Embattled St. Johns County Administrator MICHAEL DAVID WANCHICK's maladroit management was on display Tuesday, November 15, 2016. First, his poor planning in using a county park (he called it a "boat ramp" and "not a park") risked water quality in our Matanzas River. He did not apologize, but said he would not do it again.
Federal law requires disaster planning, but WANCHICK did not plan for staging areas or high tide.
With a $700 million annual budget and a golden parachute contract expiring in February, WANCHICK id s short-timer.
It's time for WANCHICK to go.
After five Republican County Commissioners fawned on WANCHICK and failed to ask followup questions on Butler Park worthy of a free people, the County refused requests from St. Augustine Beach Vice Mayor Undine George, Commissioner Sherman Gary Snodgrass, and City Manager Max Royle to cooperate on turning the soon-to-be former Mosquito Control property into a park.
The County is incredibly filing its own bid, with sibilant soon-to-be-ex Commissioner PRISCILLA "RACHAEL" BENNETT (R-HUTSON COMPANIES) disdaining a partnership. (See Record editorial, here).
Naturally, the Record did not quote a word I say, eschewing criticism of County Administrator MICHAEL WANCHICK (or any other person, firm, agency or entity that advertises in the tatterdemalion St. Augustine Record).
Posted November 16, 2016 06:25 am - Updated November 16, 2016 06:49 am
By JAKE MARTIN jake.martin@staugustine.com
St. Johns County officials defend debris management site at Butler Boat Ramp
PETER.WILLOTT@STAUGUSTINE.COM A worker uses an excavator to transfer household debris collected after Hurricane Matthew from a large pile near the boat ramp in Frank B. Butler County Park to a truck on Monday. The debris is being removed from the park, south of St. Augustine Beach, to prevent flooding from the Intracoastal Waterway caused by the high lunar tide from contaminating the waterway.
St. Johns County officials on Tuesday defended their decision to establish a debris management site near the Butler Boat Ramp after it became inundated over the weekend with higher-than-normal tides.
As a result, some household debris collected from surrounding areas after Hurricane Matthew went out with those tides and into the Matanzas River and Intracoastal Waterway.
Greg Caldwell, assistant public works director, told commissioners there was an urgent need to boost cleanup efforts in the nearby neighborhoods of Treasure Beach and Crescent Beach as debris piled up in the rights-of-way. He said the site was inspected and permitted by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and that several barriers were installed to help contain the debris.
He said they were approaching 500,000 cubic yards of waste collected throughout the county since the storm, crediting, at least in part, the county’s seven debris management sites. There were an estimated 15,000 cubic yards of waste brought to the Butler Boat Ramp site.
“This drastically helped us get Crescent Beach cleaned up in an efficient manner,” Caldwell told commissioners.
He said the first truck to start removing debris from the site came at 2 p.m. Sunday and that as of Tuesday morning the site was clear, although still fenced-in and in need of grading. He said FDEP would perform a follow-up inspection to ensure the project is properly closed out and that the county would be on the hook for any mitigations.
Commissioners Rachael Bennett and Jay Morris commended the public works department for its overall handling of debris management in Matthew’s wake.
“You guys have done a Herculean job,” Morris said.
Neil Armingeon, the Matanzas Riverkeeper, said he didn’t want to be critical of the county’s response to the storm but that what happened at the Butler Boat Ramp wasn’t without warning.
“The issue of high tides was raised at the very beginning by the citizens in this area,” he said. “It’s not certainly just out of the blue that this happened.”
He called for more consideration to be paid to environmental concerns when choosing sites for debris collection in the future.
One resident who said she has a view of the site from her front window said she and her neighbors weren’t notified ahead of time that the boat ramp would be used as a staging area. She said her conversations with FDEP revealed an original mandatory setback of 200 feet shrank to 14 feet. She also expressed concerns over white dust from “constant dumping” that drifted away from the pile with the wind, blowing into nearby neighborhoods.
“The day of the high tide, I almost had a complete meltdown, when I heard it was going to be monumental,” she said, adding she appreciated the cleanup but was frustrated her calls and concerns went unanswered.
Commissioner Bill McClure, who requested the county address the Butler Boat Ramp situation as a regular agenda item, said maybe the county, in hindsight, should have stuck to the higher setbacks. He also said he was not aware of the recent supermoon or its potential effects on tidal waters.
