DUNEDIN – It was mixed news at the June 19 Dunedin City Commission meeting for the pilots of light amphibious aircraft.
The
commission unanimously voted to reaffirm the county’s prohibition for
seaplanes, ultralights and light sport aircraft instructional businesses
on the Dunedin Causeway, but it acknowledged that private recreational
flights are allowed under specific conditions.
At the April 3
commission meeting, Dave Myers, owner of Amphibian Air, asked the city
to consider allowing him to conduct a light sport aircraft instructional
business on Dunedin Causeway, according to a memo to the commission
from City Manager Rob DiSpirito. After investigation by city staff, they
discovered that the county governs such activities on the causeway and
prohibits a private enterprise on a public right of way, the memo said.
“The
county also has a concern with regarding mixing pilot training in the
same area where there is a significant amount of recreational activity,”
the report said.
Additionally, a county ordinance prohibits any
airplane or other flying apparatus from taking off or landing on any
county-owned or managed land or waterway, the report said. However,
staff also discovered that as long as these amphibious aircraft were
launched from a trailer into the water like a boat would and didn’t take
any paying customers, then the operators are allowed to launch and fly
their planes.
“Recreationally, the city does not have an
ordinance that would prohibit recreational seaplane activity,” said
Vince Gizzi, parks and recreation director. “Seaplanes have the same
right as boats do, as long as they are being launched from the
appropriate areas on the causeway in the motorized areas, not from the
swimming area, as well as the north side of the causeway. And as long as
they are following all of the Florida Fish and Wildlife and U.S. Coast
Guard regulations. As long as those are adhered to, seaplanes could take
off from the water and land in the water.”
Commission members
supported the county ordinance and in addition, even if they had the
power to allow for the activity, they didn’t feel comfortable doing so
on the causeway where there are so many people concentrated in a single
area.
“It may be appropriate for us to endorse the fact that we
support the county in their decision to not allow this,” said
Commissioner Ron Barnette. “I think there have been concerns expressed
from the groups and different safety organizations and I don’t want us
to just take a back seat on this.”
Myers of Palm Harbor
approached the commission and was upset that he wasn’t given an
opportunity to more thoroughly address his side to the commission and
that he felt his request was misunderstood.
“We have tried to
have council members come and look into us, see how safe we are, see how
we are good for your city,” Myers said. “The only thing they’ve done is
watch video from the April 3 meeting and to see if we can conduct
business from the Dunedin Causeway, and we never asked to conduct
business on the causeway. We asked for beach access.”
Myers said
when he first came to the area in December, he approached Greg Rice,
planning and development director, Gizzi and also the county to find out
more information about a particular property on the causeway. No one
could find the answers, he said.
“We are by-the-book, law-abiding
citizens,” Myers said. “We have been removed from the causeway from the
(Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office) on several locations. Memorial Day
would be the last one. We were setting up our aircraft and the police
pulled us off of the causeway. … On the record, we have never broken the
city or county ordinance, nor will we ever willfully lie to anyone
about what we do.”
The commission and Gizzi reiterated to Myers
that as long as they follow the guidelines outlined earlier in the
meeting, then they have every right to launch their planes and should
not be removed by the Sheriff’s Office. Mayor Dave Eggers also added
that they will let the Sheriff’s Office know about these specific rules
so that this should not happen to them again.
Commissioner Julie
Ward Bujalski said that she agrees that the causeway is a crowded
location that would not be good for a lot of this activity even if it
was allowed to take customers, but after hearing from the pilots, she
wondered if there was somewhere else they could do that.
“I just
think it would be interesting to see if there is another location where
they can operate from,” Ward Bujalski said. “No matter who owns the
causeway, there’s a lot of traffic of many, many different kinds out
there. … There’s a lot of types of vehicular stuff going on out there
that I think is probably unregulated and can be very dangerous and I can
understand why we wouldn’t want this mixed in. I get that. But the idea
of the business I think is kind of cool and it would be kind of cool if
we could work with them to find a safe place. Not necessarily public
land. I don’t want to give the impression that we’re not open to this
kind of business in Dunedin.”
Ward Bujalski said she liked that
this could be something unique to Dunedin if they could find an
appropriate place to do it. Mayor Eggers agreed that it would be
something to look into.
Source: http://www.tbnweekly.com
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