Weekly comments from Dale Martin

Dale Martin
City Manager
Fernandina Beach
April 26, 2019 12:00 p.m.

Earlier this month during the City staff budget “kick-off” meeting, I indicated that we had the opportunity in the next budget to make it a transformational budget. This opportunity has, I believe, mainly arisen due to the changing complexity and expectations of the community. I believe that the City staff can meet these challenges.

The surging population has caused consternation regarding one of the primary features of the community: the beaches. Most of the long-term residents (those born and raised here over the past forty-fifty years) remind me of the past freedom on the beaches- driving, camping, etc. Those beach activities have become more restricted.

The beach parking (not driving) area at the end of Sadler Road encapsulates many of the issues. The area is crowded and a few continue to challenge to rules established, in large part, because a few continue to challenge the rules. Many people have urged that the City eliminate the parking on the beach for safety reasons, but an adverse effect of that elimination is where do the dozens of cars that park to visit the beach now park?

Because of the extensive responsibilities associated with the beaches, the proposed budget will likely re-organize and clarify those responsibilities. Some of this re-organization is also a response to the recently completed Parks and Recreation organizational study, which indicated that maintenance operations, previously transferred to the Streets Department, should be returned to Parks and Recreation.

With maintenance staff allocated to Parks and Recreation, the beaches (arguably a recreational asset) will be the responsibility of the Parks and Recreation Department. With so many different responsibilities and tasks, it was confusing for the public as to whom to contact with beach issues- was it Parks, Streets (and the associated maintenance staff), Facilities, Police (Beach Rangers), or Fire (Ocean Rescue)? The Police and Fire responsibilities will remain under the direct control of those departments, but everything else will likely be consolidated to Parks and Recreation.

Two other components, Bosque Bello cemetery and downtown, have been historically part of the Parks and Recreation Department, but without the associated maintenance staff, the efforts in both of those areas was often disjointed. As with the beaches, the consolidation of the maintenance staff will provide for more efficient allocation of City resources (personnel and funding).

Another study, somewhat less heralded than the aforementioned Parks and Recreation study, was a pavement study. The City retained a vendor to examine and rate the pavement condition of every City street (roads that were not paved were not rated, but those roads were acknowledged in the final report).

The roads were rated on a 100-point scale. Most of the City roads were scored in the 70-80 range, reflecting good condition. Very few road segments were rated below 40. Those roads were classified as the “backlog,” meaning the City needs to address those road conditions.
The City’s road efforts need to be distributed among nearly all ratings. This study provides professional direction for those efforts. The roads that scored relatively good need to be maintained at a level to prevent them from falling to a fair or poor category. In a worst case scenario (which is not present in Fernandina Beach), roads that are classified as poor are sometimes recommended to ignore, letting such a road completely deteriorate.

The rationale for this course of action is that the funds needed to raise a poor road to fair have a diminishing return- the road inevitably returns to a poor condition because the conditions that led to the poor rating are often not addressed as part of a maintenance effort. It is often better to let the road completely fail, then totally reconstruct the road (and substructure). Again, none of Fernandina’s roads are near such a drastic course of action. The pavement condition report provides estimates for the funding necessary to develop and maintain an objective road maintenance and improvement plan.

As is often the case, studies are undertaken and ignored. I believe that the Parks and Recreation study and the pavement condition study will be utilized to enhance City operations for many years.