City vacates old Daniel Drive easement
BY VICI PAPAJOHN Gulf Breeze News vici@gulfbreezenews.com

The graphic above depicts the easement vacated by the City of Gulf Breeze.

The Gulf Breeze City Council approved vacating areas to the east and west of Daniel Drive formerly qualified as an easement.

"This road will have to be straightened out and improved once the shopping center is completed," said Gulf Breeze Mayor Lane Gilchrist. "It is just space that was slated for easement that has never been used as such and will better help the shopping center. The city has no ownership interest in it."

The Beacon gas station that once occupied the spot filled the space, and the city had neither used nor considered ownership of the space.

"We have all the space we need for the road improvements, street lights, utilities, sidewalks that are planned for that road," explained City Manager Edwin "Buz" Eddy. "This is just a formality. It is easier just to vacate it than to dispute and prove ownership and assert city ownership and interest in it. We have no municipal need for it."

The Daniel Drive extension improvements scheduled for 2008 include measures to improve storm water drainage. Currently the road floods behind football field.

"Right now it looks like we are going to try to take advantage of the retention area at end of Daniel where it meets Andrew Jackson," Eddy explains. "There is a retention pond there that never fills and the storm water from the floodprone areas could be routed there, accommodating drainage of the football field and field house. Perforated pipes could connect the area where the flooding exists with the pond. Perforated pipes are not just a conduit, the pipe itself distributes water into the soil around it as it flows toward the retention area."

Eddy says the school board is aware of the drainage issues.

"Any time we add on to a facility, we look at the total package," assures Johnny Rogers, Superintendent, Santa Rosa County Schools. "We are making considerable upgrades to the Field House and will be looking at drainage of the parking lot and field house as well."