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Possible toll increase on bridge board agenda

Toll increases, south bridge plans and the new toll system will be three of the issues discussed at the meeting of the Gasparilla Island Bridge Authority slated for Wednesday, Nov. 18.

According to Jim Cooper, GIBA’s executive director, his bridge team is getting ready to introduce the new toll system sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

While some parts for the new toll system took longer to get than anticipated, Cooper said the transition will probably take place in the early part of December.

“We’re working hard to get it done,” Cooper said. “I can’t say exactly what date we will be fully operational. For a while we will operate both systems at the same time. We won’t unplug the old one until we have a confidence level of 100 percent that everything works perfectly, all day and all night, to our expectations.”

After installing much of the underground networking that makes up the system, now it is up to technicians to fine-tune the electronics above ground.

The possibility of a toll increase to pay for the new bridges will also be discussed at the upcoming meeting. The board has flirted with the idea through the last few meetings, and at the August finance meeting, GIBA Chairman David Rohrer suggested that temporarily raising tolls might be an option. With revenue generation of $1 million a year above operating costs through current tolls, and a potential loan amount that could exceed a $3 million a year payback, he said raising the toll by $2 could “accumulate more cash,” which would mean borrowing less.

Cooper said the board will also discuss a Request for Proposal on the south bridge, which some board members feel has become a very important issue.

At the last quarterly meeting, board member Jerry Lusk asked the board if they were willing to “accept responsibility for something that needs critical replacement,” in reference to the rapid erosion and scour damage that has taken place on the south bridge pilings.

GIBA voted to hire a financial advisor firm, First Southwest Company, to oversee the project’s spending, but Rohrer said that a more solid financial background to fund the bridge replacement was needed before they could proceed with engineering details.

Thor Johnson, the board member that heads the engineering committee, disagreed. He had just begun a detailed report of the engineering committee’s findings as far as lane widths and bridge heights and asked the board to pass a motion to accept the proposals into the bridge design Request For Proposal.

Rohrer said he was not comfortable with making any decisions on RFP’s that day. When Johnson said because the board needed to discuss an RFP to find out how much the replacement project would cost, Rohrer said that will be premature.

Cooper said he will discuss those RFP’s at the November 18 meeting, as well as the fact that one person has applied for the vacant seat on the GIBA advisory board. Island resident Julius Frager has thrown his hat into the ring.

He also said that the meeting’s agenda will also include the end of the fiscal year report.

The meeting will take place at 9 a.m. in the Woman’s Club Room of the Boca Grande Community Center.