Public records requested

See Also: Posey accused of interfering to secure oslo boat ramp approvals

This story was updated Oct. 10, 7:00 a.m.

Editor’s note:  Former Florida House Representative, Ralph Poppell, contends he did not pressure regulators to approve the Oslo Boat ramp project. In a phone call to InsideVero editor, Mark Schumann, Poppell strongly objected to the suggestion that he did anything more than encourage St. John’s Water Management District staff to “keep their word.”  

Poppell’s concern, he said, was in ensuring the County was treated fairly in the consideration of its application.  “They (Saint Johns Water Management staff) were not keeping their word.  They would agree to certain criteria, and then they changed the criteria.”

“My letter,” Poppell said, “had nothing to do with pressuring anyone to approve or disapprove the project.”

Poppell told Schumann he needs to “take off his environmentalist hat,” and report the story fairly and accurately. 

Poppell also told Schumann the reason the sea grass is so healthy and abundant in the shallow area around the Oslo Boat ramp is because Manatees do no forage in shallow waters. Regarding the lose of sea grass in the Indian River Lagoon, Poppell said, “The Manatee are the white elephant in the room. No one is willing to talk about it.”

MARK SCHUMANN

In 2010, as Chairman of the Florida House of Representatives Natural Resources Appropriations Committee, then Rep. Ralph Poppell, who owns Float-On Boat Trailers, wrote a harsh and sharply critical letter to Kirby Green, III, Executive Director of the St. Johns Water Management District. The SJWMD is the state agency responsible for reviewing and approving Indian River County’s proposed and now controversial Oslo Road boat ramp improvement project.

“It is abundantly clear that your staff either has little or no respect for you or that they run the show with no direction to you,” Poppell wrote Kirby in a letter dated Oct. 1, 2010.

Referring to a Sept. 21, 2010 meeting between SJWMD staff, County staff and himself, Poppell wrote, “You asked your staff and the county if there was anything other than the variance? They responded with a “no”, but they did discuss the use of a suction dredge which everyone agreed with and cleaning out the sand at the foot of the ramp, and going no deeper than there (3″) feet was agreed upon. All of that was agreed to by the SJWMD & IR County Staff.”

Responding to Poppell’s letter, John Juilianna, Director of the SJWMD Palm Bay Service Center, wrote, “You are correct in that the County has proposed to dredge the channel to 3 feed below Mean Low Water. WE have never agreed to the County’s proposal of dredging to this depth (except within the first 30 feet from the end of the concrete boat ramp) and have consistently expressed this to the County staff and environmental consultants in phone calls and meetings.”

In his letter to Green, Poppell also described as “ludicrous,” SJWMD staff’s request of the County to place “no parking” signed one foot from the pavement and 12 feed apart.  Poppell claimed the requirement was never previously discussed.

In response, Juilianna wrote, “The issue of preventing parking along the road has been discussed several times with County staff, must recently at the August 27, 2010 meeting.  County staff has maintained that barriers cannot be placed along the roadway in such a manner that would prevent parking. “No parking” signs were proposed and in our August 27 meeting, the County staff agreed to place as many signs as we requested to physically prevent parking from occurring along the roadway.”

After reading Poppell’s 2010 letter to Kirby, InsideVero made a public records request today of the SJWMD and Indian River County for copies of all written communications between Poppell, SJWMD staff, Indian River County staff and members of the Indian River County Commission since 2009 regarding the proposed Oslo Road boat ramp project.

Presented below is the full text of Poppell’s letter to Kirby, and Juilianna’s response: