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Marmot

Beach Lover
Jun 16, 2016
64
33
SRB
NOTICE of PUBLIC WORKSHOP

You are hereby notified that the Walton County Board of County Commissioners will hold a workshop on Tuesday, July 12, 2016 at 3:00 PM or soon thereafter. The meeting will be held at the South Walton Courthouse Annex located at 31 Coastal Centre Blvd., Santa Rosa Beach, FL.

The purpose of this meeting is to discuss Headland Avenue Public Beach Access.

Anyone interested in this issue, the workshop is next week. Beachfront owners are trying to block use of county owned SWTDC endorsed public beach access and their efforts were successful until a re-vote occurred. It was originally voted down (2-3) but at a later bcc meeting a re-vote (4-1) occurred for a workshop with one BCC still voting "No".
 

Misty

Banned
Dec 15, 2011
2,769
752

Dawn

Beach Fanatic
Oct 16, 2008
1,203
519
The meeting will be held at the South Walton Courthouse Annex located at 31 Coastal Centre Blvd., Santa Rosa Beach July 12 at 3 p.m.

Proposed Walton County Public Beach Management Plan (With Images)

1. Inlet Beach
2. Santa Clara
3. Van Ness Butler Jr.
4. Blue Mountain Beach
5. Gulfview Heights
6. Ed Walline 7. Ft. Panic

http://media.graytvinc.com/documents/2016+Proposed+Beach+Ordinance+revisions+1.6.16.pdf
The pdf outlines county-sanctioned vendor takeover of our beaches - it doesn't say what improvements are planned for Headland Ave.
 

Misty

Banned
Dec 15, 2011
2,769
752
The majority of people who use the beach are locals and tourists and are the lifeblood of Walton County. Giving 50% of our beaches over to mostly empty chairs is just freaking absurd!!
 

Jimmy T

Beach Fanatic
Apr 6, 2015
866
1,235
The majority of people who use the beach are locals and tourists and are the lifeblood of Walton County. Giving 50% of our beaches over to mostly empty chairs is just freaking absurd!!
They applied the 50% rule in Grayton. It's better than giving the vendors 100%, but it still sucks. At 7:00 in the morning, the vendor zones have 3 rows of unoccupied chairs. And the vendors think they own those zones. They don't like it if you or me set up in them ourselves.

Get rid of vending at the public accesses or require that the renter be there at the time of set up and cut the vendor zone down to 25% of the beach.
 

Misty

Banned
Dec 15, 2011
2,769
752
This proposal flies in the face of customary use and everything the current BCC and those running have said in regard to customary use. In effect it privatizes 50% of public beaches to private enterprise (vendors).
 

FactorFiction

Beach Fanatic
Feb 18, 2016
494
409
Clearly, most of the posters on this forum have real issues with the vendor situation. The residents of this County have managed to get the attention of the BCC on several issues (Hampton Inn and customary use being two major ones) so I don't quite understand why the citizens of Walton County are not banding together on the vendor issue. Even with at least one Commissioner connection to vendors, the united public seems to have a lot of sway here. Anybody want to shed some light on this?
 

LarsAtTheBeach

Beach Fanatic
Jul 19, 2008
704
326
Clearly, most of the posters on this forum have real issues with the vendor situation. The residents of this County have managed to get the attention of the BCC on several issues (Hampton Inn and customary use being two major ones) so I don't quite understand why the citizens of Walton County are not banding together on the vendor issue. Even with at least one Commissioner connection to vendors, the united public seems to have a lot of sway here. Anybody want to shed some light on this?
Latest in my inbox from Ms Meadows:

There has to be three commissioners who vote to direct staff to revise the ordinance. One commissioner son is a vendor. We don't have the votes to do this at this point.

Sent from my iPhone

Cindy Meadows
Walton County Commissioner
District 5
850-231-2978 office
 

Misty

Banned
Dec 15, 2011
2,769
752
I just posted this to my own Facebook page. If all of us would use our Facebook page and inundate our Commissioners we might be able to turn this around! Please do what your conscious dictates!

"I don't often post about politics on my page because I'm a Democrat and Walton County is a Republican stronghold in in the Florida Panhandle. I accept peoples opinions (even though I don't agree with the majority of them) because people have the inherent right to believe what they will and vote their own conscious.

However, on a local level there are several issue coming up during this Campaign Season and some of them are critical to our way of life here. Customary use is a hot button topic and will make or break this election. The "Vendor" issue is another.

Please Please Please folks if you don't do anything else this campaign cycle pay attention to these very important issues. Locally and economically (Tourism) is the life blood of this county and these issues will effect our way of life.

There is a key workshop (I can't stress enough that it is a key workshop!) coming up in about a week (The meeting will be held at the South Walton Courthouse Annex located at 31 Coastal Centre Blvd., Santa Rosa Beach July 12 at 3 p.m.) regarding the vendor issue and what the workshop has proposed is handing over 50% of OUR PUBLIC BEACH ACCESS to private enterprise in effect PRIVATIZING PUBLIC BEACHES with mostly empty chairs!! This is totally unacceptable!! There is a link to this ABSURD PROPOSAL replete with images so that you have a better grasp of what YOU are going to lose in regard to PUBLIC BEACH ACESS and Customary use here... http://media.graytvinc.com/…/2016+Proposed+Beach+Ordinance+…

I'm begging YOU to please SHARE SHARE SHARE THIS POST and get involved to PROTECT YOUR BEACHES from being PRIVATIZED by beach vendors!! Write YOUR County Commissioners and let them know that losing 50% of your beach to private enterprise is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE! If you need Commissioner addresses let me know, I'll gladly share them with you!

I'm going to tag several of you so please share! PLEASE Copy and Paste this to your status and tag your friends if you want to keep our beaches PUBLIC! PLEASE!"
 
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