City staff to research options while County Commission asks for draft ordinances with specific changes
With South Lido Key residents having complained over the past several years, especially, about jet ski operators endangering swimmers and kayakers, and concerns having arisen at the City of Sarasota’s Centennial Park Boat Ramp about commercial rentals of the equipment, the Sarasota City and County commissions have taken steps to try to implement new regulations to protect the public.
On July 7, city Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch raised the issues with her colleagues. Following approximately 45 minutes of discussion, the city board members unanimously approved two motions, both suggested by Deputy City Manager Patrick Robinson.
The first motion directed city staff to research regulatory language regarding commercial usage — including rentals — of jet skis and motorized vessels at all city parks.
The second motion calls for city staff to research regulatory language regarding the mooring and operations of vessels within 300 feet of all beaches within the city limits.
When Commissioner Kathy Kelley Ohlrich asked Robinson how soon he anticipated the board members would be able to review the proposed ordinances, he responded that he believed staff could have them ready for review before the end of the summer.
Although South Lido Beach, within the city limits, and Ted Sperling Park, which is Sarasota County property, have been the focus of complaints, Commissioner Ahearn-Koch talked of her concern that if she and her colleagues approved an ordinance specifying North and South Lido, jet ski users would head to another city park with waterfront access, such as The Bay Park on the city’s 53-acre waterfront.
Ahearn-Koch did tell her colleagues that she had spoken with county Commissioner Mark Smith about the concerns on Lido. He had sent her an email explaining the action that he planned to propose to his colleagues when they met the following day, on July 8. She asked that City Auditor and Clerk Shayla Griggs read the letter into the record as her board began its discussions.
During the July 8 County Commission meeting, Smith won unanimous support for two motions regarding two different sections of the County Code. One would amend Section 130-33; the other, Section 90-33. Both would prohibit the mooring or anchoring of motorboats within 300 feet of South Lido Beach Park unless permits had been awarded for such action.
“Do we have the authority to do that?” Commissioner Ron Cutsinger asked.
“These are our ordinances,” Smith replied.
County Administrator Jonathan Lewis said he would work with the County Attorney’s Office on any state or other laws or regulations that would affect the intent of the ordinances.
The drafts will be brought back to the board for discussion and, ultimately, a vote, Lewis added.
Commissioner Tom Knight, who served as the county sheriff for three terms, ending in 2020, did point out, “We don’t have an enforcement arm.” The Sarasota Police Department, the Sheriff’s Office and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) are the entities that enforce such measures as those Smith had proposed, he noted. However, he continued, he felt sure that City of Sarasota leaders are aware of that.
Knight added that he understood the intent of Smith’s action is to try to create “avenues for enforcement. … There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
During the City Commission discussion, City Attorney Joe Polzak noted that Sarasota Police Department Marine Patrol officers are “cross sworn” as county deputies to enforce the County Code.
‘We should be ashamed’
During the Open to the Public comment period of the County Commission’s July 8 meeting, South Lido resident David Rayner pointed out that, given the severity of problems at Ted Sperling Park, he had come back to Sarasota from Maine just to appear before the board members that morning.
“We should be ashamed of what’s been going on at South Lido Beach,” he said. The Sarasota Police Department and the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office “have been doing a good job of managing traffic going into the park,” he continued. However, every other aspect regarding visitors at the park “has exponentially deteriorated,” Rayner emphasized, “because up until now, government has refused to protect the park from becoming a party center for jet skiers and boaters.”
Other counties have prohibited the use of jet skis close to their beaches, he noted. In fact, Rayner told the commissioners, he and his fellow Lido residents believe that most of the jet skiers at Ted Sperling Park have come there from other areas of the state.
Given the situation at Sperling Park, Rayner continued, “My neighbors and I were not surprised when we learned of Luis Guevara’s death …” He was referring to the Baltimore Orioles Minor League player who died on June 17 after being struck by another jet ski while he was on a jet ski offshore of the park.
(Deputy Sarasota City Manager Robinson told the city commissioners on July 7 that Guevara was hit by a jet ski whose operator was jumping a wake. The Sarasota News Leader learned from listening to 911 calls about the incident that Guevara was struck in the head.)
Over recent years, Rayner said on July 8, he and his neighbors were aware of drownings and watercraft incidents offshore of Sperling park. After learning of Guevara’s accident, he added, they had asked themselves, “Why didn’t we protest more?” as they perhaps could have prevented his death.
“I beg, I plead with you,” Rayner told the commissioners: “Please, please address this problem.”
Celine O’Connor, a full-time South Lido resident, pointed out to the county commissioners that a report they had requested, which the county’s Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources Department (PRNR) released last summer, listed county facilities that are “hot spots” for problems. South Lido was on that list, she said.
Then, in a subsequent report released on March 26 — again at board direction — the PRNR staff explained steps that could be taken to try to protect the public at Sperling Park.
