Gulfport Municipal Marina approached by their staff about increasing the mooring field capacity. The City is currently planning the second phase of the build out to increase their mooring capacity to 70. The process for that second phase will include advertising, contract approval, and construction. Their current timeline begins that process in June with construction planned to begin in September of this year. The third phase of the build out is not currently planned, but it would increase the mooring field capacity to 109, which is the limit for their permit. Although there may have been unoccupied moorings when you visited Sarasota, they may have been moorings under long-term rental contracts with other vessel owners that were going to return. The business plan for the mooring field usage is unrelated to the A&M Program and should be discussed with the Harbormaster or the City representatives. Your last comment dealt with the placement of the mooring field boundary buoys or markers. It is common practice for a mooring field that has a phased build-out plan to get their marker permits and incur the cost of installing the markers for their field just one time. Your suggestion would task them with getting new marker permits for each phase of the build out as well as incurring the cost of removing and then reinstalling markers multiple times. The F.S. 327.60 allows local government authorities to regulate any vessels within the marked boundaries of mooring fields as permitted by F.S. 327.40, which the City has done. Again, this issue is separate from the A&M Program and the associated ordinance. We regret that you disagree with some aspects of the City mooring field development and usage up to this point, but we encourage you to communicate directly with the City or the Harbormaster at Marina Jack’s. They should be able to inform you correctly about the planned mooring field development and their planned usage and regulation of that area. We hope you avail yourself of upcoming opportunities to continue to participate in the A&M Program. There will be public comment opportunities this year to collect information about the A&M Program. The pilot program will expire on July 1, 2014, unless reenacted by the Florida Legislature. All ordinances enacted under this section shall expire concurrently with the expiration of the pilot program and shall be inoperative and unenforceable thereafter. On behalf of the FWC Commissioners, thank you for your comments and questions about the Anchoring and Mooring Pilot Program. Thank you for contacting the FWC. Please feel free to contact Captain Tom Shipp of our Office of Boating and Waterways at (850) 488-5600 if you need further assistance regarding this issue. On behalf of FWC Commissioners
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Larry, I say just skip Sarasota, as it appears to me they don’t care much about your situation, but they have always done everything they can to help Marina Jack’s. After all, Sarasota calls itself the “Cultural Coast,” although it’s not really grass roots culture, but more like “top-down” culture. You know as well as I do, that sailors ain’t got no culture and wouldn’t fit in there, anyway. Just try and sit for a while in one of the parks downtown. The culture police will get you. Editor
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