HOLMES BEACH – Only 18 people came out to the Island Branch Library on a stormy Wednesday night to hear what Manatee County Commissioner-at-large George Kruse had to say, but the conversation continued for nearly two hours.
Kruse held his monthly town hall meeting in Holmes Beach and invited anyone who attended to ask him questions. One of the hot topics of the night was the anticipated parking garage at Manatee Beach.
Parking garage
While Kruse said he wasn’t particularly for or against the parking garage, he doesn’t believe that it’s worth the cost to taxpayers or the best use of an estimated $30-50 million.
“We have much more important things to do in this county,” he said. “We do not have the money to do all the important CIP (Capital Improvement Plan) work we need to do. We don’t collect enough in impact fees; we don’t collect enough in FIF (Facility Investment Fees). We need to be focusing on our bridges, we need to be focusing on our major roads, we need to be focusing on Ft. Hamer, so for anyone to tell me this parking garage is even in the top 50 most important things is asinine,” Kruse said, referring to a recent county commission work session where several of his fellow commissioners stated that the Manatee Beach parking garage was a top priority project for the county.
Due to legislation signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and supported by members of the Manatee County legislative delegation, Manatee County commissioners can go against Holmes Beach city ordinances and the city’s land development code to build a three-story parking garage at the county-owned Manatee Beach, located in the Island city. If it’s built, the parking garage is planned to have 900 parking spaces along with restroom, concession and retail facilities. The project would require the removal of the restaurant, restroom, bar and retail store at the beach, along with the existing 400+ parking spaces.
Manatee County Commissioner Kevin Van Ostenbridge, who is leading the charge to build the garage, said he estimates the garage will take at least two years to build. During that time, no parking, facilities or public access would be available at the popular beach.
Infrastructure and utilities
Another topic of conversation was water.
Kruse said that the county is facing a number of infrastructure issues, including a water shortage and water quality.
“We’re running into a water capacity issue,” Kruse said. “Not tomorrow, but I have to look into the future. You can’t build something in a day.”
He said that the long-term growth going on in the county will eventually create a strain on water utilities. As to the issue of water quality, he said he’s looking for any ideas to help increase water quality in the county in order to help increase water capacity for the county.
He also addressed the issue of the water main serving the north end of the Island that is still being repaired.
“That happened because we’re not maintaining it,” he said of the pipe that fell off the bridge this summer and has since been replaced with a temporary pipe taking up the south side of the sidewalk. “We don’t have the money to maintain it because fees and rates have been kept too low for too long. No previous board wanted to be on the hook to increase something even a nickel because then they’re going to have some negative campaign ad against them saying they raised taxes, so we kept the rates artificially low. It covered the water, but it didn’t cover the maintenance.”
Kruse added that the fees paid by developers that are supposed to help increase capacity and expand infrastructure are also too low. He estimated that those fees are about 20-30% of where they need to be.
Regarding infrastructure, he said that the county was keeping up with maintaining and creating new infrastructure, including roads, until 2008, when the housing market crashed. After that, he said it took the county years to begin collecting impact fees from builders again and by that time it was too late to catch up with all of the work that needed to be done.
“We’ve never caught up from then,” Kruse said, adding that some of his fellow commissioners have delayed a vote on increasing impact fees. Currently, he said the county is charging based on a 2015 impact study that used 2013 data. A new impact fee study has been done, though he said bringing impact fees to a vote has been delayed multiple times. Though it’s now currently slated for discussion by the commission in November, Kruse noted that if the vote is delayed again until December, an argument could be made that the study is now stale and would need to be redone, delaying the vote another six to eight months.
Bridges
On the topic of bridges, Holmes Beach Commissioner Terry Schaefer said that the Cortez Bridge is currently scheduled to be replaced in 2026, pending litigation, with the Anna Maria Island Bridge on Manatee Avenue tentatively scheduled for 2029. On both bridges, he said, the Florida Department of Transportation is looking at adding a third lane that would be designated for transit and emergency personnel.
Kruse said the county is considering adding another trolley for the Island trolley’s free transit system. He also said he’s pushing for the county to open libraries at least part of the day on Sundays and run Manatee County Area Transit buses on Sundays, when he said people are off work and can take advantage of the free amenities.
See more of what Kruse had to say on The Sun’s YouTube channel.
