Back to the drawing board on a waterfront master plan

Submitted by Suanne Z. Thamm
Reporter – News Analyst
June 21, 1:07 p.m.

Last night the Fernandina Beach City Commission (FBCC) seemed unable to reach consensus on scope or direction for waterfront redevelopment during a workshop. The City Hall audience was packed with residents hoping to learn how they would be involved in a process laid out weeks back by consultants Dix.Hite+Partners to seek and incorporate their concerns and ideas in designing a redeveloped Amelia River waterfront. Instead they watched five commissioners debate and squabble over significantly different individual goals and priorities.

Following the hour-long workshop that preceded their Regular Meeting and advice from City Attorney Tammi Bach on the need to issue a new RFQ for consultants, the FBCC tabled an agenda item that called for approval of a contract with Dix.Hite+Partners. While it appeared that the commission was authorizing a new RFQ with a narrowed scope, there was no official action taken to formally define a scope or the terms for the RFQ.

Greg Bryla of Dix.Hite began the workshop with slides that presented individual input from commissioners on items that they wanted to see addressed in a waterfront master plan. The consultants were retained on a separate, $11,000 contract to conduct the individual 1.5-hour meetings and summarize their findings in a report, which arguably would serve as the basis for a discussion to drive consensus on a contract scope. It appeared that the individual meetings did more to confuse the issue – and the public – than they did to forge consensus.

Although notes taken during the individual meetings were made public, some in the community believed that the meetings had violated the spirit if not the letter of open meeting laws. Although there was no public input during the workshop, individuals let their feelings be known during the Public Comment portion of the Regular Meeting that followed. The public input reflected the confusion that has arisen over just what the purpose of the individual meetings was and why that approach was taken after it had been earlier announced that the FBCC would meet in an open workshop with the consultants to hammer out scope and parameters for a waterfront redevelopment plan.

Other citizens did not make a distinction between the FBCC’s meetings to determine the scope of a waterfront development plan and crafting the plan itself, expressing frustration at having been left out of the process after having been promised opportunity for reasonable input.

City Attorney Tammi Bach also raised concerns on the advisability of continuing work with Dix.Hite+Partners under the existing RFQ, when they had performed work under a contract for $11,000. She advised that the prudent action would be to issue a new RFQ reflecting a narrowed scope of work to address the commissioners’ concerns regarding the cost of developing a true master plan. Both Vice Mayor Len Kreger and Commissioner Roy Smith have been vocal critics of awarding a contract under the current RFQ.

In an abundance of caution over charges of violating the Open Meeting law, Bach asked each commissioner to verbalize during the workshop the points they discussed with the consultants in their private meetings, and they did:

• Commissioner John Miller – sea level rise, bike-ability downtown, wayfaring; parking neutral (no loss of spaces), location of boat ramp.
• Commissioner Tim Poynter – comprehensive plan to address parking, waterfront park, boat ramp location; move marina to the north of current location; “connect the dots” by unifying planning for traffic, parking, etc.
• Commissioner Roy Smith – can’t lose parking along the river; sea level rise; look at lots privately owned north of city property on the river; using property on 11^th Street for parking; questions why consultants would look at parking when city is already doing so with in-house committee; questions why item has been placed on “speed track.”
• Vice Mayor Len Kreger – concerns over RFQ. [Kreger did not enumerate other concerns he discussed with consultants, but verified that their list was generally accurate.]
• Mayor Robin Lentz – waterfront park, traffic circulation, Front Street, opening the Alachua rail crossing, one-waying some streets, importance of public workshops, waterfront parking, drop off area for boaters; selling uplands portion of former Vuturo property; moving marina north, not expanding the marina; paid parking; how to utilize city staff to help bring down costs for consultant work; looking as past plans; grants; taking final plan to referendum to get community buy-in.

Consultant Greg Bryla stressed that there were no decisions or recommendations made about any of the issues brought up in the individual discussions with commissioners. The point of the discussion was to decide which topics should be included in the scope of work for the consultants.

Bach said that her recommendation to the FBCC is to decide whether they now have an acceptable scope of work to put out on a new RFQ. This means that the FBCC would reject all bids received under the first RFQ issued earlier this year, which was broader in scope.

Poynter asked Smith for clarification on his statement about the desirability of obtaining waterfront land north of city property. “Are we tasking the city manager to get pricing to secure all the land north before we look at doing anything on the waterfront? If we are, this [planning effort] is pretty much a dead deal.”

Smith, who had jumped on Poynter earlier in the meeting for not appearing to be receptive to the ideas of others, said, “I didn’t say that. I don’t think it has to be involved in the first part of your thinking, because you have to plan. It’s not going to be a one-year program to get all this stuff done. It might take 15-20 years.”

Poynter continued to seek clarification. “If we ask the consultants to include land acquisition in the scope, I would imagine the price would go up exponentially. I’m just asking for clarification.”

