Commissioner Smith asks for report following renewed complaints from Lido residents
In late May 2024, having heard numerous complaints about public safety issues at Sarasota County parks — especially Ted Sperling Park on South Lido Key Beach and North Jetty Park — the County Commission directed staff to prepare a report that would provide an overview of the safety issues, with a special focus on “hot spots” identified by staff.
Among the speakers who addressed the board during the Open to the Publiccomment period at the start of the board’s regular meeting on May 22, 2024, three Lido Key residents described the situations with which they had been contending for years, including — as Celine O’Connor put it — “unruly, unwanted and dangerous activities happening at all hours [in the county’s Ted Sperling Park on the southern tip of Lido].”
She cited use of “modified loudspeakers blasting music and reckless jet ski races just off the shore.”
David Rayner of Lido Key told the commissioners that day, “Ted Sperling Park is dangerous and unsafe. Over the course of 2022 and 2023, there were 320 police incidents of accident, nuisance or crime reported at the park.”
Rayner added, “No other park in the county has this poor a record.”
It ended up taking county staff until July 26, 2024 to release the report that the commissioners had requested. However, at that time, the commissioners were on their summer break. When they conducted their first regular meeting after their vacation — on Aug. 27, 2024 — no one brought up the park “hot spots” issue. By then, they were dealing with the major flooding problems that multiple neighborhoods had suffered — as well as evacuations of residents, in some cases — in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Debby’s inundation in early August 2024.
Hurricanes Helene and Milton followed Debby, wreaking even more damage.
In fact, county staff had to close Ted Sperling Park to the public after Helene struck. The park did not reopen until March 17, slightly more than five months after Milton came ashore at Big Sarasota Pass, which separates Lido and Siesta keys.
Nine days after that reopening — during the County Commission’s regular meeting on March 26 — O’Connor of Lido Key was back at the podium, once again pleading for help with problems at the park.
In response to her remarks that day — and the comments of a second Lido Key resident — Commissioner Mark Smith won his colleagues’ support for a new staff assignment: It will focus on steps that can be taken to restrict watercraft access at Sperling Park, just as such limitations are in place at other county beaches, including Siesta Public Beach Park.
The report is due to the board members on April 25, according to a schedule provided in the agenda packet for the commission’s regular meeting on April 8.
During her March 26 remarks, O’Connor pointed out that Sperling Park was on the list of park “hot spots” in staff’s July 2024 report. The north end of the park, she stressed, is popular with kayakers and people who use paddleboards, who enjoy making their way through the mangrove tunnels.
“The south end,” O’Connor continued, “has destroyed any peace that anyone can have in the park. It’s been overrun in recent years with boats, jet skis and other watercraft, which should not be allowed to anchor or otherwise access South Lido Beach Park.”
She further emphasized, “Jet skis are completely inconsistent with the park’s environment. The noise pollution … harms marine life.”
That noise pollution, O’Connor added, has been amplified by the loss of 450 trees at the park, as a result of the hurricanes.
She told the commissioners, “A single jet ski produces sound levels equivalent to one lawn mower. … These jet skis can go up to 60 mph,” generating a noise level as high as 115 decibels.
Moreover, O’Connor continued, “An airborne jet ski has the same noise impact on a listener at the water’s edge as a jet ski eight times closer in distance.”
Further, she pointed out, “Jet skis launched from South Lido Beach are ridden at excessive speeds by reckless drivers dangerously zigzagging, playing ‘chicken’ with each other off the beach.”
Add to that situation, O’Connor said, the presence of “party boats” anchored along the shoreline, “with boom boxes blaring at all hours.”
During one weekend prior to the fall hurricanes’ strikes, she said, a truck arrived at Sperling Park with 35 jet skis that were unloaded; then a party began. Lido residents learned, she said, that the participants had come from Orlando and Tampa.
“The issue can be effectively controlled by regulating the presence of motor vehicles and watercraft,” O’Connor told the commissioners.
She urged them “to please take action to prohibit watercraft access at Ted Sperling South Lido Park …”
A second speaker, Gena Vutera, explained that she is a Turtle Patrol volunteer each year for Mote Marine Laboratory, and the area of Ted Sperling Park is her responsibility.
Routinely, she said, when she is on turtle patrol, she picks up birds on the beach that have died as a result of collisions with jet skis. The impact of those watercraft on wildlife “is really considerable,” she stressed.
Moreover, Vutera said, the watercraft are destroying seagrass offshore of the park; she has seen it washed ashore.
Like O’Connor, she noted that the problems within the park are being created by “commercial entities. They make money on usage of public land.”
Vutera pointed out that South Lido residents have numerous photos they could show the commissioners to illustrate their concerns.
Possible amendments to Chapter 130 of the County Code
During his report to his colleagues as part their March 26 meeting, Commissioner Smith noted the remarks of O’Connor and Vutera.
In discussing county restrictions at other county beaches, Smith pointed out, “On Siesta Key, you can’t moor the boats [offshore],” and no jet skis are allowed.
Referring to the Sperling Park situation, Smith continued, “It has been a free-for-all.”
He added, “I’m not against fun,” but the watercraft users are threatening public safety. Smith noted that a lot of children do play in the water offshore of Sperling Park.
Further, he said, “Some of the folks on boats do bring their dogs and let ’em run loose,” which results in dead birds and harm to sea turtle nests.
When Chair Joe Neunder asked for clarification that Smith was requesting a new report from staff, County Administrator Jonathan Lewis responded that Smith had talked with him about the issues prior to the start of that day’s meeting. In concert with Smith’s request for staff to look again into the problems at the park, Lewis continued, he suggested that Smith also ask staff to research potential amendments to Chapter 130 of the County Code of Ordinances, which governs waterways, including boating and water safety.
Smith made the motion that called for the report, including the research Lewis had recommended, and Commissioner Teresa Mast seconded it. The motion passed 4-0, with Commissioner Tom Knight absent from that portion of the meeting.