T.S. Strickland

Staff Writer

The Pensacola City Council on Thursday paved the way for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to construct a multimillion dollar fish hatchery on the Pensacola bayfront.

After more than two hours of public comment and discussion, the council voted 5-3 to lease the 10 acres of waterfront property known as Bruce Beach to the agency. With council approval, the land will become the future home of the Florida Gulf Coast Marine Fisheries Hatchery and Enhancement Center, to be constructed with $18.8 million in fines from the BP oil spill.

According to the terms of the lease ­approved Thursday, the city will rent Bruce Beach to the FWC for 30 years at an annual rate of $50. The lease requires that the state begin construction on the facility within three years and complete the project by year six. A memorandum of understanding, to be executed at a later date, would provide for more local input in the design and operation of the facility — a critical concern of many council members.

The project, long touted as a major economic win by Mayor Ashton Hayward, promises to breathe new life into the long-abandoned section of Pensacola waterfront and to revitalize Gulf sports fisheries badly damaged by the 2010 spill. The council supported the idea when it authorized the mayor in 2011 to begin negotiating a lease for the hatchery. However, in the months since, the scope of the project has been reduced and council members and area residents have raised concerns about the hatchery’s environmental and economic merits.

Many of those concerns were given a fresh airing Thursday. Barbara Albrecht, president of the Bream Fishermen Association, said she did not agree with using restoration funds to construct what was essentially an experimental facility.

“A much better return on the investment for this hatchery would be to address water quality issues,” she said.

Albrecht’s concerns were echoed by Council members Charles Bare and Sherri Myers, who voted against the lease. Megan Pratt also was opposed.

“This whole project is just a science experiment,” Bare said. Myers agreed, adding that she did not feel the public had been afforded sufficient opportunity to give input on the project.

“I just felt that it was railroaded through,” she said.

Bare made a motion Thursday night to place the lease on the ballot in the August primary elections and let voters decide the fate of Bruce Beach. The motion failed 6-2, however, with only Myers and Bare voting in support.

While Bare and Myers disputed the process and environmental merits of the project, others said this criticism missed the point.

Councilman Gerald Wingate said the council had no control over what projects state and federal officials decided to fund with the BP fine money, only whether to accept it. “To me, its a no-brainer,” he said.

Michael Williamson expressed similar thoughts. “We’re looking an $18.8 million gift horse in the mouth,” he told the council.

The local media personality, who hosts “Catchin’ Fish” on BLAB-TV, said he was excited by the potential of the project to invigorate the region’s fishing industry.

“What this hatchery is gonna do is feed the money-making machine that is recreational fishing,” he said.

Williamson also took issue with those who suggested there were better uses for Bruce Beach.

“Nobody’s beating on your door wanting to do anything (with that property) ...” Williamson said. “Vote yes. If you don’t, 20 years from now, Bruce Beach is going to be just what it is now — an eyesore.”

Escambia County Commissioner Grover Robinson also urged the council to approve the lease.

“It’s a piece of a puzzle,” Robinson said. “If you would begin to look at the whole puzzle, you would begin to see where it naturally fits. ... There certainly will be water quality projects (that are funded by BP), and, in a perfect world, maybe they would have come first. ... I ask you tonight to think about the overall puzzle, not just the individual pieces.”

Robinson said he believed the project also would serve as a catalyst for more research funding from the state and warned council members that the FWC was prepared to take the project elsewhere if they were to refuse to cooperate altogether.

“If this goes to other bays and other estuaries, they will become priority estuaries for the state of Florida,” he said. “I want to see Pensacola Bay become a priority estuary.”

Pratt, who arrived at the meeting late, proposed two last-minute amendments to the lease — which would have imposed additional design restrictions on the facility and provided for more mixed-use development on the site. However, the amendments received no support.

Councilman Brian Spencer, who voted for the lease Thursday, earlier expressed skepticism about the hatchery.

At a council meeting in March, Spencer told Eric Olson, the mayor’s initiatives coordinator, that he would not support approving a lease without some binding assurance that the state would follow through on the project’s public access and recreational components.

“If we are going to provide such friendly lease terms, then we should — at the front end of negotiating — have much more say so, much more control, as to how this will meet our vision,” Spencer said.

Thursday night, Spencer said his concerns had been satisfied by the memorandum of understanding. The memorandum does not set forth any detailed plans or commit any additional funding to the project. Instead, it calls for the creation of two committees, each comprised of an equal number of state and city appointees.

The committees would advise officials on — among other things — the facility’s design, stocking strategies and protocols to be used, and conservation and education programs by the facility’s staff.

Speaking after the meeting, Hayward said he was pleased by the council’s vote and by the project’s educational and research potential.

“I think it’s another exciting win for Pensacola,” he said.