Town of Jupiter Island

COMMISSION MEETING APRIL 17, 2024

The commission once again tackled the role boards play in the town approval process.

They had a workshop especially to elicit suggestions from board members, and it was sparsely attended. It appears that while Commissioner Scott would want to make all the boards advisory, the workshop revealed there is not much support for doing so. Commissioner Warner stated that the current system has worked for a long time. While nothing is perfect, things are functioning.

Vice-Mayor Fields stated that the citizens are not ready to invest final say in the commission. Mayor Townsend believes that there is no support either.

There is support for the commission to have the ability to hear appeals de novo which means the commission can hear new evidence in a case besides just relying on the existing record. If an applicant feels the boards have denied an application unjustly and there is new evidence to prove that then the commission as the appellant body can hear it.   

While that sounds great, applicants usually appeal decisions when they didn’t receive what they wanted. The commission, especially Scott, believes that the boards are giving too much away to applicants. Will the commission not just hear appeals but decide to intervene and change decisions of boards without applicants asking? This will work if intervenors are involved and ask for an appeal of a decision. Otherwise nothing has changed.

Scott is right when she says that other commissions and councils in the state are the final arbiters. Jupiter Island does It differently. When there was less dissension, their system worked fine. Maybe it still does. But the other commissioners should at least give the hard charging Scott an opportunity next year to bring her idea back.

During “Coffee with the Commissioner,” the town manager specifically mentioned our publication and what was written regarding the town being inhospitable to outsiders. If you want to close the county’s beach at night, that is the way I see it…and so would the people of Hobe Sound.

Chief Ewing gave the following stats for 2023 at the beach: 51 calls for service 20 of which occurred between 7 pm to 7 am. From 10 pm to 5:00 am (apparently when the beach would be closed), there were 11. Calls for service doesn’t mean a crime was committed. If there were any arrests, they weren’t recorded in these statistics.

In “friendly to strangers” Jupiter Island, there were 79 traffic stops where the cars pulled over get off the road at the beach parking lot. That had nothing to do with the beach. If you are coming over the bridge and speeding or are suspicious (like in a 2010 Mazda) and stopped, then the chief said most pull into the beach parking lot or town hall.

Public Safety did 447 additional patrols. Manager Garlo said that the heavy presence keeps things tamped down. Does that mean in friendly Jupiter Island they warmly embrace the citizens of Hobe Sound by asking after their safety? It doesn’t look that way to me. You can see the statistics here 

Should the beach be closed at night? There is an argument to be made for doing that. But only if it is county-wide policy. It isn’t fair to close the Hobe Sound Beach on Jupiter Island, and about 20 miles away leave the others open. If the county commission wants to re-examine the question that would be fine as long as all the beaches will have the same hours.

South County has only this tiny beach to call its own. And I know friendly Jupiter Island with its additional patrols and car stops are just keeping strangers and residents safe from the perils of mayhem. Yet using their own statistics, there doesn’t seem to be much of a problem.