Joel EngelhardtPalm Beach Gardens city manager says he delayed work to notify neighbors.
Whether Palm Beach Gardens bulldozed a wooded section of a regional park in violation of state rules to protect endangered gopher tortoises drew a blunt response Thursday from City Manager Ron Ferris.
“To our knowledge we have not harmed a nest or turtle,” Ferris told the City Council.
To critics, he added, “If any of you have evidence that the nest or turtles were harmed I’d kind of like to see that.”
The city violated Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission regulations when it relied on an out-of-date gopher tortoise survey to clear 15 acres on the western edge of the Gardens North County District Park in August, city resident Madelyn Zaron told the council (at 42:50 mark).
Ferris accepted blame for violating the rule, saying he ordered staff to hold back the bulldozers until the city’s parks director notified four nearby homeowner associations.
“I said you can’t clear the land until we have an opportunity to notify the people in the communities around there,” Ferris told the council.
Aiming the next line at critics, he said: “So you can blame me, which you already have, for that delay in the permit.”
The city has set aside $18 million to build a fieldhouse on the site, which is at Central Boulevard and 117th Court North, after years of failed efforts to get private investors to pay for the project.
Consultants for the city examined the site on Feb. 28 and submitted a report on March 22 saying no gopher tortoises were present. Construction began in August.
“If site construction does not commence within 90 days from the date of the most recent gopher tortoise survey,” FWC rules say, “a new gopher tortoise burrow survey must be completed to ensure gopher tortoises have not moved in.”
After a neighbor complained about the work in early August, the city said the FWC cleared work to continue, apparently with no reference to the 90-day rule.
FWC spokesperson Arielle Callender, after promising to respond promptly to a reporter’s queries, ducked all calls and emails for the past two weeks. On Monday, her agency provided documents that confirmed an FWC officer went to the site at 1:36 pm on Aug. 5 and left at 3:20 pm.
The city submitted its March 22 gopher tortoise survey by email at 7:18 that night. FWC did not provide a written report of its officer’s findings.
The four neighborhoods — Bent Tree, Old Palm, Shady Lakes and Garden Lakes — were contacted by July 1, the parks director wrote in an email shown at the City Council meeting. The $81,000 construction job was awarded on July 12, city documents show.
Still, many neighbors had no idea why workers were clearing the woods. The city didn’t post a sign on the site until the trees were gone in early September.
“Just went on a walk and the woods on 117th CT N near the soccer fields have been completely cleared and you can no longer walk the trail,” Bent Tree resident Farrah Gauthier posted Aug. 10 on Facebook. “Does anyone know what development project is happening?”
Ferris also said he is to blame for the city’s failure to pull a building permit for the job.
“Our city engineer, by the way, is the person who approves the permit. … So, I find it kind of nonsensical to think that he would write himself a permit that he would turn around and sign himself,” the veteran city manager said.
Gopher tortoises present in 2018
While the city released some documents without charge, the Sierra Club Loxahatchee Group paid $404 for a more extensive search that produced documents dating to 2018, when the city removed six adult and three juvenile gopher tortoises from an eastern portion of the 82-acre park.
A 2018 map showed more than a dozen active gopher tortoise burrows on the eastern side and dozens more inactive and abandoned burrows. The survey did not extend to the western side of the park.
While the county owns the land, the city signed a lease in 2018 to develop a park and operate it. To meet its commitment to the county, the city twice selected private partners to build an indoor recreational facility on the park’s westernmost 15 acres.
The first private partner, the nonprofit Palm Beach North Athletic Foundation, pitched two ice rinks with six multi-sport courts, five multipurpose rooms, squash courts, a jogging track and a restaurant in 2019 but the city terminated the deal in 2022, saying the foundation had not met financial thresholds.
The ice rink proposal, sans fieldhouse, has since shifted to Plant Drive Park, drawing vigorous opposition from neighbors.
The city ended negotiations in January for a fieldhouse in the district park off of Central Boulevard with a second private partner, Mammoth Sports Construction.
Although the matter never came up for public discussion, the city began moving forward without a private partner. The current year budget included $7.5 million in capital spending toward a fieldhouse and $2.5 million from a city bond issue, city documents reveal.
The budget approved Sept. 5 included an additional $8 million, bringing the total set aside for the project to $18 million. The council did not ask for any details about the fieldhouse, which has not yet been designed.
Ferris told the council he waited until the Sept. 5 budget approval before placing signs on the site showing a rendering of the fieldhouse.
‘It’s a closed system’
In February, the city moved forward with plans for the fieldhouse by hiring RES Florida Consulting to check the site for gopher tortoises. Two RES gopher tortoise agents traversed the site on Feb. 28.
Their $7,000 report found no gopher tortoises. RES identified three abandoned burrows and concluded that the site “is not suitable habitat for gopher tortoises.”
The city, the report said, could clear the site without seeking an FWC permit.
Their report does not mention that the survey is good for just 90 days, meaning it would have expired in June.
FWC also recommends installing a silt fence to keep tortoises from returning during construction. The city did not take that step.
While it’s easy to miss a burrow and gophers often are forced to live in habitat that is not ideal, the three burrows identified in the city survey look more like armadillo burrows, said Chase Pirtle, habitat manager at Ashton Biological Preserve in Newberry.
But even if gopher tortoises were living in the area, they were unlikely to thrive, Pirtle said.
“It’s a closed system,” he said, referring to how the site is ringed by Interstate 95, a canal, a golf course and two paved roads. “If there were gophers there it’s a matter of time before they die out anyways or they’re inbred.”
If any remain in the area, their best chance would be removal, he said.
While there is no guarantee that a second inspection would have turned up the threatened species, at least two park visitors said they saw tortoises in the construction zone.
Paul Cameron, a resident of the neighboring Bent Tree community, said he routinely saw gopher tortoises in the cleared section of the park until construction. He provided photos taken in mid-July but the photos did not specify his location.
Gauthier, the Bent Tree resident who posted about the construction in August, later posted that she had seen a gopher tortoise on the site. In an interview, she said that encounter had been about a year ago.
In 2021, the city posted a picture of a gopher tortoise along the park’s nature trail on its Instagram page.
Cameron, who also said he saw bald eagles on the site, called the FWC in early August, prompting the site visit.
He said he watched the FWC official wait for hours before two city officials arrived with paperwork, which the FWC official reviewed before leaving. He said he did not see the FWC officer inspect the site.
“If they had notified the public, they might have been able to get a stay of execution. Or at least helped them find the gopher tortoises,” Cameron said.
Drew Martin, Sierra Club Loxahatchee Group conservation chair, said the series of events exposes the city’s priorities and raises questions about its motivation.
“I’m suspicious that they (the city consultants) didn’t really want to find them (the tortoises) because it would have made the city unhappy. If the city really cared about gopher tortoises they would not have bulldozed the area,” Martin said. “We don’t support the city’s actions and we don’t support the county letting the city have land and allowing it to be misused.”
Learn more, video: ”Gopher Games: The Fight to Save the Heart of Florida”
