The county closes the Doug Crane Boat Ramp on Monday, and the parking lot closes with it.

The ramp is at 1039 Shore Drive in St. Augustine. The county’s public affairs office sent the notice out at twenty to noon on Thursday and put the closure at around six weeks for maintenance dredging. All parts of the site go off limits, the release says. The parking lot included. After the ramp reopens, work carries on in the staging area without reaching the ramp or the water.

The release gives no date for the reopening. The county has one, and it gave it to its own board on Oct. 6.

“Whitehurst requested an update on the Douglas C. Crane Boat Ramp construction project. Ryan Kane, Parks and Recreation Director, provided an accessibility project update, including the scheduled closure for maintenance beginning October 22, 2026, with completion anticipated by December 6, 2026.”

Those are two dates the release does not carry, and one of them has already gone by. The Parks and Recreation director told the board the closure began Oct. 22. The release that went out on Oct. 22 puts it on Oct. 26, four days later. Six weeks from Oct. 26 lands on Dec. 7, so the duration in the release and the date in the minutes point at the same week, and anticipated by December 6 is the version a reader can hold the county to.

What the dredging costs, and which pots it came out of

The board authorized the work on July 21. Resolution No. 2026-231 put Task Order No. 01 to In Depth, Inc. for the Doug Crane Boat Ramp and Channel Dredging project at an amount not to exceed $609,850, under the countywide dredging contract. The release names no contractor. The resolution does. It carried 5 to 0 on the consent agenda, on a motion by Joseph seconded by Taylor, with no deletions from consent recorded that morning. The authorization runs through Master Contract No. 26-MCC-IND-22614 under RFP No. 2254, Countywide Dredging Services, which makes the July vote Task Order No. 01 against a master contract the county already held rather than a new award of its own.

The same resolution moved $109,850 out of Tourist Development Tax Fund Category III Reserves and $250,000 out of a General Fund grant appropriation into the Tourist Development Fund for the project. Bed tax money, and grant money. The resolution does not say which of the two transfers is the grant.

The release says funding was split between a FIND Grant and County funds. It puts no figure on either half and does not spell out FIND, which is the Florida Inland Navigation District, the special state taxing district that pays for dredging, ramps and seawalls along this coast. The resolution does not name the District anywhere in it.

The only published copy of Dec. 6 sits inside a consent item

The Oct. 6 minutes are not posted as minutes. The Clerk’s board records page lists agendas and minutes as files named for the meeting date, and its newest set of minutes for a regular board meeting is Sept. 15.

What exists is the draft, which reached the board on Oct. 20 as backup to consent item 20, a motion to approve minutes. That agenda is seven pages and carries 37 links to item backup. The Dec. 6 date is on page 12 of the 32-page file behind one of them.

Nothing about that is unusual and nothing about it is concealed. But a boat owner who wants to know when the ramp opens again has exactly one published answer, and it sits several clicks deep inside an agenda.

The same Oct. 20 agenda asked the board to take $500,000 in unanticipated revenue from the St. Augustine Port, Waterway and Beach District for repair and stabilization at the Vilano boat ramp. That item is money and not a closure. Whether it passed is in minutes the county has not published.

Dec. 6 is a Sunday. The ramp is at 1039 Shore Drive, and the gate across the parking lot is the part to look at first. Anybody who tows a boat down there on Monday will find the lot shut before they find the water, because the release puts the whole site off limits and not the ramp alone.