Beaches Watch hosts city mayors

Officials discuss current and upcoming projects

City officials joined forces recently to update the community on the state of the three Beaches cities. Beaches Watch hosted Mayors Charlie Latham, Ellen Glasser and Elaine Brown at its Feb. 5 meeting to highlight such issues as infrastructure improvements, coastal resiliency and public participation.
Latham delivered his final annual update as the mayor of Jacksonville Beach. His term will end this year.
“I’m going to put a bunch of numbers up on that PowerPoint. The number that I’d like to mention is zero, and that zero is going to be the amount of debt we have in Jacksonville Beach when I leave in November,” he said.
Latham introduced new Public Works Director Dennis Barron who recently joined the city staff. Projects include three new ADA compliant walkovers, outfall extensions, infrastructure improvements and the 12th Avenue South stormwater basin to mitigate the flood-prone area.
“With the help of the council, members of the DOT and our own Senator Aaron Bean, we were able to get $30.2 million to fix our flooding problem. We’re in the middle of fixing that now,” Barron said. “A lot of people are upset because it’s a real pain to go through this. It’s loud, it’s dirty, it’s messy, but when it’s done, it’s pretty impressive when the flooding problem will be a fraction of what it’s been in the past.”
Redevelopment continues along 2nd Street. Rehabilitation of the city’s second water tower will soon be underway to reflect the new logo, charging stations were installed in Latham Plaza and in the pier parking plaza, and downtown redevelopment efforts will continue to progress.
“It’s moving along a little slower than we’d like, but it still continues to move forward,” noted Latham. “The ship’s pointed in the right direction but the screws aren’t turning very fast. There are a lot of exciting things happening.”
Reconstruction of the Jacksonville Beach fishing pier is underway. While the pier is owned and operated by the city of Jacksonville, Latham said the city will consider taking over operation once work is complete.
“We are having discussions about potentially taking over the operation of the pier after it’s finished,” said Latham. “The current estimated time for repair is November 2022.”
Upcoming projects include the Waterford Condominium at 16th Avenue South, a mixed-use development on the former Dolphin Depot site, Element Hotel at Third Street and Beach Boulevard, and the new Margaritaville Hotel.
Improvements will be added at key intersections along Penman Road including crosswalks, curb ramps, new sidewalks and pedestrian signals.
“The council has been working on this for about four years and Sandy Golding has really taken the reigns on this,” said Latham.
At the city’s south end, the South Beach Skateboard park was recognized by the United Skate Team as one of the best municipal skate parks in the country. Crosswalks were also installed along South Beach Parkway to address student safety issues.
Latham lauded the efforts of Parks and Recreation director Jason Phititedes, who helmed such projects as the $1.4 million renovation of the city’s golf course.
“He’s done just a fantastic job. We didn’t make enough money to pay ourselves to operate the course before the renovations. Now it takes two weeks to get a tee time and we’re making money hand over fist so we’re pretty proud of that.”
A total of 156 trees were also planted along the course, and sun shelters will be installed to shade golfers on the driving range. All play equipment at city parks is also slated to be replaced in 2020.
Two splash parks were added at Sunshine Park, a new mural project gave Paws Park a splash of color, and a new memorial tree and fence program was developed through Parks and Recreation for families to honor loved ones with tree plantings and plaques along the golf course and throughout the city.
Beaches Energy Director Allen Putnam, who was recently tapped as president of Florida Municipal Power Association, is leading the charge toward increased usage of solar power. Beaches Energy is currently generating 25 megawatts of solar power to its customers, Latham said.
The utility company is also planning to release a new Outage Management System that will allow customers to track outages and estimated time it takes to restore service during an outage.
In Atlantic Beach, Glasser focused on the efforts made to address issues included on last year’s visioning list. The city is working to increase revenue and address funding policies in terms of pension and future planning. Upcoming infrastructure projects will target the Mayport corridor and address coastal resiliency amid rising sea levels.
“As a coastal community, we need to be talking about it. It’s not just the environment. It’s human resiliency. It’s the way we live at the beach. We are having bigger storms more often,” she said, citing the record rainfall of 2015 that destroyed about 130 homes in Aquatic Gardens. “It wasn’t even a hurricane. Year after year, we have faced bigger storms. We got really lucky with Dorian last year, but they’re here.”
Dune renourishment and maintaining a living shoreline with sea oat plantings will help protect homeowners and help defend the coastline. Aquatic Gardens will receive improvements as part of the city’s master plan and new developments must also consider the “peril of flood” to receive required permits, according to Glasser.
Atlantic Beach officials adopted a resolution to maintain resiliency standards and completed a vulnerability assessment to determine impact of sea level rise.
“Education is a really big first step,” Glasser said.
Other issues include neighborhood and community identity, bringing the west and east sides of Atlantic Beach together with a focus on local businesses through public art as an eclectic approach to making the city more inviting.
“Every one of our beach communities is different. You can just drive down A1A and you can tell. We’re all about protecting our quality of life in terms of that residential character in Atlantic Beach.”
The city’s park system, tree canopy and environmental stewardship help maintain the character of the community.
“I’m very proud that our commission has made environmental leadership the number one priority,” she said. “The previous commission created the Environmental Stewardship program and they do a lot of work in our community.”
The citizen-led advisory group spearheaded the need for city certification, gathered data and addressed the need to preserve the city’s tree canopy through the Heritage Tree Program. Glasser said the city is also working with such organizations as Beaches Go Green and the Green Chamber to implement smart, sustainable practices.
“I really want to encourage people and our youth council to come to meetings and to get involved,” said Glasser.
Neptune Beach Mayor Elaine Brown said she is proud of the way city staff united to fill vacancies from the City Manager position to the City Council seats.
“Because of the dedicated people that work in Neptune Beach, no one knew that we had a leadership deficit because everybody stepped up,” said Brown of the vacancies on the City Council. “Neptune Beach never missed a beat. It’s stronger than ever.”
Meetings are now streamed live to maintain a public partnership and encourage citizen participation. A new interactive Web site is at the forefront of community planning that allows city officials to see each interaction as an opportunity for further growth. Brown’s presentation featured a video introducing the faces of the city staff that work hard behind the scenes.
“To partner and collaborate with the citizens of Neptune Beach is a special opportunity to really have the public take the front seat in the decision-making and design process. This will lead to plans and the identification of funding sources critical to developing an already desirable oceanfront community,” said Community Development Director Kristina Wright.
 “From planned reviews to economic development, long range planning and social project coordination, the community development department is the hub that embraces the public as partners.”