Bayfront Park neighbors express frustrations over parking, litter and more

Living near a park is nice. Living near a beach is even better. But for some Longboat Key residents who live near both a park and beach, frustrations have arisen as visitors to the shoreline have left trash and taken up parking.

“The beach is a mess,” said resident Tommy Rheinlander.

“They dig holes to build a sandcastle or whatever, and they just bury the trash in it,” said Lorraine Rheinlander.

Cigarette butts, tents being left on the beach and dogs on the beach are some other examples of issues raised by residents to town leaders.

Police Chief Russ Mager urges community members to report potential code violations, noting that with a small police force and only two code enforcement officers on town staff, it’s difficult to always have eyes and ears on all 11 miles of the Longboat Key shoreline.

“It’s a big island. You have to get out on foot or get out on an all-terrain vehicle to patrol the beach,” Mager said. “When y’all see anything out there that doesn’t look right, we want to try to get to those people. Anything that’s out there, any kind of police matter or if something doesn’t look right, we’d rather respond than have the issue fester and get frustrated. Give us the opportunity to try to fix the problem.”

Mager said that since complaints have been voiced by residents at recent meetings, the police department has conducted extra patrols on the beach.

“In this month alone we did 38 extra patrols, and that means officers getting out on foot and looking around,” Mager said. “That’s a byproduct of us getting the complaint.”

Naomi Muselman lives across the street from Bayfront Park and is another frustrated resident who raised concerns at recent community meetings. She said the amount of parking at Bayfront Park has grown over the years, which has led to issues for those who want to use the park for pickleball, tennis, shuffleboard or recreation center activities. She said those spots are being used as beach parking, not by residents using the amenities at the park.

“Now we have 19 or 20 by the playground. We have all these by the recreation center and more by the pickleball courts and the dog park,” Muselman said. “Now they have made an overflow parking lot without asking anybody with 10 spots. That’s potentially 50 more people at the beach.”

At a Let’s Talk Longboat meeting, Public Works Director Charlie Mopps said that parking inventory at Bayfront Park was increased in recent years to meet a state requirement that made Longboat Key eligible for beach renourishment grants. It’s a matter of $35 million, Town Manager Howard Tipton said.

“This is the only primary public beach access. We get grant funding that extends a mile in both directions from this access point, which equates to 28% of the beach project paid by the state,” Mopps said. “This is the only space that we have that has enough parking spaces. We need every one of those spots to qualify.”

Expanding parking at beach accesses is fine, but parking expansion should be spread across multiple beach accesses, not just at Bayfront Park, Muselman countered.

“I’m saying they need to improve all the beach accesses on Longboat and cut a little bit of this (parking) out,” Muselman said. “We don’t need an overflow lot.”