Anna Maria City Looking For Funds To Repair Local Beaches...
Water flows over pilings on a narrow swath of beach at Bean Point in Anna Maria on Monday.
Related Post: Beach Erosion Concerns for Anna Maria.
Photo and article credit to www.heraldtribune.com.
Anna Maria City says its beaches need rebuilding and it deserves funding for their repair, even though it does not raise as much bed tax money as Bradenton Beach and Holmes Beach.
Story By Dale White
Published: Tuesday, December 2, 2008
ANNA MARIA - Waves lapping at the shore are one of the soothing parts of the allure of Anna Maria Island.
Anna Maria's mayor says the city should get beach rebuilding funding because tourists staying elsewhere on the island use the city's beaches. But for the city of Anna Maria, that relentless ebb and flow comes with an unsettling side effect: the gradual loss of the beach as it erodes.
The other two island cities, tourism-driven Bradenton Beach and Holmes Beach, will get part of nearly $18 million in federal, state and local money spent on beach renourishment in 2011-12. But so far, those plans do not call for any work in the city of Anna Maria, even though the city's shoreline is highly eroded in some areas.
Now Anna Maria, the island's northernmost city, wants to get some funding for beach renourishment to the tune of $7.5 million. The money for beaches comes from a local tax on overnight accommodations. Anna Maria, however, is mostly residential.
"We don't generate the same bed tax dollars" as Bradenton Beach and Holmes Beach, Mayor Fran Barford said Monday. Yet Anna Maria deserves an appropriate share of those dollars because tourists staying elsewhere on the island also visit its shores, Barford said. "We're inundated with tourists," she said.
Bean Point, the tip of the island, and some adjoining coves are examples of beaches becoming "grossly eroded," Barford said. This morning, the Anna Maria City Commission will show images of those thinning beaches to the Manatee County Commission and seek its help in overcoming perceived stumbling blocks in getting federal, state or local money.
John Chappie, the newly elected county commissioner who represents the island, said he expects to support Anna Maria's request. "They need to be part of this whole project," he said.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has questioned Anna Maria's eligibility for about $385,000 of the more than $3.7 million the state would be asked to contribute. The DEP said Anna Maria would lose dollars under its cost-sharing formula because the city does not have sufficient parking spaces for public access to its beaches.
Barford thinks the city has addressed that concern by installing more signs designating public parking areas. "We think that's no longer an issue," she said.
At a tourism forum last month, county officials said beach renourishment is a boost to the local economy.
They quoted a study conducted after an extensive beach restoration project on the island in 1992-93 indicating that in the next year island property values went up $67million and sales at island businesses increased by $26million.
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