Board chair zeroes in on need for waterway maintenance
Editor’s note: This article was corrected late in the morning of April 11 in regard to how many years stormwater consultant Steve Suau was employed with Sarasota County.
This week Sarasota County Commission Chair Joe Neunder won the full support of his board colleagues in directing staff to conduct a third workshop on stormwater issues in May, prior to a session that County Administrator Jonathan Lewis indicated staff already was planning no later than June 4.
The primary focus of this third workshop, Neunder stressed, should be the issues he covered in an April 3 email to Lewis, which Neunder indicated he also had provided to the other commissioners. “There’s a lot of detail and meaning behind these,” he told his colleagues on April 8, during their regular meeting, held in Venice. “This board needs to set policy,” Neunder emphasized. Then staff should adhere to the policy. Neunder also stressed the need for accountability. “We are the forward-facing components of this organization, who deal with the [public] anxiety and the stress and certainly the tremendous amount of loss that happened last hurricane season,” he continued, addressing County Administrator Lewis.
Moreover, Neunder pointed out, “Budget season is coming up. We have to plan accordingly.” If the commissioners learn of needs that must be addressed, without funding already identified for those purposes, that money will have to be found, he said. “The longer we push it off,” he added of the next workshop,” the more complicated things could get monetarily.”
The issues, which he emphasized should be covered “as a matter of policy,” are as follows, as Neunder wrote them in that email:
- “Staff identification of the County waterway infrastructure system by maintenance priority (i.e. priority 1,2,3 or High. Medium, Low) developed over the decades by [the] Stormwater Environmental Utility (SEU). These priorities should be color coded and be exclusive of roadway drainage except for MAJOR water crossings and bridges.
- “Staff identification of the current frequency (LOS) of maintenance for each waterway priority.
- “Staff quantification of the linear feet of waterways and dikes as well as the number of bridges and other structures for each priority category. The current maintenance status and projected maintenance status by say 6-1-2025, for each component, and priority should be provided as a percentage of the total quantity.
- “Staff recommendations for any potential adjustments to the existing priorities based upon lessons learned from the Summer of 2024 and County wide community input.
- “Staff recommendations for any potential adjustments to the existing level of service (Maintenance frequencies) based upon lessons learned from Summer 2024 and again community input.
- “Based on Staff input and recommendations, the [County Commission] should be requested to adopt a short term (reactive and catch up here) operations and maintenance program. This program should incorporate the related and relevant recommendations of the independent review [conducted by stormwater consultant Steve Suau of Sarasota, with use of data provided by county staff]. A breakdown of maintenance and operation cost associated with major drainage infrastructure and minor roadway drainage infrastructure over the past 3 to 5 years, should be provided to assist with possible prioritization prior to 6-1-2025.”
The most recent stormwater workshop that staff had conducted — on March 12 — “focused on a menu of possible regulatory options which we should revisit this Summer with specific recommendations from our professional Staff as well as independent review,” Neunder pointed out in the email. “However,” he continued, “I’m still convinced that we need to turn our immediate attentions to [the] Stormwater Maintenance and Operation program. This will assure … there is [an] ‘All Hands On Deck’ approach that is currently underway. If this Board agrees to provide [Lewis] with clear direction/mission (And yes, always with a motion) my hope is that we can better be prepared for this upcoming Hurricane Season in the Community that we all LOVE and are blessed to be able to call HOME.”
Putting ‘very healthy questions on the table’
During his report to his colleagues as part of their April 8 meeting, Neunder turned to topic of his email, saying, “I think all of you on this board are acutely aware of and recognize post-hurricane … anxiety, the angst, some of the well-founded concerns” in regard to the county’s preparations for the 2025 hurricane season. He added that he had had the opportunity to speak with persons he characterized as “subject matter experts” — including individuals with expertise in stormwater management and climatology.
