Captain Craig Williams has been launching his charter boat from the Galvez Landing Boat Ramp on the Intracoastal Waterway for about 10 years.
In the area of Innerarity Point Road, it’s one of the oldest boat ramps in Escambia County and draws both commercial and recreational boaters and fishermen.
Williams and others say public bathrooms and more dock space are among the improvements they would like to see added.
“The dock space is really small and there’s several charter companies that run out of here,” Williams said. “Most of the companies that run out of here are in and out by noon, so when there’s a few charter boats putting in and out on the weekends, the docks get full, and we try to move around and accommodate the locals as best as we can.”
Public input is exactly what Escambia County wants as the board moves forward with a $5.2 million plan to modernize the Galvez Landing Boat Ramp.
The proposed design calls for improvements like adding new and larger spaces for bigger vehicles and boats.
“It’s going to be able to park a lot more vehicles and it’ll be a lot more efficient getting boats in and out of the water there,” said Ryan Kirby with Escambia County Natural Resources Management.
It’s one of five new projects included in the latest draft of Escambia’s amended RESTORE Act Multi-Year Implementation Plan (MYIP), which also calls for modifying three other projects that had been previously approved.
A 45-day public comment period opened on May 13 and will close June 27.
The county says public input is “vital to the process,” and staff are encouraging people to review the details of the document online and call or email their comments.
“It’s fully taken into consideration before the projects move forward and it becomes part of the document,” Kirby said. “We are obligated to respond to each comment and take all the comments into consideration and include them in the MYIP.”
County staff the funding is important because it allows the county to move forward on projects that might otherwise not get done anytime soon or at all.
“Whether this fully funds something or if it’s used as a leverage piece to bring other grants together, it’s really a wonderful funding source to help have a lot of very diverse projects move forward,” said Tim Day, deputy director of Escambia County Natural Resources Management.
What is the RESTORE Act Multi-Year Implementation Plan?
Escambia’s RESTORE Act MYIP describes how the county intends to use money allocated from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, funding that is distributed to Gulf Coast communities under the RESTORE Act.
The plan outlines activities, projects and programs that qualify for the funding, and the overlying goal is to restore and protect the environment and economy.
It must be submitted to the U.S. Department of the Treasury for approval before any money can be received.
County staff say each year Escambia receives a little over $4 million in RESTORE Act funds.
Commissioners from each district propose projects for funding and the board votes on which ones are selected.
However, the money is not required to be spent each year to receive more funding and projects are not always proposed annually.
“Maybe you only get one or two projects because there’s only $4 million available or they wait a year and then there’s $8 million available,” Day said. “Then it gives a lot more room for the board to have meaningful projects where there’s a little more money available.”
Escambia County created the original RESTORE Act MYIP in 2017.
Since then, the county has completed 12 projects and there are 12 other active projects.
Eight projects have been withdrawn for various reasons.
Anytime changes are made, those changes are reflected in the title of the updated document as “amendments” to the original RESTORE Act MYIP.
So far, Escambia’s plan has been amended four times, and the latest round of proposed projects and modifications is under Amendment 4 of Escambia’s RESTORE Act MYIP.
There are five different pots of money under the RESTORE Act and this funding plan deals with money from just one pot.
New projects in Escambia’s RESTORE Act MYIP Amendment 4
The five new projects include:
Projects proposed to be dropped or changed
The MYIP Amendment 4 plan includes three projects that were previously approved but now need to be modified for different reasons.
The change still requires obtaining and considering public input.
The proposed altered projects include:
The first two deal with the same project: acquiring Gulf front property to build a new Perdido Key Beach Public Access.
County staff is proposing the project be removed from the process because the owner wants about $1 million more than the parcel’s appraised value, which is $2.5 million.
“The RESTORE funds will happily pay appraised value, but they won’t pay above appraised value,” said Day.
The beach access project was submitted under former Escambia County Commissioner Jeff Bergosh.
The current commissioner for District 1, Steve Stroberger, wants to pursue other projects rather than fund the million-dollar difference with a different pot of tax dollars.
Staff are also requesting a change to another project aimed at improving the safety and aesthetics of S. Navy Boulevard, the road leading to the main gate of NAS Pensacola.
RESTORE Act funds amounting to $550,000 had been awarded for the project, but county leaders decided to use Community Redevelopment Agency dollars for the project instead because it allows them to get it off the ground faster.
The county is proposing returning the $550,000 back to the RESTORE Act pot of money so it can be used for other projects.
How you can weigh in on Escambia’s RESTORE Act projects
You can visit MyEscambia.com/MYIP to view MYIP Amendment 4.
If you’d like to comment, you can do so in the following ways:
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: County seeks $12.8 million from RESTORE for 5 major projects including Galvez Landing
Reporting by Mollye Barrows, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
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