Kreger said, “I don’t think that considering a recommendation to purchase property necessarily increases the scope of the study. If you remember the consultant qualification meetings, the marina was removed from the scope because ATM [another consultant] was covering that element. We had the railroad in scope originally, but then the city manager seemed to be handling the railroad. … The first thing I would do is get our city staff together in a room to talk about scope. Let them develop it and then go out to a consultant and stick to that scope.”

Bach said, “It doesn’t matter what staff says or the consultant says, unless three or more of you are in agreement.”

Kreger went on to add that he believed that the constant changes, putting elements in and taking them out, has created the problem.

Smith reiterated his conviction that the FBCC should not be changing the scope without going out on a new RFQ. “I think it’s underhanded if we change the scope without talking to the other bidders,” he said. “You’ve got to say what you want [in the RFQ] and not change the scope after we’ve taken the bids. It’s close to being illegal.”

Poynter said, “The original scope was so broad it really encompassed everything. Clearly now we have to go back out. But I’m not in favor of asking staff to come up with a scope. We are supposed to do that. If we are worried about parking, the waterfront and traffic flow: that’s it. If we poll every person in this town to find out exactly what they want, we’ll have thousands of different ideas. But we still have to narrow this down to what we are actually trying to do with this downtown. We’ve had so many examples of so many people over the years saying we really do need to fix this waterfront.”

“Scope is simple,” Kreger said. “Scope is the waterfront. My concern about the staff is that staff is well aware of parking and traffic problems. I think they are very capable of giving us implementation plans to solve those.”

Kreger and Poynter got into a brief side discussion over what is required to move the navigation channel in order to move the marina north of its present location. Although federal approval was granted in 2000, there is no pending action with the Army Corps of Engineers to take action. Any permit that was granted in connection with earlier city plans has expired. Kreger said, “Those are the kinds of things we should be able to work with staff.”

Poynter tried to get consensus from his peers to define scope as the waterfront, parking and traffic flow. Kreger then asked if the parking and traffic flow portion should stop at 8^th Street or be extended to the Shave Bridge.

Lentz stopped Kreger at that point. She said that she supported including parking because the development of a ”worthwhile” waterfront park would mean the loss of some existing parking spaces, which would need to be moved elsewhere. Kreger said he had no problem with that.

Smith expressed a lack of understanding as to why the city is not already on the way to move the channel instead of just talking about it. “Let’s just do it,” he said. City Manager Dale Martin explained some of the issues impeding the move, including the current location of the attenuator dock right on the channel marker. Smith expressed frustration with listening to what people “think” is the problem without knowing the facts. “I want to know what the situation is,” he said.

Mayor Lentz on behalf of the FBCC asked Martin to arrange a future briefing from ATM consultant Rob Semmes to address the marina related questions for the edification of the commission and the public.

Lentz ended the workshop to proceed to the Regular Meeting. Commissioners Miller and Poynter expressed concern that nothing had been decided. Lentz assured them that discussion would continue under agenda item 7.2 in the meeting immediately following. Miller said, “Good. Because we are far from done with this.” Lentz gaveled the workshop to a close.

When the FBCC returned to the topic as Agenda Item 7.2, the discussion did not continue. City Attorney Bach said that legally she did not believe that she could allow the FBCC to vote on a contract with Dix.Hite+Partners because of the intervening contract with that firm to interview the commissioners individually on master plan scope. Kreger, who had been involved in a telephone conversation between Bach and outside legal help agreed. “To quote the lawyers,” Kreger said, “you will be sued and you will lose [if you now execute a contract with Dix.Hite under the initial RFQ]. More important than getting sued and losing is doing the right thing.” Kreger expressed his opinion that trying to find ways to work around the problems “smacks of doing the wrong thing, and I am opposed to that. We discussed scope with them. I think we should reissue the RFQ and be very specific.”

Poynter moved to table the item, and Kreger seconded the motion, which was unanimously approved. Poynter suggested that a new RFQ be issued incorporating the scope that was narrowed as a result of the $11,000 contract with Dix.Hite+Partners. This was not done in the form of a motion.

Although several speakers had signed up to speak on this item, none of them were called because the item was tabled.

It should be noted that in presenting their original concept for the waterfront/downtown master plan process Dix.Hite+Partners’ concept was warmly received by commissioners, who expressed support for a variety of public meetings and ways to keep citizens informed on progress.  The problem arose when the FBCC was presented with cost and experienced sticker shock at having to spend over $200K for a plan.  The FBCC and the City Manager looked for ways to bring down costs, including suggesting a plan that would just deal with a waterfront park.  In light of the various interim measures and perceived changes in direction to save money, many in the community have come to question the wisdom of developing a master plan at this time until issues involving the city marina have been resolved.

It is unclear at this writing how or when the Commission will move forward.

Editor’s Note: Suanne Z. Thamm is a native of Chautauqua County, NY, who moved to Fernandina Beach from Alexandria,VA, in 1994. As a long time city resident and city watcher, she provides interesting insight into the many issues that impact our city. We are grateful for Suanne’s many contributions to the Fernandina Observer.