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Aqua by the Bay protest

Changing the rules in mid-stream

Written by Sun staff on . Posted in Editorial, Feature, Opinion.

One of the protestors at the Aqua by the Bay rally on Saturday voiced a concern that’s being discussed at bars, on beaches and in boats – “How do they get away with changing the rules in the middle of the game?”

The state of Florida and Manatee County have laws regulating development, mangrove trimming and destruction, dredge and fill operations and seawall construction.

Yet, at Aqua by the Bay, it appears that height restrictions don’t matter. Mangroves can be trimmed, and potentially destroyed, without permits. “Excavation” is substituted for “dredging” in project reports, “retaining wall” is substituted for “seawall,” “Enhancement area” is substituted for “borrow pit,” and everyone nods and winks that the two are different.

Aqua’s plan to excavate dry land landward of the mangroves and create an “enhancement area” will leave a two-mile strip of mangroves with water on both sides of them. That’s not how those mangroves are growing – they are attached to land on one side, with roots in the water on the other side.

The county staff report states that the enhancement area’s construction could cause sediment transfer, which could undermine the mangroves at their roots, then inexplicably recommends that the county commission approve the plan.

It’s almost as though a page is missing from the report that would tie the two contradictory statements together. But all the pages are there. Apparently, you have to read between the lines to determine what the report really means.

That flies in the face of the public’s First Amendment right to know.

The Sun’s request for information from the county to explain several apparent inconsistencies in the report was met with a demand for written questions last month, an unusual requirement, but not unreasonable. However, the reply to the written questions was unreasonable – since the project is pending before the commission, no one on the staff is allowed to respond to the questions.

If you can’t get the answers to questions before the decision is made, what good is it to get the answers later?

If everything in the plan is open, legal and above board, why wouldn’t commissioners simply answer the questions of a newspaper, or Saturday’s protestors, or those of the people who are going to pack the county commission chambers in downtown Bradenton on Thursday at 1:30 p.m.?

Certainly a lot is at stake for the private property owners who have a right develop their land. But a lot is at stake for the commercial fishermen, recreational boaters, tourists who love to see the highly-touted “Old Florida,” and the county’s electorate.

We encourage commissioners to do the right thing and address the concerns of the people with honest, complete answers to their questions, including, “How can they change the rules in the middle of the game?”

Because if the game is fixed, the masquerade needs to stop before we lose this natural treasure.

Long Bar Point mangroves

Aqua by the Bay protesters voice concerns

Written by Cindy Lane on . Posted in Business, Real estate | Development.

About 75 people opposed to the Aqua by the Bay development gathered near its entrance on the traffic circle at 75th Street and 53rd Avenue on Saturday afternoon, singing songs and carrying signs.

Horns honked in support as they chanted “Nay, nay, Aqua Bay.” Signs said, “No mangrove destruction, election day is coming,” “Enough Beruff,” “Earth before profits” and “Save our bays.”

“How do they get away with changing the rules in the middle of the game?” – Mary Onna Bode

As the afternoon sun grew hotter, they gathered in the shade of palm trees, talking in small groups about a long list of concerns over the 529-acre residential/commercial project with 2,894 homes, including a five-story building and a 13-story building.

A drone was buzzing the eagle’s nest on the property the other day, scaring the bird off the nest, one said.

Representatives of the Council of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation, Aboriginal People of Florida, stood silently with their flag and feathers; the property contains an “archaeological area,” possibly containing Native American artifacts or graves, according to a Cultural Resource Assessment Survey conducted by Janus Research.

Some wondered how two Manatee County commissioners who formerly worked with project developer Carlos Beruff could be voting to approve or deny the project on Sarasota Bay on Thursday, May 4 at 1:30 p.m. at the commission chambers, 1112 Manatee Avenue W., Bradenton.

Cortez resident, business owner and former Commissioner Jane von Hahmann discussed current Commissioner Steve Jonsson’s 2011 affiliation with Beruff, as co-manager of Gold Medallion LLC. In 2004, Commissioner Betsy Benac worked as a consultant for SBC Development, headed by Beruff’s current business partner Larry Lieberman, when he planned to construct the previously-proposed project for then-owner Manatee Fruit Co. The highest buildings in that project were six stories.

“The issue transcends party lines.” – Jean Peelen

Unless the commissioners stand to gain financially from Aqua, they are required by law to vote on the project, von Hahmann said, “but they should be especially careful given their past association.”

