Submitted by Suanne Z. Thamm
Reporter – News Analyst
September 26, 2018 3:20 p.m.
During a sparsely attended public workshop on beach parking on September 25, 2018, Fernandina Beach City Commissioners (FBCC) mostly listened as City Manager Dale Martin explained his recommendation that the city implement paid parking during peak beach season at two city beach park locations: Main Beach and Seaside Park.
The recommendation follows more than 8 years of study by multiple city officials and committees. As commissioners stressed, the reason for doing this is to generate revenue to reinvest in maintenance and repair of beach infrastructure. Without such a revenue stream, these costs will be paid by property owners via ad valorem taxes.
The city currently has approximately 900 beach parking places at city lots and on the beach itself at Sadler Road. The proposal would cover only 340 of those spaces (2 of the city’s 13 beach parking lots) between April 1 and September 30 of each year.
Consultants estimate that by adopting the rate structure recommended in the charts below, the city would take in $450,000 to $550,000 during a 6-mnth period.
Commissioners and City Manager Martin stressed that all revenue collected would be segregated from the General Fund and used only for beach maintenance and improvements. Currently, the Tourist Development Council (TDC) pays for beach trash removal, and that would continue. But repairing beach accesses – the most recent cost was $400,000 to repair two – and maintaining other infrastructure, such as restrooms, boardwalks, gazebos, etc. would be paid out of parking revenues.
Vice Mayor Len Kreger reminded commissioners and audience members that Fernandina boasts one of the five best renourished beaches in the country, with renourishment costs paid almost entirely by the U.S. Navy, the federal government and the state. Use of the beach will always be open and free to everyone.
Commissioners also noted that this recommendation is not about the number of spaces available, but about revenue. Commissioner Chip Ross noted that the Main Beach lot at Dolphin Street is rarely filled.
Both Neptune Beach and Atlantic Beach are on the verge of implementing a similar system, with Jacksonville Beach soon to follow. Should Fernandina Beach opt to charge for limited beach parking, it would leave only St. Simons between Hilton Head, SC and St. Augustine, FL as a community with no paid parking.
How would we do it?
Thanks to advances in technology, eight parking kiosks at the two locations would be stand alone, solar powered units that could be removed during storms or off season. Bluetooth technology would allow drive-by enforcement with license plate readers. Citations could be printed from a hand held printer. Such systems have been used successfully in other beach communities throughout Florida and the nation. They stand up to weather conditions and require little maintenance after installation.
Start-up costs are estimated at $200,000 to cover purchase and installation of 8 kiosks and software. Annual maintenance costs for the recommended units are estimated at $25,000 annually.
The keys to an effective paid parking system are enforcement and flexibility. In other communities, paid parking lots are patrolled as often as hourly. City police or Beach Rangers would be charged with this duty. Because of the data collected by the system, adjustments in patrol schedules could be made easily depending on time or day of the week. The software provides many options to allow for exceptions and/or use of vouchers for restaurant patrons who also use the beach parking lots.
Citizen concerns
Two city residents raised concerns that such a system could push parking from the targeted lots into the smaller lots along Fletcher that are mainly used by beach neighborhoods and that costs need to be fully loaded into the project so that both the city and the residents have a more realistic understanding of costs and benefits.
Commission discussion
While most commissioners seemed reconciled to such a system as a way to fund vitally needed beach maintenance and infrastructure without overburdening property owners via taxes, questions remained. Should city residents pay as well as tourists and day-trippers? Should handicapped beachgoers be charged to use the only lots with handicapped access to the beach? How would beach cleanup volunteers or turtle watch people be handled? What would the impact be on tourism and beach businesses?
Two of the consultants who served on the Beach Parking Committee, Mark Schleier of NuPark and Mark Rimmer of RTA Consulting, Inc., were also at the workshop and responded to commissioner questions.
Commissioner Chip Ross grilled Rimmer about assumptions underlying revenue projections. Ross said that he has not heard from any citizen who supports paid beach parking.
