They’re establishing the strike zone.
Bradenton Beach city attorney Ricinda Perry teleconferenced with Florida Department of Transportation representatives June 29 to discuss the city’s settlement requests related to the agency’s plans to replace the 17-foot-clearance Cortez drawbridge with a 65-foot-clearance fixed-span structure in 2026-27.
“I will tell you that the tone has changed in the negotiations,” Perry said at a July 1 city commission meeting.
Perry conferenced with DOT attorneys for the first time April 16 and was asked to provide pricing for several requests, including:
- Undergrounding utilities on streets near the megabridge, most of which are outside the project’s boundaries;
- Constructing a sidewalk between the Beach House Restaurant and the Gulf Drive Cafe on State Road 789;
- Making modifications to the multi-use path that runs alongside Bridgeport condominiums and under the bridge.
Perry said DOT representatives had indicated before the June 29 meeting the requests were feasible.
In mid-June, she sent the agency a six-page document outlining the scope and cost for the requested undergrounding and a partial report for the sidewalk construction.
The city estimated the projects would cost the DOT about $4.8 million.
At the June 29 meeting, DOT attorneys told Perry there was no immediately available funding for the requests.
“The only way they can fund our request is to find alternative funding or fund it under the bridge itself,” Perry said. “If they’re funding it under the bridge itself, they have to see a clear nexus that the bridge is causing the problems we’re asking them to solve.”
DOT attorneys said they were unsure the undergrounding project would meet the “clear nexus” requirement — a standard that had never been mentioned before, Perry told The Islander July 2.
At the meeting, commissioners reached a consensus to direct Perry to scale down the undergrounding request, prepare arguments that demonstrate how each request relates to problems created by the proposed high bridge and continue negotiations with the DOT.
Four complainants — former County Commissioners Joe McClash and Jane von Hahmann, who resides in Cortez, Linda Molto and Joe Kane, also Cortez residents — are challenging the DOT’s decision to build the high bridge in federal court.
They argue that the bridge would destroy the character of Cortez and advocate for replacement with a 35-foot-clearance drawbridge.
Von Hahmann spoke before the Bradenton Beach Commission March 4, entreating the city to join the suit.
On March 18, city commissioners unanimously voted to direct Perry to coordinate with outside counsel on joining the suit and allocated up to $15,000 for legal costs.
In April, the commissioners reduced the allocation, and Perry began negotiations with the DOT.
At the July 1 commission meeting, Commissioner Jan Vosburgh asked if continuing talks with the DOT precluded the city from joining the lawsuit.
“Not necessarily,” Perry said. “I explained to them that the fact that they’re not even entertaining these points that we had worked very hard to compile — the information they wanted — was troublesome. And that, perhaps, this is forcing the city’s hand into the lawsuit.”
“And that’s where (the DOT attorneys) came back and started to hammer down on how strong their case was, that they believe they will be upheld. And then they told me that they would fight the city as needed to prevent us from joining the lawsuit,” she said.
According to the timeline laid out by the court, Bradenton Beach has until Aug. 15 to join the suit.