Neunder called the first two commission stormwater workshops “a good start,” but he pointed out that his new requests, “which are qualitative in nature, [put] some, I think, very healthy questions on the table for us to hold our organization to as we move forward …”
When Neunder asked County Administrator Lewis for the date when staff planned the next stormwater workshop, Lewis replied that it would be between May 22 and June 4.
Noting that the latter date was still two months away, Neunder said that the items in his letter deserve “a high point of attention.”
Later, Neunder noted the fact that June 4 would be after the traditional June 1 start of hurricane season. The public needs to know “that this board and the whole organization is all hands on deck.” If 50-hour workweeks — and “supplemental resources,” such as additional pumping equipment — are necessary, he added, “It’s time.”
Neunder further stressed, “Last year was a huge wake-up call for me in the 37, 38 years I’ve been [living in the county]. … The devastation — it really tugs at your heartstrings.”
Acknowledging that he was asking a lot of staff, he nonetheless pointed out that he believes county staff has the institutional knowledge to be able “to be able to produce these quantifiable results.”
Moreover, he noted the need to “start this tracking mechanism that is, of course, is going to be very important to our community.”
Neunder zeroed in on his interest in details about the stormwater maintenance that county staff undertakes.
Then, acknowledging that he was not certain whether his colleagues would be agreeable to yet another workshop, he said, “I believe the situation certainly warrants it.”
If his colleagues did not want to participate in another workshop before June 4, Neunder continued, then he would like to see all six of the bullet points in his April 3 email addressed by staff at the late-May or early June workshop.
Looking at County Administrator Lewis, Commissioner Teresa Mast asked how many of the six bullet points already were on the agenda for the next workshop, whose date staff was trying to pin down.
Although he did not have Neunder’s list in front of him, Lewis responded, he told Mast that the county’s level of service regarding its stormwater facilities had been planned as a primary focus of that next workshop.
The information, he indicated, would include details about the assets for which the county is responsible and those that other entities handle, as well as the frequency of maintenance. Further, he noted, some stormwater infrastructure and facilities do not see annual service, based on their type. However, Lewis added, he felt that other items Neunder had listed could be added to that workshop agenda “without, I think, much of an extra burden on what Spencer’s team is already working on.”
Lewis was referring to Spencer Anderson, director of the county’s Public Works Department; the Stormwater Division is part of that department.
Commissioner Mast told Lewis that she would like details about the amount of stormwater fees the county collects and how that money is spent. She indicated that she also feels the board members should discuss whether extra funding should be dedicated to the stormwater initiatives.
Lewis added that it would be helpful for staff if all the commissioners would provide staff questions to be addressed during the next workshop, along with Mast’s request regarding the finances and Neunder’s list.
‘We’re ultimately responsible’
Commissioner Tom Knight was the first among the other board members to tell Neunder that he agreed with him about another session with staff before the end of May. “I don’t think any of us have a problem doing a workshop,” Knight added. “I think we’d be negligent if we didn’t. The community wants to hear from us. We’re ultimately responsible to them and their well being.”
Then turning to Lewis, Knight asked whether staff had adopted the recommendations that stormwater expert Suau, who was a five-year county employee, had provided the board members and the public after a review of flooding that occurred during the 2024 storm season in areas of North County, especially, where such incidents had not been expected.
Knight referenced Suau as a consultant to the county, as Suau has his own business. However, Lewis pointed out that Suau declined to be paid as a consultant for his investigation of the 2024 storm season flooding, in an effort to make clear to the public that his recommendations were a product of his independent work.
Additionally, Lewis noted, the information that the commissioners heard during their first stormwater workshop — in late January — included details of the studies that staff of the county’s Public Works Department had undertaken in the aftermath of the storms. Suau also presented his findings that day.
“There was a lot of consistency between both,” Lewis said.
“I think it would be important for the public,” Knight told Lewis, to see a comparison of staff’s findings and Suau’s report, along with information regarding what staff has been doing as a result of those findings. The public needs to know, Knight continued, “that we, as a commission, and the staff, really, operationally, took that report seriously.”
If some of the recommendations have not been implemented, Knight said, staff needs to explain why.