The north side of the Palma Sola Causeway in Bradenton sometimes resembles a horse farm.
And “it does kind of smell like a stable out there,” Tom Skoloda of Bradenton told the Palma Sola Scenic Highway Corridor Management Entity Feb. 10. The entity is a committee of Bradenton, Manatee County, Holmes Beach and nonprofit representatives that monitors, protects, beautifies and promotes the scenic highway along Manatee Avenue from 75th Street West in Bradenton to East Bay Drive in Holmes Beach.
Skoloda, a former Anna Maria city commissioner, attended the CME meeting at the Bradenton Public Works Department to express his concerns about problems created by an influx of people along the causeway offering horseback-riding excursions.
“It’s almost used up the whole causeway,” Skoloda said of the number of horse trailers on the north side of Manatee Avenue/State Road 64.
Skoloda said he’s concerned the horses are messing up seagrasses.
Also, he said, he’s concerned “about the bacteria levels there because there’s a lot of little kids and families, especially on the weekends, that swim in that area and that can’t be good for them with the horses going in there.”
The concern with horses along the causeway is not new for the committee.
CME co-chair Ingrid McClellan said she provided research and communications between the CME and the Florida Department of Transportation about possible damages from the horse-riding operations to the Bradenton city attorney, Scott Rudacille, in advance of a Feb. 10 meeting between Rudacille and Bradenton Mayor Gene Brown and the city council.
The section of the scenic highway where the horse rides are staged is within the Bradenton city limits.
CME co-chair Craig Keys said he had not heard from Rudacille on the outcome of the meeting.
Causeway vendors do not fall within the permitting guidelines of Bradenton, so they are limited to online transactions — payments — Keys said.
A suggestion to seek an aquatic preserve designation for the area, which would prohibit horseback riding in the water, came from CME member Shawn Duytschaver. Duytschaver owns the Surferbus, a paddleboard-kayak rental business that operates on the causeway a mile west of the horse-riding operations.
“Are we going to try to get rid of the horses or are we not going to try to get rid of the horses? And if we’re not going to try to get rid of them or we’re not successful in getting rid of the horses, then I think there should be an operating fee assessed on a monthly basis payable before the first of the month,” CME member Mike Meehan said.
Ambra Bauer has been operating Cponies Beach Horseback Rides along the causeway for about six years. She told The Islander Feb. 12, “All we’re doing is trying to give back to the community by giving people something fun to do.”
Additionally, Bauer said she is talking with “companies that specialize in seagrass regrowth” to determine the best way her company can contribute to preserving and regrowing the seagrass.
Cponies staff does its best to keep the area clean, but Bauer said she’s found that’s not the case with all the horseback-riding vendors.
“We take pride in providing the best experience and cleaning up after ourselves and horses,” Bauer said. “The horses are our No. 1 priority and keeping the area clean for them.”
But the bottom line is “it is a city park,” said McClellan. So whatever decision is made must be in concert with the city of Bradenton.
McClellan told The Islander Feb. 11 that the issue is tabled until the CME and Rudacille discuss the outcome of the meeting the attorney had with Brown and the city council.
She said she anticipates discussion at the next CME meeting at 4 p.m. April 14.
Highway extension
The CME in 2010 asked the state to extend the scenic highway.
The extension would run from the scenic highway’s endpoint at the intersection of State Route 64/Manatee Avenue and State Route 789/East Bay Drive in Holmes Beach west to the entrance of the Manatee Public Beach at the intersection of Manatee Avenue and Gulf Drive in Holmes Beach.
The extension also would continue south along State Route 789/East Bay Drive to the intersection of State Route 789/Gulf Drive at 27th Street in Bradenton Beach. That is the point where the 3-mile Bradenton Beach Scenic Highway begins.
The state sent the application back with a request for more information.
McClellan said a revised application would be submitted Feb. 26.
And it will take the scenic route.
The application will go to DOT District 1 landscape architect Darryl Richard for review. The state landscape architect also must review the application before consideration by the Florida Scenic Highway Advisory Committee, which makes the decision.
The CME will next meet at 4 p.m. Wednesday, April 14, at the Bradenton Public Works Department, 1022 26th Ave. E., Bradenton. The meeting will be available via Zoom.
I have been coming here for 40 years and now am a year around resident. I find the horses in the water disgusting and unappealing to go near the water on the causeway because of the horses. The only people that it works for are the horse businesses. You notice people don’t use that area, my guess would be they also find it disgusting. The horses bottoms are under water, so the manure get cleaned up how?