An attorney for Bradenton Beach Marina owner Allan Bazzy sent a letter to city attorney Ricinda Perry asking the city to prohibit vendors from occupying two retail units on the Historic Bridge Street Pier.
Bazzy reinforced his intention Nov. 10 to sue the city over how it handled the request for proposal process and the lease for two retail units on the Historic Bridge Street Pier.
Bazzy said he would seek an injunction against the agreements entered with vendors by Anna Maria Oyster Bar president John Horne for the sub-units because the city held secret negotiations.
When the city commission voted to lease all three units to Horne in a noncompetitive bid, Bazzy said he decided to hire “the meanest lawyer I could find.”
Bazzy said he spoke with Commissioner-elect Jake Spooner about the situation. Quoting Spooner, Bazzy said the city attorney told Spooner “too bad.” Spooner said he learned from the city attorney that Bazzy had five days to protest the original awarding of the restaurant lease to Horne and failed to do so.
“But what she fails to see is that there was no need to protest, because we were told other RFPs were forthcoming. Why would we protest?”
Efforts to reach Perry Nov. 12 by email were unsuccessful.
Meanwhile, Bradenton resident Barbara Schelin has a complaint pending with the Florida Commission on Ethics alleging Perry and former Mayor Jack Clarke violated Florida’s Government-in-the-Sunshine Laws when they met privately with Horne to negotiate the restaurant lease. Those meetings resulted in Horne controlling all three units.
“Somehow, behind closed doors, through a process that was not public, the city reneged on their process to have an RFP on those two buildings,” Bazzy said.
Many details of the bidding and negotiations are public record. When the bidding began, participants were told to bid either for the restaurant or all three units and, if no one bid for all three, the city would later request bids for the two retail units.
Bazzy submitted a bid for the retail units and the restaurant and was the highest bidder. But commissioners opted to negotiate with Horne, owner of several local restaurants that originated at the Anna Maria City Pier in the 1990s.
Horne then met with Perry and Clarke, separately and together, and negotiated and agreed to lease and manage all three units. Horne has vendors lined up to sublease the retail units on the pier.
Sherman Baldwin, one of those vendors, said bait will be sold from a bait box on the pier that will be stocked by Annie’s Bait & Tackle of Cortez.
Bazzy criticized the plan to forego a bait shop for a jewelry store — another of Horne’s vendors.
And Bazzy won a past battle with the city. In 1995, court-appointed mediators helped settle a lawsuit he filed against the city and 19 residents, claiming they “… conspired, reached a meeting of the minds, and commenced their scheme to defeat (his) application” for a multi-million-dollar expansion of the marina. The rezone of six residential lots and construction of an 18,000-square-foot boat storage facility were first denied by the city commission, then overturned by the circuit court.
Meanwhile, John Maguire, who sells bait at the pier, is miffed at not being able to bid on a retail unit. Maguire has operated from the day dock on the pier since July, when the previous tenant was evicted.
Maguire said he was told by a Bradenton Beach police officer to move his boat, a licensed 20-foot Hurricane deck boat, from the day dock.
However, a business can operate legally on the day dock as long as the proprietor doesn’t accept payment there, Police Chief Sam Speciale has said.
As of Nov. 11, Maguire was anchoring near the day dock and said he had no intention of leaving.