If the city had screwed up and postponed the closing, that would be one thing: We should eat any drop in value. But it wasn’t the city. “$3.125 million is not a fair price today and I can’t believe there’s anyone in the city who thinks it is.”
Miller: Regarding Sandy’s comments, his position has always been that when there was no performance by the seller, that left the city in the position to decide whether to continue with the contract or not. He doesn’t want the city to think it’s painted into the corner with continuing with the contract.
So, the motion: To get a reappraisal. Windes and Dewey Destin will stay mute, since they have property interests on the harbor directly affected by this.
Motion fails: Wood, Seevers, Trammell all vote no.

He says he wants to correct the false impression they don’t want to close. Sam says that’s not an impression: They were told outright. The counsel replies that the man who said that was not an officer of the company and does not represent them, even though he’s a family member.
Seevers: Do we have to retake the title search? Miller: Yep.
Seevers: She still believes that if we don’t have something to show at the end of the lease, “that is not spending good money for something that’s solid.”
Moves to have Miller repeat the title search and report back, with a recommendation for closing.
Tom Weidenhamer: We’d be spending more money if we buy, but he can see Sam’s point. However, he sees the point of city government as doing things for the public, not accumulating assets. There’s no point in spending money on a purchase when St. Andrews will offer the same benefits for less money.
Bagby: “I think ownership is right–the problem I have here is that we have a piece of property that we valued over six months ago. I do not believe the value of that property today or a month from now, whenever we close, is anywhere close to $3.125 … I wouldn’t pay $500,000 for a Volkswagen just so i could own it if I could lease a porsche for $20,000 a year.” If we buy in this case, “We are not spending the people’s money wisely.” He calls for a reappraisal to be made.
Some discussion of the rules of order follows.
Seevers: “How much money are we going to spend on a discussion of this issue?” It’s like we spend on a study because it’s not going the way the council wants, and she won’t support that.
Trammell: A reappraisal would kick things down the line several months, and at that time they might change their mind.
Counsel: If the city wants to come back and claim a lower price, we’d listen, but “We believe we have a contract.”

At the cookout, she jokes, “he didn’t do a very good job with the hamburgers–but that’s not his job.”
Barker echoes her praise for staff. Applause from some of the audience.
Next, the pedestrian crossing plan: Kisela simply notes that they’re continuing to work with the DOT on it so there’s no action on it now.
Then the parking-lot discussion. In essence, the lease proposal from St. Andrew’s is financially a better deal, but the Clancy land is in a much better position for a parking lot. Jerry Miller reports that one issue, the presence of tenants on the Clancy property, is largely wrapped up (that’s simplifying, Jerry, I know).
Kisela: Basically this comes down to whether you want to lease or buy; there are pros or cons either way. So staff would like direction.
Seevers: A couple of questions. First, can the Clancy rep confirm that they intend to close. “The last time someone was here, they said they did not intend to close.”
Sean Clancy (president) steps up with counsel. Counsel says they have every intent to close, despite some stumbling blocks, but the company is working to resolve everything. The Lamar lease, which has an ending date of Feb. 28 is the only major issue and that can be terminated with 60 days notice; they’re trying to terminate earlier.

“everything that happens keeps damaging this area.” He says dredging sand for the 2006-7 beach restoration project created a hole off Holiday Isle that increased erosion. They’ve been getting nowhere “and the next one’s going to take the houses out.”
Kisela: We’ll continue to work on ways to get this resolved and to work with the DEP and the Corps. But any mixed messages could derail the dredging, even if the mixing was unintentional. We should work on helping Holiday Isle, but we can’t afford to send a message that we’re not completely committed to the dredging.
Eller to the homeowners: Withdraw your suit, let the dredge come in and do its work, and then press your suit. “If you can get it changed, I’m all for you, but do you really want to bear the burden of knowing that you have possibly stopped the dredging or delayed it?” If they press the suit after the dredging, he’d support it.
And we’re done.
Seevers: (We’re now in council reports): Salutes all the hard work staff put in on the 25th anniversary. “The staff made us all look fabulous.”

But I’m not hearing anything new or definitive.
Bagby: Given how much sand Okaloosa Island will get from Eglin, you’d think this pittance from dredging could go to Holiday Isle.
Craig: This project has to go forward–we can’t risk losing the funding. But there’s got to be a solution; however, it has to be driven by Tallahassee, since it concerns state law. The most we can do is work with them to see if we can come up with a “win win win” for everyone, including Okaloosa Island.
Windes: The governor came here this summer–the feeling seems to be even he doesn’t the authority to settle this.
“I don’t want to see houses fall into the gulf … but you’re trying to drag the fishermen down with you. I don’t think nothing’s going to happen in two months–we’ve been fighting for years and it’s not getting closer.”
JJ Chambers of Destin Pointe: Until this was filed, we were told there was no way we’d get even a grain of sand from dredging. We’ve been taking storm damage for a decade without any sort of restoration, and if we took a direct hit, we’d be destroyed.

