SEBASTIAN — Ideas ran the gamut of a land swap with the American Legion for a civic center and providing WiFi connectivity at Riverview Park to starting a water taxi along the lagoon and working to get AT&T U-Verse to pick up the city’s government channel. The Sebastian City Council spent Monday afternoon brainstorming goals and projects the city should explore in the coming years.
“The dais is not the best place to talk,” said Councilman Richard Gillmor, who requested the public workshop for council members to roll up their sleeves and freely discuss ideas for the city’s future.
Gillmor raised the issue of a multipurpose center to provide activities for both teens and seniors some years down the road. He tossed out an idea that the city might consider swapping property with the American Legion so to use the legion’s building as such a center.
“They know the value of their land,” said Councilwoman Andrea Coy, noting that the American Legion has plans to build a new facility on their property.
Vice Mayor Don Wright suggested the council consider buying the vacant property next to the Post Office on Main Street, a couple lots down from City Hall, for a civic center.
The $1.5 million price tag for the 12-acre property is “a little high,” he said, but, “I think that would be a terrific option.”
To address teens’ activity needs in the interim, the council agreed that City Manager Al Minner and City Attorney Robert Ginsburg sit down with School District officials to work out an agreement to use school facilities after hours.
As for seniors’ needs, Coy said a needs assessment survey is in the works and – in the meantime, the city could continue its partnership with By the River senior housing community to provide a venue for senior activities.
Councilman Bob McPartlan said he’d like to see the city offer WiFi connectivity in at least Riverview Park – if not citywide.
“I don’t know the cost,” McPartlan said.
Minner said he would investigate.
“We could have our grand pie-in-the-sky ideas,” McPartlan said. He then rhetorically asked from where those funds might come.
Gillmor resurrected his idea for a water taxi along the waterfront, an idea he had presented at a previous goal-setting workshop. He said he could envision a couple pontoon boats running up and down the lagoon, ferrying people from the city north to the Sebastian Inlet or between waterfront businesses.
“It could be a public-private partnership,” he said.
Hill said he agreed such a service would be nice to have but that he would prefer it be a fully private endeavor.
“I would fear government involvement,” the mayor said.
Wright raised the issue of the city’s franchise agreement with AT&T U-Verse, which currently does not require the company to carry the city’s government channel.
He said other cities in the state are signing contracts with AT&T, requiring the company to carry their government channels.
Wright explained that the issue has been under review for at least eight months without resolution. Every time a Sebastian resident chooses AT&T over Comcast/Xfinity, the city loses a potential viewer of its government channel.
By requiring AT&T to carry the government channel, the city would no longer lose viewers and it would expand its potential audience because the channel would be aired outside the city’s limits, he said.
Donna Keys, a member of the Sebastian River Area Chamber of Commerce, asked the council during the workshop if the public could apply pressure to AT&T to get the government channel broadcast.
Wright was not optimistic it would work, but did not warn her against either.
Other issues raised during the goal setting workshop included reviewing portions of the city’s land development code, looking for potential areas for future annexation, and expanding the city’s utility infrastructure to areas key to economic development such as the Roseland Road side of the Sebastian Municipal Airport.
The council took no official action on any of the items and instead directed to staff to review the goals and provide information at a later date.
