St. Petersburg Mayor, Rick Baker, is a "free market" guy. We know this because he told us, several times. Baker kept repeating that he was a "free market" guy while he was engineering a communist style coup. What was this free market vs communistic clash all about?
It seems the City of St. Petersburg has land er, uh, water grabs on their minds. There has been a lot of talk lately about the lack of marina slips and boat ramp access in Florida. Seems marina owners are selling out to developers who are building, you guessed it, condos on the former marina sites. The City has just discovered that they, in fact, are the owners of a couple of marinas in St. Petersburg that they don't already operate. The City is leasing the two marinas to private operators and receiving well in excess of $200,000 per year from the two marinas combined. This isn't good enough for the City. No, the City does not want to renew the leases on these marinas for any appreciable length of time. They want to take over operations of the marinas themselves. The Harborage Marina on the Bayboro Harbor waterfront deserves a diary all of its own. This diary is going to concentrate on O'Neill's Marina.
O'Neills website has this to say on their home page:
It seems the City of St. Petersburg has land er, uh, water grabs on their minds. There has been a lot of talk lately about the lack of marina slips and boat ramp access in Florida. Seems marina owners are selling out to developers who are building, you guessed it, condos on the former marina sites. The City has just discovered that they, in fact, are the owners of a couple of marinas in St. Petersburg that they don't already operate. The City is leasing the two marinas to private operators and receiving well in excess of $200,000 per year from the two marinas combined. This isn't good enough for the City. No, the City does not want to renew the leases on these marinas for any appreciable length of time. They want to take over operations of the marinas themselves. The Harborage Marina on the Bayboro Harbor waterfront deserves a diary all of its own. This diary is going to concentrate on O'Neill's Marina.
O'Neills website has this to say on their home page:
For more than 50 years O’Neill’s Marina has given boaters and fisherman
what they’ve asked for. Good products, fair prices and great service. O’Neill’s
Marina is a family owned and operated business that takes pride in the facility
and the people it serves.
Our facility is nestled along the coastline in St. Petersburg near the
mouth of Tampa Bay, easily located by land or water. By land, we are just off
Interstate 275 on the west side of exit 16, just North of the Sunshine Skyway
Bridge.
O'Neill's Marina moved to its current location in 1954, at the urging of the City, who wanted O'Neill's to move from the old ferry landing to the approach to the brand new Sunshine Skyway Bridge. It has been operating at its current location for more than 52 years. O'Neill's has been leasing the land from the City all this time. Their current lease expires around the middle of 2007. The city has suddenly discovered that they actually are the owners of the marina, and they want to look into the possiblity of operating it themselves. City staff proposed to renew the O'Neills' lease for only one more year. This would give the city time to pursue the permitting process necessary for the City to "modernize" O'Neill's.
The City Council decided to give O'Neill's a two year lease with the possibility of extensions if the City can not get their permitting done in that time. The member of the O'Neill family who is now operating the marina is 60 years old. All he wants to do is operate the marina for 5 more years and then retire. At that time, he will be more than willing to just let the City have the marina. After all this family has meant to this City, this is an extremely shabby way to treat this man.
So what is up with this self- avowed "free market guy" Rick Baker. His buddy Jeb Bush has just spent 8 years turning every govenrment function he could think of over to the private sector. Baker wants to take marina operations away from the private sector and give it to the government. What kind of "free market" conservatism is that?
Sounds more like that Castro guy than that Bush feller.
2 comments:
One other thing that I wanted to say - St. Petersburg has been way to busy tearing down our good old stuff. We blew up the Soreno Hotel. Other cool old buildings have been torn down to make way for condos.
Now I like condos just fine (I live in one). But maybe we should not be so quick to throw all the cool old stuff away.
In 1954 O’Neill’s Marina and the City of St Petersburg entered into a lease agreement to build a marina facility to cater to the fishing and boating public. O’Neill’s Marina’s responsibility was to take a piece of undeveloped waterfront property in south St. Petersburg and develop it into a marina facility and share the gross revenue produced with the City of St. Petersburg. At that time the city charter only allowed a five-year lease term for waterfront property. With the short term lease and the large investment required from O’Neill’s, there needed to be a strong bond of trust and working relationship between the two entities. From the beginning and for the next 20 years it proved to be very successful.
In the early 1970’s I-275 was beginning its path through St. Petersburg that would have put a massive interchange loop at 62 Avenue South and would have destroyed O’Neill’s Marina and portions of Maximo Park. In the mid 1970’s O’Neill’s Marina felt there was no need for the marina to be destroyed and with the help of Attorney William Davenport began to negotiate with the city of St. Petersburg and the state Department of Transportation to try and save O’Neill’s Marina. During this time, Jack Thomas of Skyway Jack’s restaurant located on the marina property formed a citizen’s group called Save O’Neill’s and Skyway Jack’s (SOS) to assist in the reevaluation of this large interchange. The state Department of Transportation’s offer to the city of St. Petersburg was $1 million for the marina property and portions of Maximo Park.
After many months of negotiations and meetings with the DOT and with the strong support of the SOS citizens group, the Department of Transportation agreed to reevaluate the interchange to see if there were any alternatives. At that time the City of St. Petersburg joined O’Neill’s Marina and SOS. During negotiations, the DOT discovered that traffic count numbers for the 62nd Avenue South exit ramp were inflated and in the late 1970’s the current exit ramp design was approved, saving taxpayers approximately $5 million.
In the early 1980’s O’Neill’s Marina renewed its lease with the City of St. Petersburg and agreed to restore the marina facility. With limited public access to the facility, it had to deal with its own reconstruction as well as the construction of the interstate. The marina business also began to change shifting storage of small boats to high and dry facilities, and for O’Neill’s Marina to survive it needed to move forward with a different business plan. In 1997 O’Neill’s Marina renewed its lease and started construction of in-water lifts to compete with the high and dry market.
In short, since 1954 O’Neill’s Marina was developed from the ground up with its own money, struggled through rough economic times, battled with the Department of Transportation to continue to exist, constantly changed to meet the demands of the market and the needs of the boating and fishing community, and all without a single taxpayer dollar. O’Neill’s Marina has been a revenue producing hassle free commodity for the City of St. Petersburg and its citizens for more than 50 years.
O’Neill’s Marina is currently operating under a two year extension of their 1997 lease. During each lease term the City of St. Petersburg has always negotiated fair market value in rent and has had a very successful and long-term relationship with O’Neill’s Marina. However, in the summer of 2009 the city is planning to terminate the relationship and wants O’Neill’s to hand over the keys, its established business, its customer list, its equipment and just walk away. Even though the city has the power to do this, it is ethically wrong.
The City of St. Petersburg was willing to give up this little piece of land in the 70’s, but O’Neill’s Marina survived and has overcome many obstacles with the help of the citizens of St. Petersburg and the support of the Greater Pinellas Point Civic Association. We now ask you, is it truly in the best interests of the citizens for the City of St. Petersburg to take over a successful business that has cost them nothing for 50+ years and assume the risks involved? Once again we are asking for your help and urge you to contact Mayor Rick Baker at mayor@stpete.org in support of O’Neill’s Marina.
Post a Comment