Eastern Lake Outfall Parcel Purchase

[Dave Rauschkolb]

You left out the TDC...

I have met with several beach front homeowners as well as Governor Huckabee and they all love this plan I have proposed. The TDC has beefed up staffing and hopefully they, and the Commissioners will fully embrace this. Sheriff Adkinson very much supports this idea. The volunteer group headed up by Laurie Reichenbach is already making a difference. We now need the TDC and Commissioners to go big with this plan.

July 24, 2016

Dear Commissioners, Sheriff Adkinson and Mr. Tusa,

I would like to offer this suggestion for your consideration to help stem the escalation of issues affecting our beaches in South Walton. I know you are already working on this issue but I think we could create a plan that would improve the enforcement of beach activities to a much higher level.

I have been having a positive dialog with several beach front homeowners to get at the root of the beach issues and clearly we all agree the main seed that started this Customary Use storm was the lack of consistent and solid enforcement of the Beach Activities ordinance. I believe just hiring more staff is not the full answer to the problem.
In deference to the beachfront homeowners, I think we need to create a uniformed, trained beach patrol day and night to regulate behavior that happens on all of the Beaches of South Walton. This is a great opportunity to also educate the public on what is acceptable and what is not. The beachfront homeowners, locals and tourists need a system to get satisfaction that truly works. If I had a loud party happening behind my home late into the night and a load of garbage left behind I would be furious too. As a non-beach front owner I am appalled at the lack of regard I see for our beaches by some people.

Beyond the recent hirings our County really must find the funds to enhance and add to the current enforcement in place. We need an efficient and effective beach patrol day and night to police behavior and educate the public on the rights and wrongs of the beaches (including turtle rules). The patrols would deal with loud noise, people digging deep holes hindering the turtles, unruly behavior. They could be called Stewards or Ambassadors of our beaches. We train them to be public relations specialists as well to give advice and educate beach goers on proper beach etiquette and Beach Activities rules. Night shifts could be 6 to 12am and should be either be walking patrols or on 4 wheelers driving slowly. Day patrols could be in trucks but I would imagine 4 wheelers would be preferable.
You just break up South Walton Beaches minus the state parks into distinctly named and defined zones and Beach Ambassadors work shifts in each zone. Each zone has a separate phone number for Beachfront homeowners and anyone to call when there is an issue. The calls are routed not to the Sheriffs Department but to the actual people working the shifts so they may respond quickly. This creates a first line of defense and takes a tremendous amount of pressure off the Sheriffs Department. If things get out of hand in a given situation the Beach Ambassadorteam is the liaison with the Sheriffs department and calls them.

Much like the lifeguard teams these Beach Ambassadors are properly trained, uniformed representatives of our community. They would be proud teams charged with informing the public and regulating our beach activities. Certainly the people working the beaches would become known and appreciated for their work by homeowners, locals and guests of our beaches. This creates a host of job opportunities for our County as well. And further, these people would be great candidates for future employment with the Sheriffs Department after their service to our beaches.
Clearly the public relations element of them being ambassadors of information should qualify the funding for this program could come from the TDC.
I sincerely hope these suggestions are worthy of consideration. I am happy to work in any capacity to help.

Very best,



Dave Rauschkolb

 

[Bob Wells]

I have met with several beach front homeowners as well as Governor Huckabee and they all love this plan I have proposed. The TDC has beefed up staffing and hopefully they, and the Commissioners will fully embrace this. Sheriff Adkinson very much supports this idea. The volunteer group headed up by Laurie Reichenbach is already making a difference. We now need the TDC and Commissioners to go big with this plan.

July 24, 2016

Dear Commissioners, Sheriff Adkinson and Mr. Tusa,

I would like to offer this suggestion for your consideration to help stem the escalation of issues affecting our beaches in South Walton. I know you are already working on this issue but I think we could create a plan that would improve the enforcement of beach activities to a much higher level.

I have been having a positive dialog with several beach front homeowners to get at the root of the beach issues and clearly we all agree the main seed that started this Customary Use storm was the lack of consistent and solid enforcement of the Beach Activities ordinance. I believe just hiring more staff is not the full answer to the problem.
In deference to the beachfront homeowners, I think we need to create a uniformed, trained beach patrol day and night to regulate behavior that happens on all of the Beaches of South Walton. This is a great opportunity to also educate the public on what is acceptable and what is not. The beachfront homeowners, locals and tourists need a system to get satisfaction that truly works. If I had a loud party happening behind my home late into the night and a load of garbage left behind I would be furious too. As a non-beach front owner I am appalled at the lack of regard I see for our beaches by some people.