Six of the seven commissioners, including Jonsson and Benac, have accepted at least $30,500 in campaign contributions from Beruff and his business associates (see related story).

Focus on mangroves

But the big topic of the day was mangroves.

Florida Statutes protect mangroves and require permits for their trimming or destruction. Commercial fisherman Mark Coarsey recently took photographs of the mangrove fringe to the south of the Aqua property, showing mangroves that had recently been extensively cut on Beruff-owned land. Requests by The Sun to DEP for information on the permit went unanswered.

“Don’t be a Carlos” – Katie Tupin

A former DEP employee that criticized the agency’s handling of the project was demoted from environmental administrator, a position she had held since the 1990s, to environmental consultant, according to Politico.com magazine.

Connie Bersok, a 30-year veteran of DEP, issued a memo for the project’s permit application that described her review of its proposed mitigation bank; the memo was never distributed by her superiors, then she was demoted, she told the magazine.

“That was the first indication that he (Beruff) was going to control what was done with that project,” she told Politico. “That was the clue. And things sort of went downhill from there.”

Cut mangrove branches have been dumped illegally in the bay, Coarsey said. Fishermen depend on the bay, known in the Cortez fishing village as the “kitchen,” for the propagation of marine life; juvenile species, including sea turtles, grow in the shelter of mangrove roots along the bay’s coastline.

Public meeting Thursday

A Democratic Club flyer inviting people to the protest points out that the developers propose dredging a lagoon and building a seawall landward of the mangroves, which will then suffer from erosion.

Holmes Beach Commissioner Jean Peelen forwarded the flyer in an e-mail, writing, “This transcends party lines.” At the protest, she held a sign saying, “Stop! Beruff is rich enough.”

The Sun’s written questions on inconsistencies in a county staff report on the mangroves and other issues were answered briefly by John Barnott, director of the Manatee County Building and Development Services Department in an e-mail stating, “This is an active hearing and I cannot allow staff to discuss most of this with anyone.”

To contact county commissioners about the project, call 941-748-4501 or click here for their e-mail addresses.

Aqua by the Bay map

Cortez rises again against Beruff

Written by Cindy Lane on . Posted in Community News, Cortez, Environment, Outdoors.

CORTEZ – The last time Cortezians took on Carlos Beruff, they lined up a 90-year-old woman, several seniors in wheelchairs, grandchildren, babes in their mothers’ arms and a disabled commercial fisherman along Cortez Road waving signs reading, “We are the little fish.”

For months, they filled hearing rooms with Cortez residents packed as tight as mullet in a cooler.

They beat the developer’s 2007 bid to buy the Cortez Trailer Park for $10.8 million, demolish it, displace the residents and turn it into a marina.

This time, Cortez-based FISH, the Florida Institute for Saltwater Heritage, has linked arms with Suncoast Waterkeeper and former Manatee County Commissioner Joe McClash to fight Beruff’s Aqua by the Bay project, formerly Long Bar Pointe.

The 529-acre residential/commercial project will have 2,384 residential multi-family units and 510 single-family lots, including a five-story building and a 13-story building, according to a county staff report, which states that the buildings are not expected to create any adverse impacts on surrounding developments – Legends Bay to the south, Tidy Island to the north and the planned Lake Flores to the east.

The Manatee County Commission is scheduled to decide on Thursday, May 4, the fate of two miles of pristine, state-protected mangrove fringe on Sarasota Bay, known to Cortezians as the kitchen, where juvenile fish, crabs and other marine life has long been protected by nature. The county Planning Commission recommended approval of the project 3-2 on April 13.

Beruff and partner Larry Lieberman lost their bid in 2013 to build a marina and channel at Long Bar Pointe when a judge ruled against his constitutional challenge to Manatee County’s comprehensive plan.

His new plan is to dredge out a 4.6-acre lagoon, or Estuary Enhancement Area, parallel to the shoreline and bordered by a proposed seawall on one side and the existing mangrove fringe on the other, with a break leading from the bay toward the project where the prohibited channel was located.

The construction of the lagoon will more than mitigate negative impacts to the 13 acres of wetlands in the project, and is “designed to create shallow vegetated wetland areas with deeper water refuges which are likely to create additional habitat for fish and wildlife,” the report states.

Many Cortezians, including Capt. Kathe Fannon, a former commercial fisherman who leads boat tours of Sarasota Bay, say it will do the opposite.

“People don’t come here to see high rises,” she said. “They come here to see that eagle’s nest (on the Long Bar Pointe property), and the manatees and dolphins in the bay.”

