By Juliana A. Torres
Staff Writer

The St. Cloud City Council approved a contract of more than $100,000 last week to bring the city into compliance with Florida Department of Environmental Protection requirements at its marina – requirements that should have been implemented with marina improvements five years ago.

Stipulations required by a DEP permit for the marina, including specific planting and mitigation requirements, were missed due to staff turnover both within the city and its previous consulting firms, said John Dollar of Osceola Engineering, which was awarded the contract to oversee implementation May 13. Money for the project, a cost not to exceed $107,448, will come from the council contingency fund.

“To me, that’s a big cost to fall through the cracks,” Councilman Jarom Fertic said.

The city has already begun fulfilling part of the previously unmet DEP requirements, including the planting of 196 cypress trees, the installation of handrails on the north floating dock, documentation for circular air pumps and the removal of unauthorized mooring cleats along the east dock. Because the city is working “very hard” with DEP to fix the requirements, the state department has not initiated enforcement action, which could carry additional penalties, fees and fines, Dollar said.

“I think the question for me is, how did this go unnoticed for five years, that we weren’t in compliance?” Councilman Jay Polachek said. “For five years, we didn't know we needed 200 trees down there?”

Public Services Administrator Todd Swingle, sitting in for City Manager Tom Hurt last week, said that while other projects evoke annual DEP reviews, the state department inspected the St. Cloud marina for the first time this year and there was no other monitoring in place to make sure the city was meeting their requirements.

“There was nothing to cause this to come to light, until DEP came to do the five-year inspection, at which point it was identified,” he said.

Councilwoman Mickey Hopper questioned how the requirements were taken out of the original contract for the marina, which she recalled came under budget when completed.

“We’re taking a $100,000 hit for something that might not have been our fault,” she said.

At the council’s request, city staff will look into the documentation of the project, to see if they can identify how that occurred in order to prevent a similar situation in the future.

Michigan Avenue extension

The council also began discussing the possibility of extending Michigan Avenue from the point it currently dead-ends into the Royal St. Cloud Golf Links, connecting it with Cord Avenue on the other side of the golf course. Staff prepared a memo exploring the feasibility of the extension at Fertic's request. The estimated price of construction for the extended roadway, not including compensation to the golf course, is between $5 million and $6.5 million.

Fertic said that, especially with the expansion of New Nolte Road and the increased development in the surrounding area, the city needed another north-south road, a role Michigan Avenue could provide.

“It would be cheaper than trying to put a whole new road in somewhere else,” he said.

He questioned why the city would have to compensate the golf course to build on land they already own. The city entered into a 30-year contract with the golf course for the land in 1998, a contract that included a provision for a future road through golf property to the Southside Waste Water Treatment Plant, but didn't anticipate any other right-of-way provisions the city might require.

For now, council gave staff direction to explore the viability of building a road designed just for emergency-vehicle access, specifically giving St. Cloud Fire Rescue Station 33, located just south of the golf course on Cord Avenue, a more direct northern route. Such a road would cost the city a few hundreds of thousand dollars rather than millions, Swingle said. Staff also will start including Michigan Avenue as a north-south option in long-range planning, he said.

Along with city staff's initial conversations with the golf course, Polachek said he also spoke with the owner, who seemed “very open” to a road for emergency vehicles.

“He has serious concerns about a two or four-lane road going through there – specifically late at night – people running off the road and running around his golf course and tearing it up with their trucks,” he said. “I think it's a valid concern.”