Her concern is that if the Holiday Isle folks wins, the Sherrys will just file another challenge, sticking it up again.
But what she doesn’t understand is whether Statute 161 really does supercede the Inlet Management Plan. If it does, maybe the governor could intervene?
Kisela: “There is a difference of opinion whether that law trumps the Inlet Management Plan.” Seevers: “Can we not call the governor’s office and find out?” And we really, really need beach restoration!
Kisela; Agreed. That would provide long-term relief.
Seevers: Is it reasonable to propose contacting the governor about this?
Kisela: Nothing to stop us.
Bagby: Who has the authority to settle this?
Kisela: I got the impression nobody does.

He says the harbor needs dredging, but he has no problem with saying that Holiday Isle is also in an emergency situation. But the dredging is essential.
Craig: Are we really the people they should be going to? This involves state and federal players.
He asks if the DEP would have gone for putting sand on Holiday Isle if the Sherrys hadn’t filed a challenge. Kisela: It depends how you read the original permit. But the original permit clearly gave us some flexibility.

Jim Wood: Dredging is one of our most frustrating issues, not just for us but for the Corps and the DEP: “We seem to fight more within our own community than” to get anything done, and he’s concerned the Corps will withdraw and head for somewhere where people “have their ducks in a row.”
Kisela: The Corps’ Terry Jangula says that if the permits is challenged, they could lose funding–though he thinks taking sand from Parcel B is doable.
Bagby: He’s heard someone say winter dredging is good, someone say it’s bad (it wasn’t just me, I heard the same). Robson: No, we want winter dredging.
Bagby: And when is the dredge coming? Kisela: Within two weeks, but they may have it stand down rather than waste the cost of mobilizing it.

George Eller: “The simple fact is, we can’t wait. In the thirty plus years I’ve been watching, every time a major dredging operation takes place during the winter it’s a failure or second rate at best–the weather just will not permit it. We have the money now … if we tamper with this process or do something to slow it down, we might use the funding.”
He’s sympathetic to the problem, but “there’s a lot of condominiums, there’s a lot of rooms for people to stay in, but there’s only one pass, only one harbor, only one fleet … the heart and soul of this community has always been this fleet.” And he’s proud the fleet has no finer friend than the city of Destin. “We can’t wait. We can’t take a chance on tampering with the process–everybody knows what happens when you do that.
“Clearly the law could be amended” and he thinks it’s worth working to that effect, but NOT NOW. “I understand every day that goes by, they’re in peril; every minute that goes by, the fleet’s in peril. We just can’t wait.”
Next: Larry Williges, ex-council member, steps up.
Okaloosa Island has argued they’ll lose their drift because sand moves east to west. “The sand that’s in the pass, where did that sand come from that’s blocking the pass? It came from the east? These condo owners at Jetty East, the sand was their sand … to me it seems to be a pretty simple thing.”
John Medina, Holiday Isle Improvement Association board member: Okaloosa Island will get sand as part of Eglin AFB’s beach restoration project, and they’re beaches aren’t eroded yet–so why do they need more? We’re not saying stop the dredging, we’re saying this is a state of emergency.
Scott Robson: “If you can persuade them to get this done in two weeks before the dredge gets here, that’d be great.” But based on experience, “you throw one monkey wrench in … it’ll be March, April.” And it’ll be too rough to dredge the worst part of the harbor. It has to be done now to be effective.

Once again, we’re dealing with bad science. If everyone agreed to put the sand on Holiday Isle, that would be a win-win all around (Muttered audience response: “Good freakin’ luck.”). We don’t have to sell Okaloosa Island, just the decision makers.
Kisela: That’s a three to six month process.
Bagby: But it would give the fleet and the property owners what they want.
Kisela; The Corps is very concerned that the funding and the timing for doing this project could go away if it’s postponed. Bagby: No way they can dredge and just put the sand somewhere until it’s worked out?
HInes: Yes, there are places to store the sand if the government was willing to do that.
Barker: Talked to the DEP secretary a month ago, he seemed eager to find a way to keep things moving. Kisela: The secretary has said he’ll work with the feds to expedite permitting of putting sand in the water in front of Jetty East. We’re also looking at the possibility of a)sand from an upland source, which might be lower quality and would cost money; b)taking sand from other parts of Holiday Isle for now and replacing it later. The owner of one parcel-owner has said he’d consider it. It would be 20,000-40,000 yards, not the quantity they’d get out of the dredging.
And now a recess while they change the Channel 6 tape.