Commissioner Phil Chapman said that the community is selling itself short by not currently charging for beach parking. He noted the parking charges at Orlando attractions, noting that our charges would be much lower. He encouraged citizens to email commissioners with their thoughts. However, he asked that if they opposed the plan, they inform commissioners how much they are willing to have their taxes raised in order to pay for beach maintenance.
Jeremiah Glisson, city maintenance manager and a member of the committee making the recommendation for paid beach parking said, “There is no such thing as ‘free parking.’ Someone must pay.”
The FBCC will formally deal with the recommendation at their October 16, 2018 Regular Meeting.
The recorded workshop may be viewed on the city’s website at http://fernandinabeachfl.swagit.com/play/09262018-1329.
9-27-18 UPDATE: Following publication of this article, City Manager Dale Martin replied to questions from this reporter regarding composition of the Beach Parking Committe. His response is provided below:
Yes, the Committee unanimously recommended what I ultimately recommended. In fact, when the initial opposition to the Beach Committee (and beach parking) coalesced, I specifically asked the Committee if we should simply fold or should we press on. The group unhesitatingly indicated that because of the growing costs and the alternative revenue, we must proceed.
The Committee included Jeremiah Glisson (who nominated Vice Mayor Kreger), Rex Lester (who nominated Lowell Hall …), Fino Murallo (who nominated Haines Cavender) and Chief Hurley (who nominated Walt Sturges and Bob Keller).
The hardware company is Parkeon (not in attendance). The management and enforcement software company is NuPark. The parking revenue consultants are RTA Consulting and SS Plus (not in attendance).
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.
ISLANDERS and OUR VISITORS WHO PAY NIGHTLY BED TAXES already pay to take care of our beaches. City residents pay taxes for City beach facilities. ONCE AGAIN, the topic of Beach Parking FEES is being discussed by City Commissioners. Parking fees is a TAX by another name.
Islanders ALREADY pay a special tax assessment for the Renourishment of the beach. Nassau County got out of their agreement to pay their share by passing that ordinance, using a legal loophole, and convincing City Commissioners to support their finagling. I was there, at those meetings, speaking at the podium against the unfairness. As County off island residents benefit hugely in several ways from the beach.
So ANY additional fee for islanders is morally wrong and repugnant. Taxing visitors who pay a bed tax that pays for beach upkeep with an additional fee seems wrong as well.
Now, the only fair thing, since this is going to get voted in eventually, is to tax those who don’t already pay for the beach. That would be visitors not paying bed tax and who don’t live on the island.
The FAIR thing would be to tax every off island property, including Wildlight, a few pennies for beach facilities.
People are taxed for schools. Even when they have never had a child in Nassau County schools. So the argument that not all people use the beach is ridiculous and without merit. Someday, they, their family, or their visitors might use the beach. Which is a more fair argument than charging runaway taxes for schools that they never have children using.
FREE BEACH PARKING FOR ISLANDERS.
Let your voices be heard!
To make it easier to email the City Commissioners using one email, just copy and paste:
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Agree totally that city residents should NOT have to pay for beach parking. Forget the red herring cries about restricting beach access, this is for non-residents to pay a reasonable share of the beach maintenance costs. City taxpayers are already paying for beach maintenance and operations over what is subsidized by the TDC, so they should not to have to pay for more. The non-city islanders are paying the sand-tax but they should NOT be exempt from the parking fees as they are not paying for any of the other beach operational costs. Let them go to the county waterfront parks (or the other 500+ free parking spots) if they don’t want to pay.
Imagine a bright and sunny summer day in the future… just a few short years form now. Wildlight is nearly built-out, as are dozens of other neighborhoods that number in the tens of thousands of new residents to our fair little county.
On this beautiful summer day, imagine these folks all deciding it’s a ‘great day to hit the beach’.
I have always been against parking fees. Especially for City residents. However, I don;t think any of us can imagine the impact the new neighborhoods to the West are going to have on our beach, our island and our town.
