- November 19, 2024
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Frank Gromling’s love of the ocean began young. “I think it was when I got thrown in the ocean at 4 years old by my brother, and he told me “Swim! Swim, or die!” he said. “I’ve always had a connection with the ocean. I’m a sailor; I’m a kayaker.
The move to South Florida after the Air Force, and then in 2000 to Beverly Beach, where Gromling had bought land in 1993, came naturally, as did a desire to preserve the coastal ecosystem.
But the idea of running for commission didn’t. At least, not at first. One of Gromling’s first interactions with the local government didn’t go well.
“When we were building the house, we had to pull a permit with the town, and because we were building east of the Coastal Construction Line, we had to get state approval,” he said. “We got town approval, got state approval, and then the town wouldn’t issue the permit.”
Resolving the issue took about four months and the threat of a lawsuit, “and my wife said at that time, if you ever think of running for office, I’ll divorce you,” he said. “So I laughed and thought, ‘Well I’m not about to run for election here!’”
But later, in 2008, Gromling said, “I really wanted to see some things accomplished that weren’t being accomplished. And that was along the lines of preservation of the dune system. Because without the dune, there isn’t much of a town.”
He talked to his wife, Bibi Gromling.
“My objective was to contribute as part of the solution rather than just someone who’s making suggestions,” he said. “And the way I saw to do that was to become part of the infrastructure.”
She agreed, and he ran, uncontested and with her blessing.
After Gromling was elected, he started working on conservation issues. The town, with only about 525 people “on a good day in the winter,” including snowbirds, didn’t have a large budget — a bit more than $200,000, he said. But it had spectacular ocean scenery, and Gromling wanted to help preserve it.
“The town didn’t have really effective controls on construction,” he said. “It needed more town management of those ordinances, so I thought that perhaps I could lend that. One way was to make sure any construction in the town was done an organized manner and met town ordinances. And second was protecting the dune.”
One of the first results of Gromling’s work was tangible and still visible today: a sand fence that runs along the southern part of the dune system where there aren’t any houses, and helps trap sand to protect the dune.
“It has proven to be a good decision by the town,” Gromling said. “The vegetation has grown on both sides,” as the fence has caused blowing seeds to drop so plants could take root. The fence also kept people from traipsing across the dune, a problem in previous years.
There were other dune projects, too.
The commission brought in kids from Pathways Academy to plant prickly pear cactus and other natural vegetation on the dune, and in 2012 the town planted 750 sea oats, provided by a University of Florida professor, with Matanzas High School teacher Wendy Vidor’s environmental science students.
“We found what I call ‘naked places’ to fill in” on the dune, he said. “Then there was the whole issue of how to get water. I arranged with the Flagler Beach Fire Department to come out with their brush truck, so two firemen and four truckloads of water provided the initial freshwater treatment of the plants.”
About 75% of those plants survived, he said, and developed to maturity. “The importance of sea oats is that they have very long roots, so they’re stabilizers,” he said. “That was one of the most fun projects we did, because it integrated the kids from two schools, and it gave those kids an opportunity to see first hand what the problem was.”
This past year, he said, Vidor brought another busload of kids out to check on the plants.
But one of the toughest issues Gromling worked on was water and fire.
“I think the most difficult one to convince people of was the ban on bonfires on the beach, interestingly enough,” he said.
Most coastal Florida communities ban bonfires on the beach during sea turtle nesting season, so the light doesn’t disorient hatchlings. But Beverly Beach didn’t.
“That was an emotional issue that goes right along with beach driving, goes right along with the old way of doing things in Florida,” he said. “And I tried to take the emotion out of that issue, and tried to deal with the fact that practically every other community in Florida had banned bonfires, including Flagler Beach. And I felt that if we didn’t in our 1.1 miles of coastline, we’d face a potential legal issue” because the turtles are protected under the Endangered Species Act.
“Beverly Beach doesn’t have the financial wherewithal to defend itself in a potential lawsuit that someone might bring because turtles or hatchlings were harmed by virtue of a bonfire,” he said.
When Gromling first raised the issue, in 2012, his motion was denied for lack of a second.
The next year, with a new commission, it was approved.
“They were more conservation minded,” he said. “It wasn’t me so much, as it was time — and a new commission saw that it was time.”
Gromling decided not to run for commission again this year, he said, largely because he believes in term limits and feels he’s served long enough.
And he feels good about the commission, which, he said, takes its job of serving the community seriously.
“I feel good about not being on the commission now. The people on it are really responsible, intelligent individuals.”
Gromling feels his greatest accomplishment in his years on the commission is one less tangible than the sea oats or the bonfire ban.
“I was able to create a greater appreciation and knowledge of the nature that we have here,” including right whales and sea turtles, he said. “This county is so blessed with incredible nature. There such a diversity of nature here, and it just demands to be protected.”
