Holmes Beach Mayor Rich Bohnenberger sent a letter to Manatee County administrator Ed Hunzeker March 9, reminding him site-plan approval and a permit from the city of Holmes Beach are required prior to the county implementing its lighting project at Kingfish Boat Ramp.
The letter followed objections to the lighting project by Holmes Beach Commissioner David Zaccagnino at the March 8 commission meeting.
Plans call for 11 cobra-style lights to be installed in April. The plans and permits were approved by the Florida Department of Transportation, but Holmes Beach officials were not consulted.
“This is a perfect example of violating home rule. It’s the county imposing its will upon us and it’s disrespectful to our mayor,” said Zaccagnino.
Zaccagnino believes the cobra-style lights specified in the county plans are not turtle-friendly as the county claims, and that the county is over-lighting the area.
The county also will be digging up the area to run underground lines, which Zaccagnino said could be avoided if it used solar lighting similar to that at the Manatee Public Beach.
Zaccagnino told commissioners that the plans indicate the county will install 400-watt, high-pressure sodium lights atop 40-foot poles.
The plans do not indicate the lights will be shielded.
However, Commission Chair Sandy Haas-Martens, who recently toured the site with Manatee County project manager Walter Sowa, was told the lights would be shielded.
Suzi Fox, director of Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Protection, reviewed the lighting plans and raised concerns in a letter presented at the commission meeting.
Fox wrote that the proposed lights would “add unnecessary illumination to a very valuable nesting beach at the end of Manatee Avenue, as well as a very sensitive wildlife area around the Kingfish Boat Ramp and Intracoastal Waterway.”
Both Fox and Zaccagnino noted that the proposed height of the lights is almost double the height of any other light pole on Anna Maria Island and that the bulbs also are brighter.
“We have two other county boat ramps on the Island along DOT roadway — both at Coquina Beach — that followed county lighting plans, and neither have more than two low-pressure sodium lights on 20-foot poles,” wrote Fox. “Why not follow suit?”
“This is something we can stop right now,” said Zaccagnino. He urged the mayor to write a letter to the county.
City attorney Patricia Petruff advised the mayor that Holmes Beach has regulatory authority over the Kingfish property. Manatee County’s lease on the property means it has a proprietary interest, it doesn’t mean it has discretion to put whatever it wants there.
The city last year annexed the boat ramp property after negotiations with the county and with approval from the state.
According to Zaccagnino, County Commissioner John Chappie told him that if Mayor Bohnenberger wrote a letter, he would bring it before the board of county commissioners.
In other matters, the commission again continued its second reading of the police pension fund amendment until its March 22 meeting.
Commissioners have received a plan assessment from attorney James Linn of the Lewis, Longman and Walker law firm in Tallahassee, but didn’t want to proceed with the hearing without the benefit of directing questions to city treasurer Rick Ashley, who was on vacation, or Petruff, who was stuck in traffic en route to the meeting.
The commission’s next regular meeting will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 22, in the city hall chambers, 5801 Marina Drive, Holmes Beach.