SEWALL\u2019S POINT \u2013 The Town Commission majority here passed a new road regulation ordinance May 12 to specifically protect the town\u2019s multimillion-dollar investment in stormwater and roadway improvements along South Sewall\u2019s Point Road.<\/p>\n
Town Manager Robert Daniels described the desire behind the ordinance to keep the new pavement from being marred the first few years by utility companies laying new lines.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously we\u2019ve spent a lot of money on Phase 1 and now Phase 3 is complete on our roadway resiliency project,\u201d he said. \u201cOne of the key things mentioned to me is that we don\u2019t have any protection on anybody coming in and cutting into our roadway, whether it be one of the vendors we have now in our right of way or rather it be a vendor in the future. So, there\u2019s really two provisions in here: One is the fact that we don\u2019t want open cutting on the roadway, at least for the first five years; and two, there\u2019s a provision where we can require any of the entities using our right of way to get a permit prior to starting any work. There wouldn\u2019t be a cost to the permit. I\u2019m just trying to protect a big asset.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vice-Mayor Kajia Mayfield immediately posed a clarification question.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will be mainly utilities that you\u2019re talking about in the right of way?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cCorrect, and there\u2019s communications equipment, which I guess could be said is a utility,\u201d Daniels replied. \u201cCommunications are a little bit different because they are governed under another section too. Basically, we can\u2019t charge for doing the registration.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is somewhat common among municipalities?\u201d Vice-Mayor Mayfield prodded.<\/p>\n
Town Attorney Glen Torcivia tackled that inquiry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not at all uncommon \u2013 especially if you just spent a bunch of money fixing your roads \u2013 to make sure somebody doesn\u2019t cut them without you knowing it first,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The vice-mayor then made a motion for approval, but Mayor Vinny Barile promptly tapped the brakes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s more discussion,\u201d he said, alluding to questions coming from Commissioner Frank Tidikis.<\/p>\n
\u201cHave their been any occurrences of this, somebody coming in and chopping up the road?\u201d the latter asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot that I\u2019m aware of,\u201d Daniels responded.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, is this a solution in search of something that\u2019s not a problem?\u201d Tidikis continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, it\u2019s only a problem when it occurs,\u201d Daniels answered. \u201cThen you have to repair the roadway.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s protection,\u201d Commissioner Frank Fender chimed in.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Dave Kurzman agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an insurance policy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
None of that assuaged Commissioner Tidikis\u2019 concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cLess government is better government,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s my viewpoint, and we haven\u2019t had a problem. The town\u2019s been around since 1957, and in all those years, no one has torn up the roads. There was a letter from Comcast that basically said there were some sections of this ordinance that needed to be amended.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commissioner Fender, however, viewed the contents of that latter from a different perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I read the Comcast letter, it seemed they weren\u2019t too happy that we were going to prevent them from cutting up the roads,\u201d he said. \u201cI would think everything has a negotiation point to it, and if there\u2019s a reason to cut the road, we would at least have a discussion about it. This would be a way to slow that process down. I would also look toward Glen and what his interpretation of the Comcast letter is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course they\u2019re not happy,\u201d Torcivia said. \u201cThey\u2019re asking you to give an exception in this ordinance for them. And you\u2019re allowed to do that if you want to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commissioner Fender still needed more clarification.<\/p>\n
\u201cWould that give them an exception to come and ask us for an exemption in real time rather than giving them a blank check a head of time?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Torcivia replied, \u201cyou\u2019d regulate them like anybody else. You know, if you grant it for Comcast, I guarantee you AT&T will be in the door next and FP&L will be next. Then it\u2019s the exception as they say will swallow up the rule. Again, it\u2019s your call whether you want to have it [the ordinance] at all and if you want to exempt anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
That satisfied Commissioner Fender.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll second the motion,\u201d he said in reference to that made by vice-mayor.<\/p>\n
Mayfield than clarified her own reason for supporting the ordinance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s different to me is we now have very nice shoulders and curbs to our roads that we never really had before,\u201d she said. \u201cHonestly, it seems like you could have torn up the side of the road before and nobody would have even noticed. Now, there\u2019s a nice curb and shoulder so it seems like it would be more of a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sewall\u2019s Point Commission then voted 4-1 for approval, with Commissioner Tidikis dissenting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEWALL\u2019S POINT \u2013 The Town Commission majority here passed a new road regulation ordinance May 12 to specifically…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[326,171,173,172],"class_list":["post-287655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-martin","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}