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Beaches notebook
By AMY WIMMER, SHEILA MULLANE ESTRADA and ANDREW MEACHAM Gulf BoulevardThe legality of using Penny for Pinellas revenues to pay for a $30-million beautification of Gulf Boulevard will be decided in court, and that decision could determine the viability of the entire undergrounding and landscaping project. "The project is not financeable (without Penny funds.) The county has no other source of money," Rick Dodge on Wednesday told a special planning committee of county and beach city officials. Dodge, the assistant county administrator for economic development, wants one of the 11 beach cities to join in asking the court to validate using sales tax revenues to pay for a $331,660 engineering study to be conducted by the affected utilities: Florida Power, Time Warner and Verizon. The study would determine the project's ultimate cost. "If the court says yes, then we know we can use Penny funds for the entire project," Dodge said. County officials are unsure such a use will be approved, because the sales tax revenues normally are restricted to "infrastructure projects" such as public buildings, parks, sewer or drainage projects, and roads. City representatives were unwilling to commit, without the formal approval of their commissions, to ordering the engineering study before receiving the court decision. If the court rules Penny for Pinellas funds cannot be used, the engineering cost could not be financed long term and cities would be required to pay from regular revenues. The county would pay half the cost of the study. The amount the 11 beach municipalities would pay depends on the amount of affected roadway -- from a low of $3,348 for Clearwater Beach to $28,067 for St. Pete Beach. St. Pete BeachSt. Petersburg and St. Pete Beach have put an end to their long-standing dispute over how much St. Petersburg charges St. Pete Beach to treat its sewage. The two cities reached a temporary agreement this summer, hours before they were to appear in court to hash out their differences. Last week, St. Petersburg approved a final version of that agreement; St. Pete Beach approved the same document the previous week. St. Petersburg will charge St. Pete Beach $1,281.42 per million gallons of sewage treated for operation and maintenance charges, as well as a $20,594.17 monthly capital charge. Also as part of the agreement, St. Pete Beach this summer paid St. Petersburg $3.9-million in back charges. The day the city approved the payment was proclaimed "Michael J. Horan Day" after the former mayor who in 1993 first urged St. Pete Beach to fight St. Petersburg's sewer rates. St. Petersburg has handled sewage treatment for St. Pete Beach since federal environmental regulators forced the beach city to shut down its treatment plant in the 1970s. Reclaimed water constructionMadeira Beach has worked out a plan with the county that will keep reclaimed water installation crews away from the entrance to John's Pass Village during the peak tourist season. The plan also could have ramifications on the north end of Treasure Island, directly across John's Pass from the village. Treasure Island has endured six months of reclaimed water installation down the center of Gulf Boulevard, and although work is expected to wrap up there in February, the schedule change arranged for Madeira Beach could bring crews back to north Treasure Island in April or May. Still, despite the city's frustrations with the county's reclaimed water project, Treasure Island accepts the changes, City Manager Chuck Coward said. "If that helps John's Pass Village, that's fine with us," he said. Village merchants and Madeira Beach officials had complained that the county's plans to work directly in front of the village during tourist season would disrupt traffic flow and diminish access to the shops. The county contractors now will wrap up their work in front of the village within the next couple of weeks and take their equipment farther north in Madeira Beach, where they will work until the spring or summer. The John's Pass Village segment of Gulf Boulevard will not get a reclaimed water pipe until April or May, a less important time of year for the merchants. "We asked (the county) to see if they could change their schedule around a little bit, and they worked with us," said Mike Maxemow, director of community services in Madeira Beach. "We just felt the impact was going to be too much on the village at that time." Because of the schedule change, the last reclaimed water pipe installed will be the one that travels underneath John's Pass, linking Treasure Island and Madeira Beach. That work will bring crews back to Treasure Island months after the Gulf Boulevard work under way now is complete. "We've had our headaches with (the county), and we're going to be involved in reclaimed water until early 2003," Coward said. "We are told, to the extent you should believe them, that they should be off of Gulf Boulevard by the end of February. Then they have to come back and redo that one area that Madeira Beach asked them to skip over." The project has frustrated city officials and residents in Treasure Island, where much of Gulf Boulevard is down to one lane in each direction. "This was supposed to be a three- or four-month project," Coward said, "and we're now into six months, pushing toward eight to nine." Indian Rocks BeachNeighbors will plant oleander bushes and flowers Saturday along the stretch of Gulf Boulevard between Sixth Avenue and the Walsingham Bridge. The neighbors will split the cost of the plants with the city. The event starts at 9 a.m. -- To submit items for the beaches notebook, e-mail wimmer@sptimes.com.
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