. The contract was signed the dame day as the town council meeting in which the contract was discussed.
According to a contract provided by the town through a Sunshine Law request, the firm will charge the town a minimum of $930 a day for two officers.
Yozzo told the council there will be three-person teams deployed throughout the town each day. That would equal $1395 a day for three officers. According to the terms of the contract, the town will be billed twice the daily rate on weekends.
Yozzo said the personnel from the new firm will be working on the island from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. covering Fifth Street and Crescent, the Old San Carlos Boulevard and Estero Boulevard intersection. Yozzo said the town will rely on a Florida Highway Patrol officer at the base of bridge who is handling any u-turns. Yozzo said the firm will be “filling gaps” with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.
A Sunshine Law request to the town for its existing contract with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office for traffic duties, was not complied with as of press time.
The town in the past has relied on the Lee County Sheriff’s Office to direct traffic and has contracted with the office for additional resources on the island. Allers said he wanted to bring in a new security firm that town management could be in control of.
Town Manager Andy Hyatt did not respond to questions from the Fort Myers Beach Observer as to how the town’s contract with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office for traffic will continue though Yozzo told the town council last week that the Lee County Sheriff’s Office will step up its seasonal presence on the island beginning this weekend.
Allers asked Hyatt at last week’s meeting if the town’s contract with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office will be shifted to Crescent Street and Estero Boulevard.
Hyatt said the original contract with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office was for that intersection. Allers said he thinks the light there is “doing its job.”
According to the other terms of the contract with AWP Safety, which runs through April 31, the town would also have to pay the firm $50 an hour for overtime after eight hours on site. The contract also defines overtime as night work which is billed at one and a half times the per-hour rate.
Yozzo said he will also be creating a designated Uber space on Third Street where the town has a right-of-way.
“We are going to get them out of there and really push our expectations,” Yozzo said. Yozzo said he wants to keep pushing traffic northbound on Estero.
The new traffic officers will be provided with radios and town gear that says “Rangers” on them. Yozzo said he will be training six employees from the firm to handle the traffic, who will be deployed in three-person teams.
Allers said he wants the personnel at Old San Carlos Boulevard and Fifth Street around noon, when he said traffic “starts to back up.”
Yozzo said his biggest fear at that intersection is that “people don’t really understand the fact they can’t just really go and walk down the middle of it” and that pedestrians don’t have the right-of-way.
“You don’t actually have the right-of-way to enter the roadway, you have the right-of-way if you are in the roadway already,” Yozzo said. Yozzo said once a traffic control officer is placed in the middle of the roadway, “they have ultimate control of that intersection and there is no such thing as a right-of-way for pedestrians at that point. They have to be maintained by the (traffic control officer).”
Yozzo said pedestrians should “cross at the crosswalks” and that drivers should “be patient” for pedestrians.
Yozzo said he is also hiring new personnel to assist with traffic.
Councilmember Scott Safford said he also wants a parking spot for DoorDash, a food delivery service, or a 15-minute parking space for where people can pull in to park to grab something quick from a local business without needing to pay the town’s $5 an hour parking meter rate. The town council voted in 2022 to raise its parking meter rates.
Safford also asked Yozzo if the town can close Crescent Street going towards the beach at certain times create a one-way “for Margaritaville valet” and another lane for traffic.
“I’m just throwing this out there, trying to think outside the box how to help that area,” Safford said.
“Is there a way at certain times we can close Crescent Street going towards the beach and just make that one lane for Margaritaville valet and the right lane is the traffic lane?,” Safford asked.
Yozzo said that has been discussed by town staff after it had been suggested in the past but said it would need to be marked properly and manned properly and could lead to more traffic issues.
Yozzo said changing the traffic pattern could potentially lead to motorists going the wrong way. “We could open ourselves up to some liability,” he said. “I think we kind of open ourselves to some headaches.”
Allers said he believed the town’s fire department would also want to weigh in on that.
Safford said councilmembers are getting a lot of comments about the traffic. “I am just looking for solutions,” he said.
Councilmember Karen Woodson asked if the town staff is contacting the Florida Department of Transportation to get their work done quicker as part of their ongoing road and bridge project. The project has closed off a section of Estero Boulevard heading north from the Crescent Beach intersection near Margaritaville. Yozzo said the state did finally fix the sidewalk on the beachside in front of Crescent Beach Family Park. The sidewalk had been a dangerous eyesore for months after it was ripped up for the state’s project.
“The biggest thing we are concerned with is that exit off the island,” Allers said. Yozzo said the bridge work the state is doing will need to be completed more before that changes.
Vice Mayor Jim Atterholt asked Yozzo if the town could have video cameras at the intersections to monitor. Yozzo said the town would have to look into that with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.
“Do you envision that to be for internal use only or could somebody from the public kind of tune in to see what traffic is like,” Atterholt said. Yozzo said part of that camera system could be for internal use and some of it could be for the public.
“It’s a volume issue,” Allers said. “Lee County is packed.”
The impetus to hire the new firm started last month at a town council meeting, when Councilmember Karen Woodson complained about waiting in traffic for more than an hour. Allers suggested the town hire a security firm to which the town’s director of compliance and operations Frank Kropacek said he had met with a security firm to discuss hiring them to handle traffic. Allers told Kropacek that he had his support to move forward with hiring such a firm.
As for town management’s method of hiring the traffic firm without a resolution from the town council, Atterholt said the town manager “has the authority to initiate certain contracts as long as they remain below a certain dollar threshold. I do strongly support doing everything reasonably possible to help ease the traffic congestion. This firm will temporarily supplement both the Town staff and Sheriff’s deputies until we get through season–it is an all hands on deck approach to move traffic that has my full support.”