Ocean Ridge Police Chief Scott McClure (right) and Lt. Aaron Tobin talk with longtime resident Edith Behm before escorting her and other residents out of the Briny Breezes Town Council meeting last month. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
Residents agitated by news removed for disrupting meeting
By Steve Plunkett
Briny Breezes has qualified for a $7.2 million grant from the state to upgrade its stormwater drainage system and raise its sea walls.
The Town Council authorized Mayor Ted Gross to formally accept the grant as well as a $1.4 million federal grant at its Aug. 22 meeting, but the council had to take a recess, directing police to ask several opponents of the grants to leave after they disrupted the meeting.
Hanna Tillotson, grants administrator for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Resilient Florida program, alerted Town Manager Bill Thrasher three days before the meeting that the money would soon be available.
“The Program will be providing you with a formal notice of grant award and next steps, but DEP wanted to provide you with this notice of grant award in order to secure the Town’s federal grant funding award for this project,” she wrote.
Thrasher said he wanted Gross authorized to sign the paperwork ahead of time so the council would not have to schedule a special meeting to do so.
In a note to corporation shareholders, Michael Gallacher, general manager of Briny Breezes Inc., and Susan Brannen, board president, hailed the “incredibly positive news” as “a huge step in the right direction.”
While Briny Breezes has to come up with matching dollars to receive either grant, Thrasher said he and the town’s consultants are optimistic that still more grant money will be available.
“Our objective is that it won’t cost one penny to any resident. That’s the objective,” Thrasher said to the handful of doubters who attended the meeting. “Is it possible? Is it a realistic objective? I want you to listen to me. It is 100% possible. And your negativity is not helping anything whatsoever.”
The opponents in the audience said they did not want to be saddled with paying back grants, that the grant items were added to the council’s agenda the day before the meeting, and that the decision to accept them should be put to a vote of the residents.
“You were not even elected. You were appointed,” resident James Arena complained.
At one point the opponents of the grants grew rowdy. Council President Liz Loper loudly hammered her gavel on the dais and declared a recess. Police asked some to leave for being disruptive.
Gross was also appointed as the council’s liaison to lobby County Commissioner Marci Woodward for possible financial assistance on the sea wall work, a role previously taken by Mayor Gene Adams, who resigned last year.
“I did work with Commissioner Woodward for a little bit on that and it is the opportunity to get money back to pay for the grants,” Adams said at the meeting.
The town was awarded the $1.4 million “pre-disaster mitigation” grant in March but then had to complete a complicated application process by June 28 to get it.
Thrasher said he will recommend using $3.5 million of the state and federal grants on the drainage work. He hopes to use the remainder and find an additional $7.2 million for the sea wall construction.
He and consultants Brizaga Inc. and Engenuity Group Inc. have been working for more than three years to identify the effects of sea level rise on aging sea walls and to find money to fix them. A Flooding Adaptation Plan in 2021 recommended installing a multi-pump drainage system, pumping station and discharge pipes to help eliminate road flooding and prevent damage to personal property and homes.
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