The Nassau County Board of County Commissioners met Tuesday to discuss a potential limited reopening of the beaches, settling on a tentative date of May 6.
County officials said they would want to work with the city of Fernandina Beach and the state to open the beaches at the same time. The county is only in control of the beaches from Peter’s Point Beach Park down to Sanctuary Lane.
Fernandina Beach controls the beaches within its city limits. City commissioners decided at a Tuesday night meeting to keep the beaches closed indefinitely. The state controls portions and the northern and southern end of the county.
“It's all about supply and demand, right?” said County Commission Chair Daniel Leeper. “So if you have a limited portion of your beach open, then you're going to have more demand placed on that small section of the beach, and it does become more difficult to manage in my opinion.”
Still, Nassau County Commissioners said they would like to open the beaches sooner than May 6, as long as the state and Fernandina Beach can open at the same time.
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County Manager Mike Mullin read aloud public comments from residents in Nassau County, many who wanted the beaches to be reopened. There were also some messages in favor of keeping the beaches closed.
“Everybody should know there's not a person - whether it's a county commissioner, staff member, sheriff - anybody who wants the beaches closed, nobody thought we'd ever see these beaches closed in this fashion,” Mullin said. “But no one ever envisioned a pandemic of what we're envisioning now.”
Afterward, Mullin laid out a plan for when the beaches could be reopened on a limited basis.
The beach would be open from 6 a.m. to noon each day. RVs would not be allowed in parking lots and horses would not be allowed on the beaches.
Activities allowed would include walking, running, exercise, fishing, swimming and surfing. No stationary activities would be permitted, neither would large group gatherings.
Swimming is something the county is still discussing, since Mullin said lifeguards wouldn’t be available until May 4 at the earliest.
Mullin said a concern for the county still is attracting outside visitors, and having no way to mitigate the issue.
“We cannot restrict it legally to Nassau County residents,” Mullin said. “We can restrict the number of vehicles that enter a beach because there's limited space to park. We cannot restrict and say Nassau County residents [only]. Duval hasn't done that, Flagler hasn't done that, St. John's hasn't done that.”
All of the Nassau County Commissioners agreed that the beaches were key to introducing some normalcy back into resident’s lives, but stressed they want to do it the right way.
“We're in a very tough spot right now and really trying to determine the best decision,” said County Commissioner Justin Taylor. “We've got to look at it. We can't allow this to be a political decision but something is based on safety.”
Sky Lebron can be reached at slebron@wjct.org, 904-358-6319 or on Twitter at @SkylerLebron.
