Manatee commissioner stands alone against Cortez megabridge

Carol Whitmore is quite ready to go it alone.

The Manatee County commissioner doesn’t have the support of fellow board members in her efforts to keep the Florida Department of Transportation from replacing the Cortez Bridge with a 65-foot-clearance fixed span. That became evident at the Aug. 20 commission meeting, when others on the seven-member board kept quiet after she asked for their backing to reopen talks with the DOT about the bridge height.

“And I got my answer, I guess, right?” Whitmore said after a few long seconds of silence.

“I guess so,” answered Commission Chairman Stephen Jonsson.

That’s not going to stop her, Whitmore vowed in an Aug. 23 telephone interview with The Islander.

“I’m moving forward still,” she maintained, saying that she’s been talking with high-level DOT officials she declined to name.

Whitmore, an at-large commissioner who resides in Holmes Beach, contends that the bridge between Bradenton Beach and Cortez, which is not likely to be built for at least another 10 years, would destroy the character of the historic fishing village.

The DOT announced in April 2018 that it planned to replace the drawbridge with the high-clearance span.

The agency said this month it expects to release the project development and environment study for the bridge by the end of this year. The study, begun in 2013, determines the environmental, economic, social, cultural and physical impacts of the new bridge.

The next step would be the design. A $6.4 million contract has been awarded, but no design work has been started, a DOT spokesman told The Islander earlier in August.

It’s crucial for opponents of the high bridge that any changes or modifications to the height occur before the design work starts.

“Now’s the time to say, ‘Let’s take a step back,’” Whitmore told commissioners at the Aug. 20 meeting. “What’s the rush to start design now?”

There is still time to make changes, Whitmore said.

“This is not set in stone,” she said. “A replacement bridge is out of our hands. That has to happen. But the height we still could do something about.”

Whitmore favors a 45-foot drawbridge.

Asked Aug. 23 why she believes fellow commissioners declined to support her, Whitmore said they may think it’s too late to act. Or that speaking out may be too precarious for the political safety of other projects.

“I truly believe they believe they don’t have any say in it,” she said. “And they’re afraid they’ll upset the apple cart.”

There were indications of that concern at the Aug. 20 meeting.

“If we keep giving FDOT a hard time, you know what, we’re not going to get any bridge,” Commissioner Vanessa Baugh said.

Commissioner Betsy Benac said the county can’t afford to lose the funding if the DOT takes the money elsewhere.

“I will not be responsible for delaying this project for another 20 years,” she said.

It’s in the county’s best interest to let the DOT chart its own path, she said.

“I do have a problem with us telling them that we are now going to enter into this, at this stage,” Benac said.

And the DOT knows what it’s doing, she said.

“This is not a decision being made lightly, without public input from all kinds of people,” she said, later adding, “They’re not going to do something if the people don’t want it.”

Jonsson, whose district includes Anna Maria Island and Cortez, said in an Aug. 23 interview with The Islander that he feels comfortable that the DOT will preserve the character of the village.

“In my conversations with the DOT,” he said, “that’s something they’re very sensitive to.”

Whitmore told commissioners she wrote to DOT District 1 secretary LK Nandam to let him know she will continue to oppose the high-clearance bridge, making her voice heard “again and again.”

Asked by The Islander to comment on the letter, Nandam emailed a response Aug. 22, defending the DOT’s choice for a megabridge.

“We go through an extensive project development process, which follows both federal and state requirements, to seek the best solution for the entire community,” Nandam wrote. “This process resulted in an outcome to pursue a new, 65-foot-high fixed span bridge that would not need to open for maritime vessels and would not require the extensive maintenance that traditional, lower profile bridges have.”

Whitmore agreed that maintenance costs are a major motivator for the DOT’s decision.

“Once you do a fixed span, you don’t have to fix it,” she told The Islander.

Repairs have been extensive for the Cortez Bridge and the Anna Maria Island Bridge to the north, the island’s two connections to the mainland.

The Cortez Bridge underwent major repairs in 1996, 2010 and 2015. The Anna Maria Island Bridge has undergone six structural repairs since 1978.

Both drawbridges were built in the mid-1950s and have outlived their 50-year life spans, the DOT says.

The proposed bridges would have 75-year life spans, according to the DOT.

The DOT is working to also replace the Anna Maria Island Bridge with a 65-foot-clearance span. Design work on that bridge is about 60 percent complete, but won’t be finished until fiscal 2022-23, DOT spokesman Brian R. Rick told The Islander earlier in August.

The Anna Maria Island Bridge will cost $76 million to replace and the Cortez span will cost $72 million, the DOT estimates.

Nandam said the agency will listen to concerns about the Cortez Bridge.

“The department will continue its engagement with the communities, particularly, Cortez Village and Bradenton Beach, as we prepare the design for the bridge,” he wrote. “This engagement will include a Bridge Aesthetic Committee and public meetings, as well as small group meetings, to keep the community involved.”

Whitmore feels like she’s been here before, having been involved in issues concerning Anna Maria Island and its bridges for nearly 30 years. She served on the Holmes Beach City Council from 1991-98 and as the city’s mayor from 1998-2006. Elected to the county commission in 2006, she has seniority over the other board members.

She told commissioners Aug. 20 that she was involved in discussions in 1996-97 over whether to replace the Anna Maria Island and Cortez bridges with 65-foot spans. The DOT agreed to build a 65-foot fixed bridge on Manatee Avenue but not Cortez, she said.

Now the past is future again.

“It just ticks me off because I was the mayor of Holmes Beach, and I’ve dealt with this issue,” she told The Islander.