However, Todd Ehret, an oceanographer for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, told The Record earlier this week the moon was not the lone culprit for water levels rising beyond predictions. Ehret said the cause is still a mystery but he suspects a change in the Gulf Stream’s position or speed, or a long-lasting weather system could be to blame.
The issue was treated more as a logistics problem on Tuesday.
“It’s kind of a catch-22 for the public to know [the debris] was the same material that was sitting in the swales,” McClure said. “When we get a rain, all that goes down and it goes out into our rivers anyway. This was a way to quickly pick it up and hopefully transfer it.”
County Administrator Michael Wanchick said it was important to acknowledge what happened but to also put it into context.
“This occurred under a declared state of emergency,” he said, adding there were challenges presenting themselves almost daily after the storm.
“Our staff confronted people in the neighborhoods,” Wanchick said. “They wanted that debris gone. People with tears in their eyes telling us that 30 years of their life is sitting down by the curb and they want it gone.”
He said while the county could have added a location on the mainland, it would have added another 40 minutes to each load and delayed collections further. He also said the Butler Boat Ramp, at the end of the day, is a boat ramp and a parking lot and not a park.
“We’re sorry that the boat ramp was inundated,” he said. “No one foresaw the supermoon and environmental conditions, apparently, that are playing out.”
Wanchick said every event offers lessons and that the county would look elsewhere in the future.
Property talk
Commissioners also shot down the city of St. Augustine Beach’s pitch to submit a joint proposal to the Anastasia Mosquito Control District for its old property at 500 Old Beach Road, citing unnecessary complexities and a short window of time.
The district, which has settled into its new headquarters at 120 EOC Drive, issued a request for proposals for a government entity to purchase the Anastasia Island property in August and later set a deadline for Friday.
Commissioners Undine George and S. Gary Snodgrass made appeals to the county for co-ownership with the goal of forming a unified vision for the property and ensuring it remains a public space. Snodgrass said the Beach wanted a seat at the “strategic table.”
Bennett said she thought it was “inappropriate” to be talking about forming a partnership this late in the game. She also questioned the Beach’s interest in a partnership considering the county, in the past, had asked the Beach to consider funding transit and that the Beach declined.
Morris, referring to his experience in the private sector, said “You don’t own anything unless you own 51 percent of it.”
Wanchick said, in terms of timing, the Beach had reached out to him weeks ago but that he determined such partnerships don’t have a tendency to work out, regardless of intent. He said he would prefer situations where there is clear title because partnerships can cause complexities for decisions as consequential as budgeting or as procedural as determining who gets what phone calls.
Commissioners voted unanimously in favor of the county submitting its own proposal to purchase the property for $10,000. According to the proposal, the county plans to move some office and administrative space to the property and potentially expand recreational space at the adjacent Ron Parker Park, among other changes. (For an outline of the county’s proposed plans, see the Nov. 13 edition of The Record.)
St. Augustine Beach commissioners in October supported offering $50,000 for the property, saying they would like to see it used for purposes such as recreation, education and community gatherings. They changed course at their Monday meeting despite City Manager Max Royale’s comments favoring the county’s plan, which he said would include benefits for Beach residents.
Any proposals meeting submittal requirements will be presented to the mosquito control district’s commissioners at their meeting on Dec. 8.
Summer Haven
Additionally, a rezoning request for 0.7 acres in Summer Haven from Commercial Highway Tourist to Residential, in order to make way for two single-family units, was tabled at the last minute – for the second time.
The property is located primarily on the east side of State Road A1A South and west of Old A1A, and less than 2,000 feet north of the Flagler County line.
One resident speaking during general public comment said her group has been trying to educate people on the item and get them to attend the meetings and offer their opinions on it. She questioned how many times such an item could be tabled without consequence.
County Attorney Patrick McCormack said the item can be pulled at any time but that it was unfortunate the item has been pulled twice at the last minute. He said the area in question is still “dynamic” due to lingering effects of the hurricane and that there was a “firm basis” to move the discussion once again.
Bennett said access is a “critical element” of the rezoning request and that without a firm decision yet on the fate of Old A1A, there are too many unknowns left. She said she had expressed those concerns to the applicant.
“We’re still trying to figure out where everything is, and I don’t think our administration has made any firm decisions on the future of Old A1A,” she said.
The county’s Planning and Zoning Agency recommended approval of the rezoning request by a 4-1 vote at its June 2 meeting, although that was well before Matthew’s arrival on Oct. 7.
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