The Jacksonville Port Authority board of directors voted Monday to set a Sept. 30 deadline to end its operations of the St. Johns River Ferry.
The port board experienced its largest monthly meeting attendance in recent history as Friends of the St. Johns River Ferry filled the meeting room and hallway at JPA’s offices in Talleyrand.
About 80 people attended and 23 speaker cards were submitted. Speakers wanted to ask the JPA board for more time to seek funding. Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown also attended to make the same request.
“For nearly five years, Jaxport has generously operated the St. Johns River Ferry during a time that the City was not able to provide operational or capital funding due to its increase of financial challenges,” said Brown.
The Port reports $600,000 in annual operating losses from the ferry.
In addition, the RS&H engineering report for the ferry docking system listed $4 million of repairs that need to be made immediately, which were recently discovered and unbudgeted. JPA budgeted $850,000 for capital improvements for the ferry.
The JPA took over the ferry operations from the City in 2007.
Brown doesn’t see the possibility in the 2013 City budget to fund the ferry.
“The City is not in the position to fund ferry operations single-handedly as it is so important to live within our means. I’m very hopeful that a funding solution can be found when elected officials, city advocates, citizens from all around the city, business leaders, our congressional delegation work together to come up with a solution that is significant to help solve this problem,” said Brown.
City Council President Stephen Joost recently created a special committee to address the issues with the ferry and seek out the public-private partnerships that might be needed to keep the ferry operating. Council member Bill Gulliford announced the new special committee at the meeting Monday.
“The president of the Jacksonville City Council has created a special committee to address the future and permanent funding of the St. Johns River Ferry. I am honored to be serving as chair on the committee with my co-chair Ray Holt. We intend to involve every affected party and pursue every available funding source,” said Gulliford.
Gulliford, whose district includes a section of Southeast Duval County bordered by both the St. Johns River and the Atlantic Ocean, told the JPA board that he already has received interest from funding sources. He also plans to look into the local-option tourist development tax authorized to counties by Florida Statutes.
Speakers talked about how the ferry is not only a means of transportation to cross the river but also serves as a tourism driver by linking Florida A1A and the East Coast Greenway.
“We would like to see it continue,” said Paul Anderson, JPA CEO, who talked nostalgically about riding the ferry to go surfing when he was a student at the University of Florida.
“If the group is able to find a viable operator, we are going to do all that we can to present it in as good a condition as possible,” he said.
Port board member John Anderson supported the suggestion that the port focus its limited resources on its core functions.
“I move that this board direct Paul Anderson to notify the St. Johns River Ferry contractor, Hornblower Marine, today that the port will terminate its contract effective Sept. 30, 2012, the end of our fiscal year,” said John Anderson.
The port plans to spend $220,000 for the design of the repairs to the ferry docks as described in a recent RS&H engineering report.
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