County Commission creates special taxing unit for beach renourishment. (SAR)

1. I supported the 3-2 vote on MSTU.  
2. Record coverage leaves much to be desired.
3. Enough handouts and catering to wealthy landowners in the pages of the St. Augustine Record.
4. To Stuart Korfhage: Please contact the actual owners of the  Ponte Vedra Inn and Club and Ponte Vedra Lodge and Club for a followup story.  Do your job, without fear or favor to wealthy landowners who don't want to pay their fair share.  Ask questions, demand answers.  Expect Democracy.
5. ULTIMATE ANSWER: FEDERAL FUNDS by adoption of St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore, preserving and protection some 130,000 acres of current government land and protecting us from flooding.





Commission creates special taxing unit for beach renourishment
The St. Johns County Commission voted 3-2 on Tuesday to create a Municipal Service Taxing Unit in order to raise $1.2 million for beach renourishment for about 9 miles of beach from the Duval County line south to Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve. [PETER WILLOTT/THE RECORD]

By Stuart Korfhage
Posted Dec 18, 2018 at 8:08 PM
Updated at 6:36 AM
St. Augustine Record

The St. Johns County Commission took the first step toward paying for the first phase of beach renourishment in Ponte Vedra Beach at Tuesday’s meeting.

But aside from the clarity of the general direction, there really wasn’t much decided.

The board voted 3-2, with commissioners Jeb Smith and Jimmy Johns dissenting, to create a Municipal Service Taxing Unit (MSTU) in order to raise $1.2 million for beach renourishment. The money would pay for permitting, studies and design of a renourishment plan for about 9 miles of beach from the Duval County line south to Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve.

With the creation of the MSTU, the Commission has the option to levy an additional 0.6 mills. It’s expected to take two years to raise the $1.2 million. The Commission authorized the immediate transfer of $1 million from the General Fund to pay for the Phase I work to continue, and the MSTU or some other funding source will eventually pay back the fund.

However, the MSTU is just the starting point. Just because it’s available doesn’t mean it will be used.

Commissioners talked about several other options for funding the first phase. The county is looking at possible grants from the state and federal governments. It’s possible one or both of those would provide some money, although chances are good that it would be matching funds.

Also, the commissioners talked about using the Tourist Development Council “bed tax” money. Even though they didn’t vote on the issue Tuesday, there is some support among commissioners to use $700,000 from TDC reserves.

There’s also the pending issue of raising the bed tax on short-term rentals from 4 percent to 5 percent in order to fund beach renourishment in the county. That issue has gone through the first reading, but it’s not clear whether there will be the four votes needed to implement the increase.

Because the county is already into the 2019 fiscal year, the MSTU can’t be activated until the fall when the 2020 fiscal year begins. In the meantime, the Commission has time to see if other funding sources emerge that would make the temporary millage increase unnecessary.


The important part, at least for Commissioner Henry Dean, was getting something in place that would guarantee some action in beach renourishment.

“To me, job No. 1 is to create the MSTU now and then as we go forward in January, February and March we’re going to have some key decisions to make,” Dean said. “There are a lot of moving parts, but what’s not moving right now is the fact that in order to go forward with a beach renourishment project for Ponte Vedra Beach, the first step — and we must do it today if we’re going to — is to enact the MSTU.”

Dean added that he would consider a one-time influx of TDC reserves but that he wants a sustainable funding source rather than to just raid another agency’s budget.

“My goal, frankly — and it’s no surprise if you’ve heard me speak over the last six months on the issue — is that was have a one-cent increase in the bed tax for all of the reasons I have enumerated,” Dean said. “And there will be funds available more immediately if we go forward with that route to help fund the engineering study.”

Smith said he was concerned about the lack of total support for the MSTU, including the owners of the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club and Ponte Vedra Lodge & Club. There was a survey sent to the 746 affected properties, and 65 percent returned the surveys. Of those, 92 percent came back in favor of the MSTU.

“We looked at the map and saw several tracts that were not desirous to be involved in (the MSTU),” Smith said. “When someone doesn’t want to participate, I have a tremendous amount of apprehension and reluctance toward it.”

County Public Works Director Neal Shinkre said although there is some resistance to the MSTU by some of the beach landowners, many who voted against the MSTU still want to see the renourishment project go forward.


“We have been in touch with several of those property owners that ... were against the (MSTU) at the start,” he said. “Based on the last board meeting, we reached out to them to better understand.

“They gave me (several) points to communicate to the board: One was that they were very supportive of the project. They would prefer that one-time (Tourist Development) reserves would be used for the project, but they understand that’s a decision by the board.”

There was no serious discussion about how to fund the construction phase of the project, which would start no sooner than mid-2020 and is estimated to cost more than $30 million.