The staff report states that the enhancement area ultimately will reduce sediment transfer and damaging scour, or tidal action on mangroves.

“They claim this will keep sediments from mangroves that would degrade them, but our experts say the opposite is true; mangroves need sediments to stabilize themselves, otherwise they get scoured by the tides,” said Stuart Smith, of the Manatee-Sarasota Group of the Sierra Club and Suncoast Waterkeeper.

Seawalls have not been in favor since the 1970s in Florida partly because they cause erosion rather than prevent it, and “to bring them back now is ludicrous,” he said. “It’s a death sentence for the mangroves.

“This is the last intact coastal environment on Sarasota Bay, the best fishery on the bay, the only place you can go on the bay and not see a building,” he said. “This design is not appropriate for this place.”

“FISH wants this area protected; we here in Cortez need it protected as it plays such an important role in the very livelihood of so many who reside here in the village and make their living from the bay and coastal waters,” FISH Vice President and former Manatee County Commissioner Jane von Hahmann wrote FISH members in a call to action. “If you can, please attend the Board of County Commission meeting on May 4th; we need hundreds if not 1,000 citizens to once again show up and make it known our shorelines are of the utmost importance to us. They make Manatee County the incredible place it is.”

Manatee County logo

Aqua campaign contributions to county commissioners

Written by Cindy Lane on . Posted in Community News, Manatee County.

All seven Manatee County commissioners – with one apparent exception, Priscilla Whisenant Trace – have received at least $30,500 in total campaign contributions from Aqua by the Bay developers Carlos Beruff, Larry Lieberman, their related companies, or principals in their related companies.

Priscilla Whisenant Trace, District 1                                                                  $0

TOTAL                                                                                                                   $0

Charles B. Smith, District 2

Barrington Group                                                                                            $1,000

Larry Lieberman                                                                                             $1,000

TOTAL                                                                                                            $2,000

Stephen R. Jonsson, District 3

B Squared Ranch LLC                                                                                     $1,000

Barrington Group                                                                                           $1,000

Best Prize Property LLC                                                                                  $1,000

CMB Holdings LLC                                                                                          $1,000

Cargor Partners III                                                                                         $1,000

Charlie Michaels Inc.                                                                                      $1,000

Cottages of Twin Rivers LLC                                                                            $1,000

I-75 Office Park LLC                                                                                       $1,000

Jacbo LLC                                                                                                      $1,000

Larry Lieberman                                                                                            $1,000

Lisa Lieberman                                                                                              $1,000

Sarasota University Groves LLC                                                                      $1,000

Charles Tokarz                                                                                                 $500

TOTAL                                                                                                        $12,500

Robin DiSabatino, District 4

Barrington Group                                                                                            $500

Carlos Beruff                                                                                                   $500

Cargor Partners III                                                                                          $500

Cargor Partners IV                                                                                          $500

Cargor Partners VI                                                                                          $500

CMB Holdings LLC                                                                                           $500

Larry Lieberman                                                                                             $500

Medallion Homes Gulf Coast                                                                            $500

Medallion Realty LLC                                                                                       $500

SBC Developments LLLP                                                                                 $500

Savannah Preserve Inc.                                                                                  $500

TOTAL                                                                                                         $5,500

Vanessa Baugh, District 5

CMB Holdings LLC                                                                                           $500

Medallion Homes                                                                                             $500

TOTAL                                                                                                         $1,000

Chairman Betsy Benac, At Large

Barrington Group                                                                                         $1,000

Cargor CM Property Investments Inc.                                                               $500

Cargor Partners III                                                                                          $500

Cargor Partners VI                                                                                          $500

Charlie Michaels Inc.                                                                                       $500

Larry Lieberman                                                                                          $1,000

TOTAL                                                                                                         $4,000

 Carol Whitmore, At Large

Barrington Group $2,000 ($1,000 refunded)                                                  $1,000

Larry Lieberman $2,500 ($1,000 refunded)                                                   $1,500

Long Bar Pointe Inc.                                                                                       $500

Long Bar Point – Seagrass Phase                                                                     $500

Medallion Realty LLC                                                                                      $500

Savannah Preserve $1,000 ($500 refunded)                                                     $500

SBC Developments LLLP $2,000 ($1,000 refunded)                                        $1,000

TOTAL                                                                                                         $5,500

GRAND TOTAL                                                                                           $30,500

Sources: Manatee County Supervisor of Elections Office, Florida Division of Corporations