Daytona Beach, FL – Manatee Island is back open less than a day after the Volusia County Council demanded that Daytona Beach re-open the park.
The VCC voted 6-1 during Thursday’s meeting at the Historic Courthouse in DeLand to require Daytona Beach to re-open Manatee Island Park during a long debate on the county’s homeless problem, especially in the downtown Daytona Beach area.
City officials have claimed that the park had to be closed due to damage by homeless people.
Some county leaders justified the request by saying that county dollars were used to build the park and that the large gathering of homeless in front of the county’s administration center on 250 North Beach Street wouldn’t have happened had Daytona Beach kept the park open.
The motion – made by District 3 Representative Deb Denys – stated that the city should either re-open the park or get a refund to the county for the dollars it spent on the park. It was seconded by District 2’s Josh Wagner.
All VCC members voted “yes” with the exception of District 4’s Doug Daniels, who advised waiting for an official response from the city.
Wagner – who recently posed as a homeless person in that area as part of his research into the situation on North Beach Street – suspects the city may have closed the park as a way to get the homeless out of there. He called for county workers to do an immediate inspection of the park in general and the bathroom facilities in particular to make sure Daytona Beach’s claims are true.
While the park itself is back open, the bathrooms are still closed to the public.
During a recent interview on WNDB’s Marc Bernier Show, Daytona Beach Police Chief Mike Chitwood claimed the bathrooms were damaged by the homeless and that a lot of trash left by the homeless in the park – including food and human waste – had to be picked up by city workers.
When asked by Bernier if the city closed the park to get the homeless out of there, Chitwood denied it, saying work needed to be done to the bathrooms before it can re-open to the public.
Also discussed during Thursday’s VCC debate was a proposal from Wagner to use a percentage of Community Redevelopment Area funds to fund the yearly operating costs of the proposed 24-7-365 Safe Harbor shelter as opposed to Daytona Beach trying to fund-raise from other cities on its own.
The VCC also directed County Manager Jim Dinneen to work on a contract with Daytona Beach for Safe Harbor that would give the city the option to use the $4 million the county offered to build the shelter to refurbish an existing building instead of using it to create the shelter from scratch on land near the county jail.
Dinneen pushed the council to consider pushing back the 60-day deadline it imposed on Daytona Beach during the last meeting to find funding for Safe Harbor and to approach all the cities with CRA’s in place to see if they will voluntarily use part of that money for the shelter.
He also advised against Wagner’s plan to rent land for the creation of temporary shelter on land near US 1 and North Street for the homeless currently camping out on North Beach Street, saying it would violate Daytona Beach city code and that it would be better for Daytona Beach to work it out on its own.
Wagner argued that Daytona’s proposal to open the Salvation Army shelter on Ballough Road wouldn’t be enough to house all the people at the county admin building and that the county could override a city ordinance in this case because there was a public safety issue in play.
The Democrat also noted that he was worried about potential lawsuits – especially from the American Civil Liberties Union – should the county trespass the homeless from the county admin building and not give them another place to go.
Others on the VCC – especially Denys and Chairman Jason Davis – said they wouldn’t be pushed around by a lawsuit threat and that the council should stick to its 60-day deadline on funding for Safe Harbor.
Denys also came out against Wagner’s CRA idea, saying it wouldn’t be fair to the cities that don’t have one already.
Others on the council – such as Davis, At-Large Representative Joyce Cusack and District 1’s Pat Patterson – showed support for the CRA idea even though they were lukewarm at best about Safe Harbor’s chances for success.
A VCC vote on the temporary shelter along US 1 is scheduled for a future meeting.
Copyright 2016 Southern Stone Communications.