McHugh: Panel ‘copping out’ on Gilchrist

Boca Grande Community Panel Member Dave McHugh had some hard questions for the rest of the panel on Tuesday about who would be in charge of the Gilchrist Avenue parking problem, citing that not taking charge of the project themselves would be considered a “cop out.”

At the May 13 meeting, McHugh resigned from the panel, citing his frustration with the lack of communication between the community panel and the public.

“One of the main reasons I am resigning is because of Gilchrist,” McHugh said. “I find it to be a huge end run that has divided the community. The panel pushed forward an agenda that wasn’t accepted by the public, and in that end run they just decided they wouldn’t have anything to do with it. I think that’s a cop out if anything else. Instead of sitting down and finding a compromise with the community, the panel just washed their hands of it.”

McHugh, who did not attend the February 19 meeting when the issue was last addressed, said he received the minutes from the meeting and was confused by what they said. He then asked if the panel had voted on establishing a subcommittee for the project.

“My perception of that meeting was that it (Gilchrist) was open to some discussion,” said panel member Lyman Randall. ““We determined that a successful strategy might be matching funds, and there would need to be a fund-raising effort among the people involved with the Gilchrist parking situation. Someone said there needs to be a ‘Friends of Gilchrist’ group that could raise the money, and present it to the county.”

Panel member Ted Hoopes agreed, and said he didn’t recollect voting on the issue either.

“When you read those minutes it looks like it happened, but when you ask people whether they voted on it they don’t know,” he said. “You need to stop using the word ‘consensus.’ It seems strange that doing it as a consensus no one has any recollection of it.”

The minutes from the February meeting say that, “Seibert suggested the next step might be establishing a Friends of Gilchrist committee. Tom Smith said the panel has a good start. One goal is to make it look more like a park.”

At this week’s session, Smith said that a group of residents was supposed to be working on the issues, then report back to the panel in the fall at their next scheduled meeting in November.

“When we come back for first meeting we will take up the Gilchrist issue,” he said. “Residents are out there planning, we can put it on the agenda and answer questions at our first meeting. They may not even do anything. I don’t think the panel ever abandoned Gilchrist, but it’s a timing thing. We’re not going to go anywhere with it now, so it has been put off. But there’s been a ton of effort put into this by the panel.”

McHugh responded.

“A citizen’s group that has no authority (and) shouldn’t be determining what happens on a public right-of-way,” he said. “They should have input if they live on the street, but they shouldn’t make the determination of what happens. And if it’s not going to be discussed at these meetings, out in the public, you’re going to get the same reaction from the public as you did at the last meeting. People have a lot of opinions on this.”

McHugh was referring to the April 1 meeting of the panel. At that meeting, several community business owners expressed dissatisfaction with the panel’s approach to parking downtown.

No panel member could provide the names of anyone in the group, other than the person who brought the suggestion up at the February meeting – Bayne Stevenson.

Smith said he had heard that Stevenson was “spearheading” the committee. Panel Chairman Lynne Seibert said that she had heard he was involved along with others.

At the February meeting Stevenson had presented the suggestion of “Friends of Gilchrist” to the panel.

Seibert told McHugh that creating a “Friends of Gilchrist” group that would be separate from the panel would take some time.

“From what I understand there’s a whole package about an inch thick on how to do matching funds,” she said. “It is highly regulated by the county. I handed it off to them, and it requires among other things (creating) a 501(c) (3) … so there’s legal work to be done. I think they would fall under the same administrative code as the panel does. There are all kinds of complications to be worked out, and I can’t give you an answer on how that will function with the panel. Whether it will be a totally separate group from us, or what the Sunshine issues are going to be, it’s all got to be worked out with the county attorney. You’re dealing with a huge bureaucracy here. The county will have their hand in it and supervise it very carefully. It’s county right-of-way.”

Seibert continued, “We’ve taken it about as far as we can go, there is no county funding available. It wasn’t a function of the panel, with all the other things we have on the table, to take that issue on. It’s best done by a group of neighborhood volunteers. There are other people interested in working on it. It’s even debatable whether we can approve or disapprove it, if they’re going to be going to the county for matching funds.”

McHugh then asked why the panel had expended much time and money on having landscaping studies done, only to allow a citizen’s group to control the final outcome.

“Why did we spend all the time on it, do all the work on it, then just decide we wouldn’t do anything?” he said. “It was only going to be elaborate or expensive if we turned it into a West Palm Beach landscaping plan. No one talked with the county about just replacing the palm trees with shell and railroad ties. I just think the panel should keep control of it, it should be a subcommittee, out in the open. It’s public property, it belongs to everybody and not just a certain group of people. In my opinion, the majority of the panel didn’t get what they wanted so they decided to wash their hands of it.”

Seibert disagreed.

“I object to that,” Seibert said. “That’s all I ever heard was shell and railroad ties. I suggested we needed to find out how much we needed for it, whether it was $300,000, $600,000 or $1,000,000.”

McHugh persisted.

“So, is the panel going to officially say and vote on the fact that the people who are working on the Gilchrist plan are an official subcommittee of the panel, and it’s going to be in the public view, or is it going to be done out of the public view and brought to the panel later?” he said. “Those are the questions the public is asking. It was on the survey, you had multiple meetings on it, different opinions, and the public has the right to know. In those minutes of that meeting, you can’t tell. Is the panel going to take an official position or not?”

McHugh said that when he came onto the panel, his seat came from the chamber in order to represent island businesses. There were, at that time, other business representatives on the board who have since resigned.

McHugh said he thought there should be more representation from that field.

“The business people of Boca Grande look at things differently than you do,” he said. “You need a different view of things sometimes.”

Seibert agreed.

“We do want it balanced,” she said.

Hoopes said he would speak with Chamber of Commerce members and see if they had a person in mind.

After all discussion had ended, the panel gave McHugh a round of applause for his accomplishments on the panel.

“You have a unique way of resigning, Dave,” Randall said.