Beyond the recent hirings our County really must find the funds to enhance and add to the current enforcement in place. We need an efficient and effective beach patrol day and night to police behavior and educate the public on the rights and wrongs of the beaches (including turtle rules). The patrols would deal with loud noise, people digging deep holes hindering the turtles, unruly behavior. They could be called Stewards or Ambassadors of our beaches. We train them to be public relations specialists as well to give advice and educate beach goers on proper beach etiquette and Beach Activities rules. Night shifts could be 6 to 12am and should be either be walking patrols or on 4 wheelers driving slowly. Day patrols could be in trucks but I would imagine 4 wheelers would be preferable.
You just break up South Walton Beaches minus the state parks into distinctly named and defined zones and Beach Ambassadors work shifts in each zone. Each zone has a separate phone number for Beachfront homeowners and anyone to call when there is an issue. The calls are routed not to the Sheriffs Department but to the actual people working the shifts so they may respond quickly. This creates a first line of defense and takes a tremendous amount of pressure off the Sheriffs Department. If things get out of hand in a given situation the Beach Ambassadorteam is the liaison with the Sheriffs department and calls them.

Much like the lifeguard teams these Beach Ambassadors are properly trained, uniformed representatives of our community. They would be proud teams charged with informing the public and regulating our beach activities. Certainly the people working the beaches would become known and appreciated for their work by homeowners, locals and guests of our beaches. This creates a host of job opportunities for our County as well. And further, these people would be great candidates for future employment with the Sheriffs Department after their service to our beaches.
Clearly the public relations element of them being ambassadors of information should qualify the funding for this program could come from the TDC.
I sincerely hope these suggestions are worthy of consideration. I am happy to work in any capacity to help.

Very best,



Dave Rauschkolb

Sounds like a move in the correct direction.

 

[John G]

Enforcement (the lack there of), has been cited numerous times on SoWal and other social media as one of the biggest problems.

 

[John G]

What does TDC Code Enforcement do?

 

[steel1man]

I have met with several beach front homeowners as well as Governor Huckabee and they all love this plan I have proposed. The TDC has beefed up staffing and hopefully they, and the Commissioners will fully embrace this. Sheriff Adkinson very much supports this idea. The volunteer group headed up by Laurie Reichenbach is already making a difference. We now need the TDC and Commissioners to go big with this plan.

July 24, 2016

Dear Commissioners, Sheriff Adkinson and Mr. Tusa,

I would like to offer this suggestion for your consideration to help stem the escalation of issues affecting our beaches in South Walton. I know you are already working on this issue but I think we could create a plan that would improve the enforcement of beach activities to a much higher level.

I have been having a positive dialog with several beach front homeowners to get at the root of the beach issues and clearly we all agree the main seed that started this Customary Use storm was the lack of consistent and solid enforcement of the Beach Activities ordinance. I believe just hiring more staff is not the full answer to the problem.
In deference to the beachfront homeowners, I think we need to create a uniformed, trained beach patrol day and night to regulate behavior that happens on all of the Beaches of South Walton. This is a great opportunity to also educate the public on what is acceptable and what is not. The beachfront homeowners, locals and tourists need a system to get satisfaction that truly works. If I had a loud party happening behind my home late into the night and a load of garbage left behind I would be furious too. As a non-beach front owner I am appalled at the lack of regard I see for our beaches by some people.

Beyond the recent hirings our County really must find the funds to enhance and add to the current enforcement in place. We need an efficient and effective beach patrol day and night to police behavior and educate the public on the rights and wrongs of the beaches (including turtle rules). The patrols would deal with loud noise, people digging deep holes hindering the turtles, unruly behavior. They could be called Stewards or Ambassadors of our beaches. We train them to be public relations specialists as well to give advice and educate beach goers on proper beach etiquette and Beach Activities rules. Night shifts could be 6 to 12am and should be either be walking patrols or on 4 wheelers driving slowly. Day patrols could be in trucks but I would imagine 4 wheelers would be preferable.
You just break up South Walton Beaches minus the state parks into distinctly named and defined zones and Beach Ambassadors work shifts in each zone. Each zone has a separate phone number for Beachfront homeowners and anyone to call when there is an issue. The calls are routed not to the Sheriffs Department but to the actual people working the shifts so they may respond quickly. This creates a first line of defense and takes a tremendous amount of pressure off the Sheriffs Department. If things get out of hand in a given situation the Beach Ambassadorteam is the liaison with the Sheriffs department and calls them.

Much like the lifeguard teams these Beach Ambassadors are properly trained, uniformed representatives of our community. They would be proud teams charged with informing the public and regulating our beach activities. Certainly the people working the beaches would become known and appreciated for their work by homeowners, locals and guests of our beaches. This creates a host of job opportunities for our County as well. And further, these people would be great candidates for future employment with the Sheriffs Department after their service to our beaches.
Clearly the public relations element of them being ambassadors of information should qualify the funding for this program could come from the TDC.
I sincerely hope these suggestions are worthy of consideration. I am happy to work in any capacity to help.