Having ten thousand neighbors show up to a beach party is unlike anything we’ve seen before. I admit that we will have to explore parking fees and more uncomfortable ideas to prepare for this traffic.
It’s coming, as sure as a summer day.
How many people live on the island during busy season? Well over 10,000? Not all of them go to the beach on a beautiful summer day and they’re 5 mins away at most, so I don’t know why we’d expect all of Wildlight to come. We need to plan for Wildlight and the surrounding developments, but plan for them under realistic scenarios. The limited parking actually helps here because it also will limit who drives in (not coming if you have to fight for a parking spot).
I personally don’t like this paid parking approach because I don’t think it accomplishes it’s intended purpose — have beach users pay for beach projects. Way too many people can walk, bike, park at a friends house, and avoid the fee. I think the goal was for this to be equitable and it’s not.
What is next, traffic light and speed cameras to raise “revenue”. Plenty of funds available there too.
How does the Sadler Road Diet Plan work into this plan? Parking meters??
I love how these fees are considered “revenue”. It is not revenue, it is a tax. Businesses raise revenue, Political subdivisions raise taxes.
Since the imposition of these parking taxes is considered a user fee, I guess the City should consider imposing landing fees at the airport too inasmuch as the facility is used by “users”, no??
I’m curious about the citations that would be issued? What would be the amount of the fine? I’m also concerned about citations that are not paid and how that would be handled? Does the software allowing for issuing citations also allow for noting if the vehicle has an outstanding unpaid citation? My concern is particularly for out-of-state vehicles and rental cars that simply ignore the citations. Do these vehicles simply get repetitive citations or are they booted or what? How do we ensure such vehicles pay their citations?
Great questions as I don’t know if there is a fee schedule and assume that if the FBCC moves forward they would have to adopt an ordinance that would spell out all these details. As to rental cars, there is a process in place today to pass the charge on to the rental car agency who pays the fine and then charges the renter the fine plus an administrative fee. I would think that any good parking management system would track paid and unpaid citations and if they exceeded a threshhold, the car would be booted or towed. Again, details to be worked out.
They already listed contractors. Was that a three bid process or are these friends I’d a friend.
The vast majority of residents do not want paid parking at the beach or anywhere else in the city, period. The City Commission should stop beating this dead horse.
Ok everyone talks like every one on the Island lives in the city. Which is incorrect. The chopped up divisions lines maps looks like it was drawn up by Children. This is the million dollar question. It is advertised the Island is 12 miles long and 3 miles wide. Do those 12 miles start in Old Town and end at the Plantation. If that is correct why are there two Fire Departments and Two Police departments for such a small peramator. With all these people moving into the county, combine services under NASSAU COUNTY and the money the City pays for fire and police services, could now take care for beach services. Uncertain about the politics involved but every one talking about this population explosion, it seems these services must be beefed up and looked out. Let all units stay the same but the County would cover the costs. City would cover beach matters. Every time politicians need more money they reach into the pockets of hard working residents and retirees on fixed incomes. Why not try some creative line item budgeting. Work with the County and City monies together, instead of all this government separation. Common sense!!!!!!
M.E., the crazy boundaries of the City limits goes to the heart of your issue. Property owners formerly in the county wanted to be in the city to enjoy the services of the Fire Rescue, Police, Utilities, Parks & Recreation, etc. provided by the City. Why are they willing to pay more for that? I think the answer in intuitive once you look at the standards of service comparing the City and the County fire/rescue and Police departments. In theory, it does make economic sense for consolidation; but then there is reality. Most non-City Islanders don’t want to be part of the City and most City residents don’t want to lose their identity and control by being consolidated. Same reasons exist for Hilliard and Callahan.
Give one annual fee paid parking pass sticker to each home in the city when the property tax is paid each year. Require the sticker be fixed on the rear window of the home owner car to allow no fee parking at the beach lots. That would allow a city home owner who paid his property tax to park at the beach lots. A home owner who does not pay their property cannot park for free.