BELLEAIR BLUFFS -- The long heralded Belleair bridge and causeway, subjected to fits and starts over the past 10 years, is nearing what appears to be a real and true beginning.
Commissioner John Hayes reported to the Belleair Shore Town Commission at its meeting last Wednesday, based on his attendance at a recent briefing, that construction will begin by April.
Hayes said that according to Tony Hornick, a county engineer who has been associated with the project going back to 1997, E.C. Driver and Associates has been chosen as the consulting engineer firm and that a contract has been let to Johnson Brothers in a joint venture with Meisner Marine.
There will be a pre-construction meeting January 29 that will bring together officials involved in the project as well as representatives from Belleair Shore, Belleair Beach and Belleair Bluffs the cities closest to the bridge and causeway.
Construction time is estimated at two and a half years with three years as an outside time which would put completion time ideally around the fall of 2009 and no later than the spring of 2010.
Under original plans outlined a decade ago, the bridge, which will be high rise and eliminate the need for opening for vessel passage on the Intracoastal Waterway, would have been completed several years ago.
Then there were money problems, apparently, and everything went back to square one. Rep. Bill Young let some dollars flow from Washington and plans picked up speed again. Maybe it is really going to happen now.
In other business, the commission took a wait and see position on the police situation. Belleair Beach provides police service under contract, but that city's police department may go by the way if voters in Belleair Beach approve its abolishment.
Should that happen, Belleair Shore will get police service from the Sheriff's Office, according to Mayor John Robertson.
Robertson said the Pinellas Suncoast Fire and Rescue Department will seek approval of two ideas in referenda in the March 13 election.
One would raise the annual fee from $190 to $260 per household and the other would authorize an increase in the department's budget each year equal to the cost of living index.
The commission spent some time instituting new procedures with the advent of Bonnie Dhonau, the new clerk/treasurer. She succeeds the retiring Lorraine Blankenship.
There will be no meeting in February, with the next commission meeting set March 14. There will probably be some wearing of the green in advance of St. Patrick's Day.