by Liz Daube
Staff Writer
With approximately $3.2 million federal dollars already confirmed, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office is getting closer to a new, $4.2 million command center for its marine unit.
The Sheriff’s Office (JSO) marine unit received the grant in late 2006 from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to former marine unit supervisor and current city dockmaster Jim Suber. JSO Assistant Chief Mark Richardson confirmed the six- or eight-slip marina is currently in the planning stages and waiting for approval from the Jacksonville Waterways Commission.
“It’s important to the security of the port of Jacksonville, which is one of the largest ports on the east coast,” said Richardson. “It will give us a marine command facility from which to base all of our operations. Right now, we kind of borrow other people’s spaces.”
JSO currently has an eight-boat, six-officer marine unit that serves several functions, according to Richardson. The officers – along with one sergeant – enforce boating safety laws and speed limits and monitor the waterways “day and night,” especially during large events at Metropolitan Park or the Landing. The unit has been keeping its boats at a variety of loaned slips or in trailers, Richardson said.
“A lot of the reason we wanted to do this was: one, to centralize and, number two, so our response time would be better,” said Lynette Self, City Council member and chair of the Waterways Commission. “We have quite a bit of water in our county, a lot of boaters. There are issues of boater safety and homeland security ... and manatee protection.”
The project has been in the works for more than three years, according to Self. She said next year’s city budget will match 25 percent of the federal grant funds to help with the cost of the marina, pending mayoral and Council approval. The location is also pending approval, but Self said the City’s Arlington Lions Club Park – near University Boulevard North – is the site planned now.
“It’s a good location if you had to go intracoastal or downtown,” she said. Previous plans for a location at Downtown’s Metropolitan Park were scrapped, Self said, because “the mayor is looking at the northbank and where we want to strategically place everything.”
JSO has another eleven officers and two sergeants assigned to and paid by the Jacksonville Port Authority, according to port spokesman Robert Peek. He said that unit, called seaport security, focuses more on “land side” security. The officers have some boats, but they patrol and work with U.S. Customs at the ports themselves rather than monitor the water. Suber said the marine unit, on the other hand, monitors about 600 square miles of water from “county line to county line.”
“Seaport security officers are assigned to the terminals,” said Peek. “To fully secure the port, there is both a land side and a water side ... [For] cruise ship traffic, personal water traffic, our facilities are right on the federal channel. Lots of them are passing by. It is very helpful to have water side security in addition to land side security.”
Richardson said JSO’s separate marine unit doesn’t currently plan to expand its operations with the new center. He said the central marina and office will allow the unit to better communicate with JSO’s seaport security unit, the port’s authority’s private security, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
If the marina project goes smoothly through city government, Self said conservation issues might postpone it further. She said seven manatee deaths have occurred in Duval County’s waters this past year, exceeding the five allowed by conservation regulations.
“Once you trip that number, your manatee protection plan comes under review,” said Self. “We’re scheduling meetings to talk about that now, but until we get that resolved...”
She said the federal grant requires the marina project to be built within three years, which might be difficult “because it takes two years sometimes to permit.” Self said further updates on the project will be announced at Waterways Commission meetings.