REDINGTON BEACH — Commissioners here made a swift change of course May 19 over its decision to stop cleaning the beach, an action prompted by complaints and perceived threats of
REDINGTON BEACH â Town staff will no longer clean the beach here after several residents complained the raking machinery was intruding on their properties.
Commissioners appeared puzzled about the complaints but agreed to end the beach raking after legal staff said some of the homeowners were threatening to sue the town.
âAs far back as I can remember weâve been raking the beach,â said Mayor Dave Will after Town Attorney Robert Eschenfelder said that no formal action had ever been taken by the commission regarding beach raking.
He recommended the town end raking as the âbetter, safer legal course of action.â
Redington Beach, Fla. (Image by Keirstin Proud from Pixabay via Courthouse News)
(CN) The town of Redington Beach is fighting to overturn a federal judge’s ruling that it claims jeopardizes local governments’ ability to safeguard public use of Sunshine State beaches.
In a Wednesday hearing before a three-judge panel for the 11th Circuit, the Florida town argued the ruling improperly axed an ordinance which protected public use of beaches regardless of private property lines in the sand.
Under the ordinance, beachgoers were allowed to freely walk and sunbathe on beaches across the barrier island town, save for a 15-foot buffer zone near private residences.
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Fla. Town Fights To Revive Beach Public Use Ordinance
Law360 (April 21, 2021, 4:33 PM EDT) A Florida town asked the Eleventh Circuit on Wednesday to overturn a ruling invalidating an ordinance that allowed for public use of the town s beaches, arguing that the lower court got it wrong when it deemed the ordinance an unconstitutional taking of beachfront homeowners property.
In oral argument held remotely before an Eleventh Circuit panel, Redington Beach s attorney Robert Eschenfelder said the ordinance, passed in June 2018, created no new public land rights and simply enshrined in law what had been done in practice for years, namely the recreational use by town residents of the beach.