The Salt Line, Vol. 125: Dear Salt Line, Who Is the Bridge Toll Really For?
Dear Salt Line, a reader writes, in a letter I have invented because the alternative was reading my actual mail, my condo board says the gate code is a “permanent security measure.” It changed twice last week. Is anything permanent?
Dear Gated, one thing is evidently not. Escambia County has temporarily suspended the Bob Sikes Bridge toll onto Pensacola Beach, in an effort to support the community during the storm recovery.
Look at what that sentence concedes. For as long as anyone can remember, the toll has been described in the language of weather: it is simply there, like the tide, like June grass, like the 3 o’clock radar check. Pay it, grumble, move on. Then a hurricane arrives, and a county commission discovers it can switch the thing off by deciding to. The summary says only that the suspension is temporary. It names no end date, and I will not supply one.
I do not say this to scold anyone. Suspending the toll is a decent thing to do for a barrier island whose residents, workers and contractors are trying to get on and off it with chainsaws and groceries. The point is narrower. A fee that can be paused for a good reason can be examined for a good reason, and a good reason does not have to wait for a disaster. Every visitor who has ever sat in that line wondering what the money is for has been asking a fair question. The county is now running a live experiment in what a toll-free bridge looks like, and it would be a shame not to read the results.
I would like the commission to say, in plain English, what the toll pays for, what it costs to collect, and what the suspension showed. Public bodies are generally happiest explaining themselves when they are being thanked, and this is that moment. The Alabama side has its own bridge arguments, and I will get to them when someone suspends something.
Meanwhile, Gated, your gate code is permanent in the sense that all things are permanent until the board holds a second vote.
Dear Salt Line, writes another invented reader, my water utility’s boss just quit. Should I read anything into that?
An executive departure, without commentary
Emerald Coast Utilities Authority Executive Director Jason Yarborough resigned Friday during a special board meeting. The report gives the facts of the resignation and I have no others, so I will draw no conclusion about why. What I will observe is that a special meeting is a particular kind of meeting. Nobody convenes one to approve the minutes. Whatever was said in that room, the useful thing for ratepayers now is the ordinary, unglamorous question: who is running the water now, and where will we hear about it? A utility is the one organization whose best day is a day you never think about it. The board’s job is to make the next one of those arrive on schedule.
Dear Salt Line, writes a third, the Shrimp Festival got canceled. How sad should I be, and for whom?
The cost of a festival that did not happen
Organizers say the financial loss from the canceled Shrimp Festival cannot be calculated, as storm impacts weigh on regional tourism in Gulf Shores. I find that an unusually honest sentence. Most events can tell you their economic impact to the dollar, in a press release, a week after the fact, with a decimal point. A cancellation has no such luxury. Every vendor who bought stock and every business that planned around the weekend knows a number, and no two of them are the same number. If you want to help, you do not need a spreadsheet. You need to eat dinner in Gulf Shores and Orange Beach this month, at places that are open, and tip like someone who knows what the calendar looked like.
The Closer
Today’s mail suggests a coast learning which of its fixtures were always choices: a toll, a gate code, a festival date. The ones that were choices can be made again, and whether anyone writes down the reasons this time is entirely up to us.
— Chris
P.S. Know a restaurant, charter, shop, or event we’re missing? Add it — free, Florida side or Alabama side: /submit/
