What went up has come down.
Within the recent past, Raymond “Junior” Guthrie added and removed a ramada from the back deck of the Sarasota Bay stilt-house he erected on pilings on state-owned submerged land yards off the A.P. Bell Fish Co. docks in Cortez in 2017.
Guthrie built the ramada — a structure with a solid shade cover and support posts — in July.
The addition originally featured a staircase and second-story railings, which Guthrie removed the week of July 26.
He said Aug. 20 he removed the rest of the addition 2-3 weeks ago “because everybody was complaining about it.”
In 2018, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection sued Guthrie for building the stilt-house without permits on state-owned submerged land.
The agency won the court case in 2019 but a series of extensions on a judge’s final order that the structure be removed allowed it to remain standing.
The latest extension, which expired May 7, was granted March 8 to “allow the Florida Legislature or other governmental body to consider protection for the structure.”
In April, Manatee County commissioners and state legislators submitted letters of support for the structure to the DEP.
The letters outlined a plan to preserve the 1,200-foot stilt-house — built with a metal roof, electricity and other amenities — which Guthrie and the letters characterize as a historic net camp or net camp replica.
The plan called on Guthrie to transfer ownership of the structure to a Cortez nonprofit tasked with modifying the exterior to more closely resemble net camps of old — barren shacks built over the water in the 19th century to house cotton fishing nets.
According to Guthrie and A.P. Bell Fish Co. owner Karen Bell, who has been assisting Guthrie in his legal battle with the DEP, Guthrie transferred ownership of the structure to Cortez Core, a nonprofit, in late May or early June — weeks before the ramada was built.
According to sunbiz.org, a state website, Bell established Cortez Core in August 2019.
Bell told The Islander in a July 28 text message she told Guthrie to remove the ramada.
The Islander found no records associated with the transfer of ownership as of Aug. 20 and Bell had not responded to multiple Islander inquiries about the format of the transfer, a document or the date it was signed.
According to Paul Boudreaux, a professor at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Cortez Core is not obligated to file a transfer document for it to be valid.
Citing the April support letters, Guthrie’s attorney, Robert Schermer, filed a motion for an extension on a stay of enforcement on the May 11 demolition order.
As of The Islander’s press time Aug. 23, the DEP had not filed a response.
DEP public information officer Shannon Herbon said in an Aug. 20 email to The Islander that the agency’s desire to see the stilt-house removed has not dwindled but would not offer a timetable for filing a response to the motion to extend the demolition order.
“The department’s position remains unchanged, and we do not comment on litigation strategy,” she said.
According to Herbon, despite the alleged transfer of ownership, the DEP will not offer Cortez Core a submerged land lease because the structure does not meet the leasing criteria of the Florida Administrative Code.
“Whether the owner is a private individual or a nonprofit organization is irrelevant,” she said.
