New LSPOA Board of Directors: Class of 2016 Tackles Beach Erosion and Purchases New Benches

LSPOA Board of Directors Howard Rooks, Mary Lee Bischoff, Lynn Carvel, Bob Lifeso, Ricardo Arguedas, Ken Abt
Not pictured: Elliott Himelfarb, Gail Barzman, Phil Fuoco, Carol Bowen

On Monday, the first day of February, members of the Lido Shores Class of 2016 got down to business. New Lido Shores Property Owner Association President Bob Lifeso hosted the first Board of Directors meeting of the year. Beach erosion and a renewed initiative to bury neighborhood power lines topped the inaugural agenda.

February 1st LSPOA Board meeting at Lifeso's Morningside Drive home

Former Board Treasurer Diane Desenberg was appointed to head a newly formed Beach Erosion Committee. Other members appointed include longtime resident and former Beach Committee Chair Ken McMillen, member Richard LaBrie, current Treasurer Elliott Himelfarb and former LSPOA President Bob Thill. Beach monitoring and surveying began in ernest last August. The new committee will study the effects that New Pass dredging and mother nature have on our beach area, and present to the Board suggestions and ideas to protect our valuable beach asset.

The day after a January storm and high tides ravished North Lido Beach

Last month's storm wreaked havoc on our North Lido Key beach area, reclaiming several feet of sand from the dunes protecting our LSPOA Pavilion. Resulting high tides, for the second time in less than a year, washed away our pair of beach benches.

Only one was found this time. It had floated away and came to rest at Marine Max in New Pass, a little battered but still serviceable. After some repairs, the well traveled bench will reside, for now, near the foot wash area, well removed from the Gulf's reach, if not exactly well positioned for sunset watching.

New home near foot wash for wayward beach bench

But sunset watching and beach benches have long gone hand in hand in Lido Shores. Larry Reinebach immediately went to work researching replacement benches (the last two-were purchased in 2008) and sent his findings to the Board. Almost as swiftly, the Board voted to buy two- new replacement benches. Just like the old ones, they'll be engraved LSPOA PROPERTY.

After shipping and hardware expense, the two, six-foot long plastic lumber benches will cost LSPOA a total of $1,300. They'll again be anchored to concrete slabs, this time with a stainless steel chain. We'll be closely watching to see if we can fool mother nature. As well as watching the sunsets from a front row seat again, of course.

Bench after recovered from New Pass

Burying Lido Shores power lines was also discussed at the Board of Directors meeting. The issue has been debated by Lido Shorians numerous times over the years. A recently approved referendum in November, 2015 by Longboat Key voters to eliminate Gulf of Mexico Drive power poles and bury lines, along with the upcoming vote to put all Longboat power lines underground, seems to have sparked renewed subterranean interest in our neighborhood.

Howard Rooks, Andrew Vac and Bob Lifeso will head up a Power Line Committee to study the feasibility of doing the same in Lido Shores. They'll first look into the current FPL electric sources to the island, and how it's delivered. Then determine a cost per household and how to equitably pay for the project. Safety, reliability and aesthetics were reasons given for the study.

~BT
bthill@icloud.com

Janet Minker's "artist" rendering of LSPOA bench floating under New Pass bridge

New Board member Gail Barzman