MILTON — The existing management contract for the Navarre Beach fishing pier is set to expire in the middle of the upcoming tourist season and could disrupt services there for weeks.
To see Santa Rosa County's background documents on the Navarre Beach fishing pier, click here.>>
Santa Rosa County commissioners hope to avoid that. At their meeting today they will discuss extending the contract with pier managers Everett Ratliff and his sister Dorothy Slye through Nov. 30 and soliciting proposals to manage the pier in the future.
“We’re in the third year of a three-year management lease agreement with the pier,” County Administrator Hunter Walker said at Tuesday’s commission meeting. “I do think that is going to be somewhat of a problem. We need to talk about the timing of that. To be making this decision during the height of the season doesn’t seem wise.
"The reason (we signed a contract to operate the pier in June) is that’s when the pier opened, when we got it from the contractor.”
Ratliff and Slye’s contract to manage the pier expires June 24. If their contract is not renewed and is awarded to another firm, they would have to shut down their kitchen and some of their services before the new manager could take over.
Slye said Tuesday she thought it would take new management more than 30 days to get its operation set up.
“Having at the height of our tourist season to shut down operations and change management could potentially lead to a couple of weeks of just dead time out there on the pier,” County Commissioner Lane Lynchard said.
“That wouldn’t be good for anybody.”
Slye, in particular, has been criticized for how she has managed the pier. Numerous complaints have been made about loud music late at night, and there have been questions about how much the managers should pay for some utilities.
County Attorney Angela Jones said those issues and others that have arisen since the pier was reopened in 2010 would be addressed in the next contract.
Despite the complaints, Commissioner Bob Cole said he does not want to see the pier management change hands.
“Dorothy, I certainly hope you take over the contract again because I remember the past proposals, and they were going to be quite costly to this county,” Cole said. “I appreciate what you’ve done out there over the past two and a half years.”
Contact Daily News Business Editor Dusty Ricketts at 850-315-4448 or dricketts@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @DustyRnwfdn.