Last modified 4/28/2008 - 10:42 pm
Originally created 043008

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By DREW DIXON, Shorelines

ATLANTIC BEACH - Small businesses got backing from the City Commission Monday as the board voted in favor of letting stores display goods outside.

The commission voted 4-1 with John Fletcher dissenting to approve the ordinance that allows business owners to put their goods on display outside their stores. Prior to Monday, only landscaping goods could be set up outside stores.

"Only merchandise that is sold inside the adjoining business ... shall be displayed outside," the new ordinance states.

Many merchants have been pleading with the commission for months to allow them to display their merchandise in front of stores, noting every marketing angle could help. The city currently prohibits such displays, with the exception of items such as landscaping or yard-improvement goods.

Mayor John Meserve was one of the first supporters of the measure. He said it's best to give all stores an equal opportunity to display their goods outside during tough economic times.

"My issue is some stores already do it" with landscaping goods, he said. "We've got small stores that are stressed today. It's a little help."

In other action:

- The commission agreed to place a new work of public art at the Five Points intersection near City Hall where Seminole Road, Selva Marina Drive, Sherry Street and Plaza Drive meet.

The commission voted in January in favor of spending $45,000 on an 8-foot bronze sculpture of a girl swimming with a sea turtle titled In Search of Atlantis. But Commissioner Mike Borno said he wasn't sure Five Points was the best location for the artwork.

Chairwoman of the Atlantic Beach Public Arts Commission, Tracie Parsons, said the panel looked at several locations including the roundabout at the end of Atlantic Boulevard.

But she said Five Points was ultimately the best location because of all the traffic and the fact that Five Points isn't as close to the ocean, with increased maintenance concerns.

"We wanted the biggest bang for our buck," Parsons said and the commission agreed.

- The commission approved a budget amendment that officially funds a new Mayport Road Corridor coordinator. The position was created after the commission agreed to target Mayport Road and connecting neighborhoods for a major overhaul in the next three to five years.

Atlantic Beach Police Sgt. Dale Hatfield will still remain an active officer, but he is being put in charge of the Mayport Road coordinator's position.

- About $600,000 that was set aside about a year ago for the potential purchase of an environmentally sensitive tract of land known as the Buckman Pritchard Trust has been officially eliminated for such use.

The commission agreed to take the money back into the general fund after the owner of the 340 acres of property just north of the Atlantic Boulevard Bridge could not reach a sale agreement with the city this year.

The Florida Communities Trust was going to help Atlantic Beach buy the land for about $1.8 million. But that agency scrapped that deal when it ruled that most of the land doesn't technically belong to the family that owns the property now. The family, descendants of the same Buckman family for which Jacksonville's Buckman Bridge is named, disputes the finding.

Drew Dixon can also be reached at (904) 249-4947, ext. 6313