The man who battled against the City of Riviera Beach for years, first over his floating home then to get his address, is in yet another legal battle.
This time the lawsuit is over a public beach access across from his Singer Island property.
Fane Lozman argued Riviera Beach has not maintained the beach access to the point where its impassible, and he claims the city has a legal responsibility to do so.
And Instead of just repairing the beach access, Riviera Beach decided to fight Lozman again.
"You have large trees that completely block the five foot easement," said Lozman.
He claims the city won’t fix it up, even though Lozman says there is a 30-year-old court order that says the city of Riviera Beach is responsible for maintaining the easement.
Lozman is taking the issue to court, hoping he can get the beach access back in shape.
“I’m just asking the judge to enforce a prior court order," said Lozman.
However, the city is putting up a fight.
“The word restoration or rebuild is not in there. It says responsible,” said Rick Jarolem, the attorney representing Riviera Beach during the hearing.
After the hearing, Jarolem said this is a question of municipal powers.
"What this would do, it would specifically allocate budgetary reasons and moneys for that which the city may or may not have in its budget to do.”
Lozman says he doesn’t believe it’s about the cost to rebuild.
“It’s just an on-going retaliatory battle I’ve had with them for 10 years,” said Fane.
Lozman says if the judge rules against him, it could open up new problems. Lozman says without the public easement that beach becomes private. He says the county is currently using public dollars to re-nourish that beach.
“You can’t take public dollars and re-nourish a private beach that we don’t have access to.”
The judge has not ruled on the issue yet.