Very best,



Dave Rauschkolb

Good start but the Vendor problem wasn't addressed...Because the vendors have taken over public beaches and adjoining areas, which has caused the locals and tourist to spread out east and west to fine open ,and quiet spaces.IMO this is what caused the homeowners problems..remove vendors or have them set up farher back on the public beach thus giving tourist a place to enjoy their day and NOT SPREAD out to homeowners backyards..

 

[Lucas Reynolds]

I have met with several beach front homeowners as well as Governor Huckabee and they all love this plan I have proposed. The TDC has beefed up staffing and hopefully they, and the Commissioners will fully embrace this. Sheriff Adkinson very much supports this idea. The volunteer group headed up by Laurie Reichenbach is already making a difference. We now need the TDC and Commissioners to go big with this plan.

July 24, 2016

Dear Commissioners, Sheriff Adkinson and Mr. Tusa, ...

Dave R, July 24, 2016 was a while ago. Did you send this to each of the Walton leadership in July? What was Their response? Nada, I’d guess. What was wrong with Gov Huckabee's Beach Share proposal back in April 2016? When did you meet with beachfront property owners and Gov Huckabee? Recently? Since the commissioners sign and customary-use ordinances? Is enforcement independent of custom claim on private property? Dave R, any answers?

Are you suggesting to respect all property owner’s rights, like your property, and beach enforcement too? If so, I and I think many beach owners, can agree - for once. I think Beach Activities would need to be much better defined. Public use of private beach property would be licensed or permitted by the owner for, let’s say 50 sq ft of a 50 foot wide property or 25% of the of the private beach frontage, or some minority area. One towel or chair, 6 foot umbrella, and 4 cu ft storage container per person. No sand pits, only headsets or earphones, no alcohol, no animals, no trash, no vehicles except in an emergency. Between one hour after sun rise and one hour before sunset. If Walton enforcement does not meet certain metrics or standards of enforcement, then the owner can revoke their public use license.

If you are suggesting increased enforcement if owners permanently give away their rights or commissioners take the Constitutional property rights owners have today; that’s an issue. That’s THE issue. Given the Sheriff’s and commissioners lack of leadership and enforcement; what have commissioners suggested other than legislation and litigation(?), very few property owners would trust them not to selectively or effectively enforce any public beach rules, like today, and it will take extraordinary effort over years to prove to owners that commissioners will represent all citizens and do the job needed to gain owner’s trust. Until then very few property owners would risk their losing the property rights they have today. Hope is not a plan - or leadership.

Here’s an idea I heard from a military guy I think is brilliant. Military concept of “constant stare”. Like the casinos have but on a larger scale. Have 360 deg day/night IR cameras every half mile (52 locations) or whatever it takes to cover the 26 miles on 50 foot or however high towers on the right of way or public accesses that fed video back to a command post monitored and recorded 24/7/365 by one or two people with software to ID dogs, people too far out in the water, sand pits, fireworks, turtles, outline public and private property boundaries, etc. A faction of the employees needed to do the same job, keeps Walton vehicles and tire tracks off private property, and on the road for quicker response. Provide public wifi service for a fee to help pay for it. Put the video on the internet like SoWal Seagrove Cam Live Webcam - Seagrove Beach SkyCam | SoWal.com. For much less than a tax payer paid customary-use lawsuit (Multi-Million$?) or an army of code enforcement (at what $40K with benefits a year each?) you could have “constant stare”.

If you are talking about respecting private property rights, redefining and educating how the public and private owners respect each other, enforce it with measurable standards; and hold commissioner accountable, we may make some progress. Commissioners shouldn't risk tax payers million$ in litigation and maybe get nothing in return except empowered, angry, property owners. I’m glad you didn’t proclaim "This sand is your sand, this sand is my sand" again, because regardless of the outcome legally it is always property owner’s sand/property. I know many property owners would be willing to help commissioners understand the property owners concerns and seek solutions, if commissioners would only ask and listen.

 

[steel1man]

No one has mention one reason home owners may( not all owners) want their beach private? Home owners can put their Beach fronts up for bid with the vendors and get a percentage of the rental business.. This happened a lot last summer..
One kid said he wasn't coming back, because he wasn't getting a return on his investment after paying owner....

 

[FactorFiction]

The Beach Ambassador program is a great supplement to enforcement, but it doesn't address the worst problem out there IMO, which is people staking a claim on prime beach for hours on end whether they are there or not. Many of these setups are there all day taking up large sections of beachfront in order to "hold" spots. Certainly, vendors may have started this issue, but it has definitely expanded to virtually everyone who either lives on or visits the beach. Some solutions to that problem would be really helpful.