City Council members want to improve the boat ramp master plan to better maintain the City's network of boat docks and maritime facilities, and they plan to pursue Florida Inland Navigation District funds to assist in funding a study.
Council member Jim Love introduced Ordinance 2013-380 Tuesday.
It requests $200,000 from the Council Special Operating Reserve to fund a maritime management plan for the City. Love plans to request $100,000 from Florida Inland Navigation District grant funds for the project, but the price may change after investigation into what the plan needs to include to qualify for a FIND grant.
Love is chairman of the City Waterways Commission, which was scheduled to make a recommendation on the
ordinance to Council at its Wednesday meeting.
"Through, possibly the (Waterways Commission's) FIND Subcommittee, we need to come up with the scope of exactly what we want (the developer of the study) to do after we look at the current plan," said Love.
The 2002 plan provided an inventory and assessment of municipal maritime facilities to help the City Parks and Recreation Department prioritize its maintenance plans. Love and other Council members were supportive of increasing the scope of the document.
"I would like a comprehensive listing of all of the boat ramps that we have, an inspection report that tells me what condition they are in right now, what is the expected useful life for the docks and which ones have dredging problems, so when we are looking at applications we can prioritize and understand why someone has put boat ramp 'X' at the top of the list," said Council member and commission Vice Chair Lori Boyer.
Tera Meeks, chief of waterfront management programming for the City, suggested how to use the management plan to establish a prioritized list.
"Part of the management plan could be an assessment of how well are the boat ramps used to give us a better idea for prioritizing what needs to be fixed," said Meeks.
The City Parks and Recreation Department maintains 29 boat ramps and 21 canoe/kayak launch sites, according to its website, coj.net. Some docks accommodate both powered and non-powered boats.
The City's dockmaster, Capt. Jim Suber, told the commission the Parks and Recreation Department has an ongoing list of needed repairs.
"Those are immediate fixes. We also want to know what we need to be doing to get ahead of the maintenance issues and the management plan should help us do that," said Boyer.
The commission agreed to defer a recommendation on the ordinance until it could discuss the management plan with its FIND subcommittee and FIND commissioners.
A July meeting has not been scheduled for the commission, which normally meets once a month. It awaits the appointment of a chairman from incoming Council President Bill Gulliford.
Gulliford is likely to announce his committee and commission assignments by early next week, he said on Wednesday.
@photojoe71
(904) 356-2466