A Plea for Action on the Waterfront Park

Yours is not an easy or financially rewarding job. But the exercise of your duties as public officials is serious and impactful for the health and prosperity of Fernandina Beach now and into the future. Now is one of those times when you must end discussion and act on the waterfront park plans.

Everyone will not be happy with your decision. But when are FB citizens ever completely happy with any action that involves change? Time and time again good plans, whether from citizen committees or consultants, have been left to die in the wilderness because a small group of citizens oppose them. That is exactly why you have inherited the mess on the waterfront. Earlier commissions did not have the guts to face down the complainers and say it is time to get this done.

We have had enough studies about downtown parking. We do not have a parking problem; we have a walking problem. The lot at 2nd and Broome never has more than a couple of cars in it, and I suspect even those may belong to folks visiting neighbors. There is no place downtown to site a parking garage, so unless folks want to shuttle in from a remote location, that idea should not be seriously considered.

The waterfront saga has been playing out for at least my 30 years in this city and probably more. We seem to get tantalizingly close to action, but incoming torpedos from special interest groups and those who feel that the entire area should be turned into one big parking lot blow everything up. It reminds me of the Greek mythology king named Sisyphus, who was punished by the gods to keep pushing a boulder up a steep hill only to have it roll back down once it got close to the top.

I ask you to recall the fuss over the design for the airport terminal and how design opponents never let fail an opportunity to mock it and call for new plans. Once construction began most of the noise disappeared because people saw that it was being well received by the flying public, the state, and visitors. The same thing will happen with the waterfront park: once the city breaks ground and people see that it is really going to happen, much of the noise will evaporate.

Does the current design have all my “druthers?” Of course not. But the current design is minimalist in nature, meaning lower construction and maintenance costs for the city to bear. I give it two thumbs up and say to you: get a move on!