Palm Beach Gardens City Manager Ron Ferris reacted Thursday after that a daily visitor to a city park worried that the city may have destroyed the habitat of a dozen gopher tortoises when it clear-cut a 14-acre section of parkland in August.
The city said a licensed gopher tortoise inspector in March found no tortoises on the site, where the city intends to build a fieldhouse and parking lot. Therefore, the city “satisfied” Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission rules, City Engineer Todd Engle told Ferris and the City Council.
Gopher tortoises have been a state-designated threatened species since 2007. The city said it relocated tortoises from the site of the Gardens North County District Park to a refuge north of Orlando in 2018, when work began on the initial phase of park construction.
a resident of the neighboring Bent Tree community, told Stet News he had seen a dozen gopher tortoises on his daily walks along the park’s nature trail even up to the day that the city closed the trail for construction in early August. The city, he said, would not answer his inquiries about whether the tortoises had been safely removed.
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He also said he saw two bald eagles nesting in the now-cleared section of the park. Ferris did not address that issue.
The city didn’t announce its plans for the park until it cut down the trees on the park’s western edge along Central Boulevard because Ferris said he wanted to wait for the City Council’s approval Thursday to spend $8 million to build a fieldhouse.
He pointed out that the council had set aside $7.5 million for the project a year ago, bringing the city’s total financial commitment to $15.5 million. That expenditure, found in , received no public notice.
For five years, the city worked to avoid that expense by trying to team with private-sector partners but the deals fell through over financial terms.
The City Council unanimously approved Thursday, including the second infusion of money for the fieldhouse. The city has until 2028 to complete the fieldhouse under its lease with the county or a portion of the park will revert to the county, which owns the land.
A contract the city provided to Stet News in response to a public records request put the cost of clearing the 14-acre site at $81,250.
The city also is spending $30 million to rebuild the .
On Friday, the city released a rendering of the proposed fieldhouse, showing about 200 paved parking spaces and 400 grass spaces that can provide parking for annual events such as .
A request to the city for a pre-construction survey of trees and species, as well as measures to mitigate harm in the cleared area, came back Friday with no such documents provided.
Ice rink opponents push move
In his comments at the City Council meeting, Ferris said he worked for five years with potential private partners to build the fieldhouse at “someone else’s cost, which is always my favorite thing to do.”
But the city broke off talks both times when the private partners could not meet financial thresholds. The first of those potential partners, the , proposed an ice-rink complex with the indoor recreation center.
The foundation has since moved forward with an ice-rink only plan at Plant Drive Park, . The city agreed in April to lease that park east of Military Trail behind Palm Beach Gardens High School to the foundation for 40 years.
Opponents of that lease urged the City Council to rescind it and build the ice rink at the .
“There is no reason that I can fathom that that fieldhouse that you’re going to contemplate and the ice rink that you’re forcing on Plant Drive cannot be compatible on that same site (at the district park),” former Mayor Mike Martino said.
He criticized the lack of public involvement in the planning and urged the council to hold a public forum to “combine our talents and make it work for everybody.”
City says it removed gopher tortoises
Martino’s comments came after Ferris, stung by online criticism that the work destroyed gopher tortoise habitat, entered into a dialogue with Engle, the city engineer, to assure residents that no gopher tortoises had been harmed.
“Mr. Engle, we’ve been accused of destroying gopher tortoises in their habitats and not getting an FWC permit,” Ferris said, “can you tell us what process you went through?”
Engle described getting a permit to remove gopher tortoises to a refuge north of Orlando in 2018 before the city began the first phase of construction on the 82-acre park.
In 2021, the city posted to its Instagram site a photo of a gopher tortoise on its nature trail in the park and asked “What should we name him?”
In March, Engle said, the city hired a licensed gopher tortoise inspector who reported no tortoises living on the 14-acre fieldhouse site.
He said the inspector’s report would be made available to the public. It had not been as of Monday afternoon although the city posted general information .
“And if by chance we should see a tortoise there,” Ferris asked, why would that happen?
It’s possible, Engle said, that tortoises are living in the 22 acres of preserves that ring the site.
“We’ve only removed the ones that lived in the areas that we were disturbing,” he said. “The ones that existed (within) the existing preserves, we have not touched them.”
Tortoises typically forage within 160 feet of their burrow, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said on its .
Their habitat “contains well-drained sandy soils for digging burrows and nesting, abundant herbaceous plants for forage and open, sunny areas with sparse canopy for nesting and basking,” the FWC website says.
The park, once contemplated for a major-league baseball spring training stadium, is on 117th Court North across from Timber Trace Elementary School and Watson B. Duncan Middle School.
So, Ferris asked, is the city in compliance with FWC rules?
Yes, Engle said. Since the clear-cutting began, the FWC came out and reviewed the city’s records and were “satisfied,” he said.
No records confirming the city’s account were immediately available on Monday from either the city or the FWC.
“So have we been good stewards of the gopher tortoise to the best of our ability and gone through all the process?” Ferris asked.
“Yes,” Engle said, “And met the requirements of the FWC as well.”