(Rayner called the March 26 document “a very good report.”)
“Jet skis are completely inconsistent with the environment, especially when driven recklessly at speeds creating large wakes, which threaten the safety of boaters and kayakers navigating [Big] Pass or heading out to the Gulf,” O’Connor stressed. “They are harmful to marine life; they pose a serious danger to swimmers. Motorboats and jet skis should be 300 feet off the shore,” she told the board members.
“The county needs to enforce its own codes,” O’Connor further stressed.
The Police Department’s Marine Patrol officers “are extremely vigilant, responsive and commendable,” she said. The county needs to give more enforcement power to the Police Department, she added.
‘We’re not alone’
During the July 7 City Commission meeting, when Commissioner Ahearn-Koch launched the discussion about Lido Beach — which she had requested to be added to that day’s agenda — she focused on the need to keep people safe.
Lido residents that day also addressed the city commissioners, describing the same types of problems they have described to the County Commission.
Ahearn-Koch told her colleagues that she had asked City Attorney Joe Polzak to research regulations of other area jurisdictions; his information was in their agenda packets.
“We’re not alone in having this discussion,” she pointed out. Counties and municipalities to the north of Sarasota already had taken steps to deal with similar situations as those seen on Lido, she added.
“It is a complicated enforcement situation,” Deputy City Manager Robinson said. (He spent 20 years with the Sarasota Police Department before past City Manager Marlon Brown appointed him to his current position in December 2020, his LinkedIn account says.)
A lot of commercial activity takes place at the Centennial Park Boat Ramp, Robinson continued, while vessels moor and operate close to South Lido Beach and Ted Sperling Park.
Sperling Park’s proximity to Big Pass creates “very, very unsafe swimming conditions,” Robinson pointed out. “A confluence of four different waterways there … creates very, very unsafe swimming conditions …”
Two weeks ago, Commissioner Ohlrich told her colleagues, she took a walk on the nature trail around Ted Sperling Park. That brought her to a spot where she had a full view of swimmers in the water, as well as boats and jet skis, she indicated. “I understood [the problems] firsthand,” she said.
Commissioner Kyle Battie then talked of the texts and videos he typically receives over weekends “about the damn jet skis over at the boat ramp.”
Robinson explained that a variety of commercial activity takes place at Centennial Park. “I’ve been a city employee 25 years,” he noted. “This has been going on since you and I were kids here,” he told Battie.
The Centennial Park Boat Ramp, Robinson explained, is the largest launch location in the county. “So everybody comes to us.”
“The problem is these jet skis,” Battie emphasized. “I’ve never heard of an issue with the boats.” The jet ski operators, he added, “seem to be like … the bad kids on the block.”
When people who have not used jet skis decide to rent them, Robinson said, “They’re not thinking ahead, right? [Jet skis] can be difficult to control,” if a person is not familiar with using them.
“The actual, like, business itself,” Battie replied, referring to rentals of the equipment, was what he was alluding to in regard to conduct at Centennial Park.
The jet ski users also take up space at the Boat Ramp, which causes problems for boaters, Battie added.
“We’ve had significant issues recently,” Robinson told the commissioners, in regard to the boat launches being blocked by jet ski rentals.
He did warn the commissioners that even though they were discussing the negative aspects of jet ski use, “You’re going to hear from another side of this conversation, probably by the end of the night.”
That is all the more reason, Robinson stressed, that staff needs to make certain that new regulations are written appropriately.
“There is not an insignificant body of state and local regulations that do apply to the rental and operation of jet skis,” City Attorney Polzak noted. “What we’re talking about here is how we can meaningful add to them.”
Then, at Robinson’s invitation, Marine Patrol Officer Ron Dixon explained the legal process for renting jet skis, which results in the person or persons signing a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) document that makes it clear they are being held responsible for their actions on the vessels.
On South Lido, Dixon pointed out, people are “renting their own personal jet skis” without an FWC permit to do so. It has been very difficult, he said, for Marine Patrol personnel to catch those persons in the act at Ted Sperling Park.
One other issue since last fall that has hindered enforcement of existing regulations — such as observance of “No Wake” or “Idle Speed” zones, — Dixon continued, has been the fact that 20 regulatory signs blown down by the 2024 hurricanes have yet to be replaced. “We need the signs back up,” he emphasized, to be able to write tickets for violations.
He acknowledged that had not discussed that issue with the city’s Public Works Department staff.
“You just were,” Robinson told him, prompting laughter.
Over the past eight months, Dixon added, the Marine Patrol officers have been writing “hundreds and hundreds of warnings” to jet ski owners at the Centennial Park/10th Street Boat Ramp.
One other suggestion that Ahearn-Koch proposed — a result of a discussion she had had with AG Lafley, founding CEO of the Bay Park Conservancy, which manages The Bay Park, is to hire a dockmaster to work at Centennial Park on weekends. That is among best practices for maintaining order at a boat ramp, she added.