By Eric Bartelt
October 25, 2016 5:30 a.m.
Editor’s Note: The 5th Annual Fernandina Observer Candidate Forum can be viewed by visiting the City of Fernandina Beach Website. Click here, and then scroll down and click on the small light blue “recorded city commission meetings.” You will see “Town Hall Candidate Forum” click play.
The Fernandina Observer Candidate Forum held on Thursday night included two candidates running for the District 1 seat on the Ocean, Highway and Port Authority (OHPA) board. The candidates were Coleman Langshaw and Robert (Bob) Sturgess. Moderator
Larry Myers began by asking both candidates to introduce themselves and explain why they were running for the OHPA position. Mr. Langshaw said he is a U.S. Coast Guard licensed captain, and was the former Marina Director for the City, which included being the Marina’s first Security Officer after the 9/11 attacks. He now owns a charter sailing business out of Fernandina and is a co-owner of Greyfield Inn, his family’s business located on Cumberland Island. He’s been a resident of Nassau County for 35 years. He decided to run for the OHPA seat both because of the issues that have recently arisen between OHPA and the City, but also because of what he sees as a larger role OHPA could play in Nassau County, a role in which the OHPA could work with the City, the County and the State to improve business opportunities throughout the County. He also sees a role OHPA could play in helping to reduce the traffic congestion coming onto Amelia Island.
Bob Sturgess said he has been an attorney for 26 years in Nassau County’s Fourth Judicial Circuit and is a mediator certified by the Florida Supreme Court. Being a mediator, he sees himself as being “an attorney who tries to keep people out of court.” He’s running for OHPA because there will be a number of legal issues facing OHPA coming up during the OHPA Commissioner’s four-year term. According to Sturgess, “OHPA Commissioners don’t pilot boats, don’t load and unload boats, they decide legal issues.” He cited new international trade deals, the widening of the Panama Canal and changes in the Caribbean as creating legal issues for the Port that will require an attorney as a board member.
After the candidate’s introductions, moderator Myers asked what role does an OHPA Commissioner play in the strategic direction and future course of OHPA? Bob Sturgess responded first, pointing out that OHPA was formed in 1941 and is not a business, but an arm of the State Legislature. He said OHPA has a great deal of authority over the legal issues for the Port, despite the fact that OHPA has “given away the Port’s operating ability to Kinder Morgan”, the company that now controls Port operations. He believes the OHPA Commissioners have given up its most of their power. But in order to benefit the citizens of Nassau County, which he says is OHPA’s legislative purpose, OHPA needs to take back some of that power and authority.
Coleman Langshaw agreed with Sturgess about OHPA’s role of serving the citizens of Nassau County, saying OHPA should be “hearing the needs and direction of the community.” He suggested that another role for OHPA is to promote sustainable and sensible growth, and look for opportunities that will benefit the community, not burden it. OHPA could have it’s own Port Director, he said, working in conjunction with a Port operator like Kinder Morgan. OHPA Commissioners need to continue to be “open minded to what our community needs.” For Langshaw, that is the primary role of a Port Commissioner.
The next question for the candidates was, “How would you evaluate or grade the performance of OHPA?” Mr. Langshaw said he initially had a very bad opinion of OHPA’s performance, but that now he has a better understanding of the complexities and constraints they work under. Despite that, he says he’s still disappointed with the OHPA Commissioners and their relationship with the City of Fernandina Beach. He characterized that as being “very bad.” and that some of the Commissioners view citizens as “obstacles” to Port operations. He said he very much supports Port operations and wants to see the Port grow, and that the Commissioners need to work in conjunction with the local community. Just because OHPA is an autonomous entity and therefore doesn’t have to work with the local community, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t, he added.
Mr. Sturgess said OHPA was stuck with some very bad contracts, an overpowering charter and that they hadn’t done enough to take back control of the Port for the benefit of the County. He thought OHPA’s agreement with Kinder Morgan is “as bad as an agreement can get” and is the worst he’s seen in his career. He intends to suggest at an upcoming workshop that the current charter is “thoroughly unconstitutional” on “substantive and due process grounds.” He said that is why an attorney is needed on the board, to help the board “understand how things have gotten where they are.” He graded the OHPA Commissioners as “good folks doing the best they can, but without success.”
Question four for the candidates asked how they would improve the communication between OHPA and the citizens of Nassau County? Mr. Sturgess alluded to last year when one of the OHPA Commissioners said he wanted to gather evidence to sue some citizens because they disagreed with what the Commissioners were doing. He said, “When you start from a place where Commissioners are willing to sue a group of citizens,…that’s a bad starting place for communication…” Sturgess said he’s had a hard time finding out why things are so bad at OHPA, how they lost $500K last year and are happy about it because they lost $800K the year before that. He ended by saying, in relation to communication, he would make it much easier for citizens “to know why things are going so bad.”
Mr. Langshaw responded by saying “it’s not that hard; the Port Authority just has to try.” They have to reach out to the governmental entities they should be working in conjunction with. He suggested a representative from OHPA should have a monthly or quarterly meeting with the City and County to find out what’s going on in their jurisdictions. He said there needs to be a “dialog instead of a contest between attorneys”, and that OHPA should sometimes have their meetings in other parts of the County, to “take us to the people.” Sturgess added that, in defense of the Commissioners, the advisory committee they formed to review the charter did meet all over the County. He agreed with Langshaw that that approach was an excellent one.
The fifth question asked what each candidate’s position was on revising the OHPA charter? Langshaw responded by saying he though an authority’s charter should be reviewed periodically over the lifetime of the authority in order to reflect the needs of the community. He understands OHPA is trying to be an economic driver for businesses, but that they should be very careful in how they review the charter, especially in relation to how OHPA cooperates with local communities. He added that cooperation should be required between the OHPA and jurisdictions they have an impact on.
Sturgess said the charter absolutely has to be changed. He mentioned again that the “sole purpose of the charter is to benefit the citizens”, which it now doesn’t do. He said there are sections of the charter he would delete, including Section 12 that exempts OHPA from having to get City or County building permits.
In their closing statements, Bob Sturgress said OHPA should be one of the primary economic engines in the County. He referred to “Home Rule”, a constitutional right where communities are allowed to decide what they want to do with their communities. He said he supports Home Rule but that the OHPA charter is in conflict with that. He said citizens need to be given back their rights to make decisions about their communities. He concluded by noting that as a Republican (the OHPA race is a partisan race), he wants to shrink OHPA as a government and make it more accountable and profitable. He drew a distinction between his desire to make OHPA smaller and what he sees as Coleman Langshaw’s position of expanding OHPA’s role by adding an intermodal facility and a chipping facility on the west side of the county. Langshaw countered that he doesn’t want to see OPHA grow, but rather that it should “do its job” and expand business opportunities throughout the County. Since OHPA is not a taxing authority, he envisions accomplishing this expanded role through bonds and loans. These would attract businesses that would create jobs and pay back OHPA, so it would never be a burden on taxpayers. He wants OHPA to deal with big issues like building the intermodal and chipping facilities to better serve the mills and reduce traffic congestion. He concluded by again saying he doesn’t want the OHPA to grow, only to expand it’s role in the community.
Editor’s Note: Eric Bartelt retired as a corporate design consultant and moved to Fernandina Beach in 2004. His previously lived in Wisconsin. Since Eric’s arrival in Fernandina Beach, he spends his time volunteering. We thank Eric for his contributions to the Fernandina Observer.