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HomeMy Public PortalAbout20060316BeachTaskForceMinutes.pdfTybee Island Beach Task Force Minutes March 16, 2006 Members Present: Amy Lanier, Mary McCracken, Freda Rutherford, William Sprague, John Wylly, Lou Off Ex-Officos Present: Paul Wolff, City Council; Jason Buelterman, Mayor; Hampton Spradley, ACOE Members Absent: Berta Adams (E), Cecil DeLorme, Helen Downing, Henry Levy, Richard Grosse, Dick Magune, Walter Parker (E) Visitors: Skylar Lanier and Larry Sprague Lou Off called the meeting to order. He shared with the group some interesting facts from the Coastal Connection, a newsletter, sent out by Marlowe and Company. Lou welcomed our guests. Howard Marlowe and Paul Ordal will be in town Thursday, March 23rd. Lou will not be in town. He has given a list of topics to Jason for the meeting. Lou has asked Berta to be at the meeting and he suggested Walter be present along with any interested member from the Beach Task Force. Some of the topics that will be talked about are: Renewal of our project for 50 years, what we want to do with the Section 111 (The Channel Impact Study) and North Beach. Lou stated that they are to arrive around 2:00 pm on Thursday. He suggested that Jason give a tour of the island. Jason will contact Paul Ordal and give Janice the schedule so she can notify each member. Lou heard from Paul Ordal that the House Appropriation Committee held its first round of hearings last week. The members of the committee complained about the lack of funding proposed in the President’s budget and the lack of attention OMB gives to civil works project. The State money ($2.93 million) has passed the House. We are waiting to see if it passes the Senate. Paul Wolff will contact Mike Sullivan at the Skidaway Institute to see if the Wave Engineer can come to the next meeting. Lou and Paul received an email from Marlowe and he is trying to gather material on “beach use” such as how many people used the beach on Memorial Day, primary residences, last year renters of cottages and where they came from. Paul feels that the Tourism Council should have some of that data. He had forwarded this email to Katrina Murray and will find out more details concerning this. Freda has a spread sheet from the Historical Society that tracks their customer feedback survey for 2003 and 2004 by state and country. Marlowe would like this information by June. Paul and Jason are to coordinate efforts. Shirley Sessions sent a special thank you card to all Beach Task Force Members. Lou asked for a motion to approve the minutes. Bill Sprague motioned to approve the minutes. Amy asked that several corrections be made prior to approval. Janice noted the corrections. John seconded the motion. The minutes were approved with said minor corrections to be made. HB 727 Lou passed out a copy of a letter to Mayor Jason Buelterman from Brad Gane and a letter from Erik Olsen to Brad Gane regarding the type of sand we can place on our beach. Jason asked the Beach Task Force to recommend to the Mayor and Council their opinion. Lou is to write a letter for Jason to send to the COE. Lou asked the group to look over the letters and call him if anything that looks wrong to them. In the meantime, Lou will work with Erik on the letter for Jason. PMP Lou just received the updated version – the draft Project Management Plan. There are 6 copies for review. If anyone has comments in the next two weeks, they should email them to Lou. Channel Impact Study Jason wrote the COE to initiate the Channel Impact Study and authorized the Georgia Port Authority to release $125,000 to help defray the cost. LRR This has been sent to the Atlantic Division, but we have not heard if it has been approved. The last two years all viable re-nourishment projects were funded by Congress. This year there are five project requests – no more than $50 million. Beach Management Plan All is complete – the signature page has been signed by Susan Shipman, the plan letter and electronic versions are off to grants, contracts are processing. Jan complimented the Task Force on a job well done. At the time Lou requested the Mayor and Council to approve the Beach Management Plan; he prioritized a list of all recommendations in the plan for the next few years. Examples for this year under the construction area were the 2007 Re-nourishment, permanent funding source, remove old seawall, safety signs, sand fencing, and improve restrooms on the beach. Under the policy heading were such things as safety concerns, lifeguards, signage, dogs on the beach, trash on the beach. These are the things Lou placed the most emphasis on. Lou was asked at the last meeting to recommend to City Council to approve Walter Parker as a member which they did. He also recommended the removal of the old seawall. Jason has sent a letter to the COE for a copy of their file on the seawall (Lou found that the COE had a file on it). The Beach Task Force will proceed from that point. Jason Buelterman asked for an estimated cost for the debris removal. This can’t be estimated until the file from the COE is reviewed. Paul stated that the file may include the cost and removal procedure that the COE did to some of the wall in the 80’s. We can use those figures and update the cost. Freda asked if we should have something more specific in our Beach Management Plan concerning the moving of sand rather than the generality of the movement. Several issues such as Mr. Sprague’s sand dune encroaching his house, the North Beach stock piling, and when sand moves, can we move it back? Lou suggested we wait to see if we are having a 2007 re- nourishment. If we do, the only possible place where we will need more sand is North Beach around the Racquet Club area. It was suggested that we get Erik Olsen to develop a plan, then we can go to DNR for approval to move sand every 2 or 5 years or how ever often it is needed. The Bill for setting up a permanent Trust Fund for the beaches was written by Burke Day, but it was “sun downed.” It did not make it through the State Legislature. This will require a state wide referendum. Jason posed the question on what to do about the encroaching sand dune on people’s property in the near future. Lou had a conversation with Brad Gane regarding this. Brad felt that in dealing with these particular historic homes on Back River, the DNR will do everything to make sure these homes will not be damaged. They were waiting on a written proposal from the home owners which is the beginning of the process. Brad suggested moving the sand back to the same sand sharing area, planting it, putting up fencing and bulkhead it to a certain extent in trying to keep the sand from going over to the yards. Jason Buelterman will write a letter to Brad Gane concerning this. Lou recommended that the homeowners have Erik look at this problem as well. Jason suggested that Beach Task Force start thinking about the next SPLOST allocation in 2009 and funding for the beach. Meeting Adjourned