Residents and lawmakers in Englewood are pushing both county and state officials to do more to tackle an ongoing problem- abandoned and derelict boats.
Paul Bigness, a member of the Charlotte County Marine Advisory Committee, told the Englewood Sun that there are two dozen such boats in Charlotte County, nearly half of them of them in Englewood.
A 2017 change in the state’s derelict boat law calls for boat owners to have an administrative hearing before the state can take possession of the vessels.
The problem seems to be that no one knows who is supposed to hold the hearing. In the meantime, officials say the number of derelict boats continues to increase.