Staff Reports
One of the bidders in Tampa Bay’s efforts to ease traffic — the Cross-Bay Ferry — is heading to court to keep its finances out of the public eye, calling them “trade secrets.”
In 2016, the City of St. Petersburg launched the Cross-Bay Ferry, a seasonal program that would shuttle passengers between St. Petersburg and Tampa.
While HMS Ferries, based in New Albany, Indiana, ultimately won the bid to operate the project, one of the competing bidders was SeaStreak of New Jersey.
Though the service did not run during the 2017-18 season, St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman vows the ferry will return for the 2018-19 season. In March, the Tampa Bay Business Journal reported that the City of St. Petersburg issued a request for proposal to resume the Ferry.
Two companies — original operator HMS Ferries and SeaStreak — are competing for the contract. SeaStreak also operates passenger ferry services in the New York metropolitan area, including Manhattan, central New Jersey, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.
In April, after an unidentified party filed a public-records request, SeaStreak representatives told city officials that two “confidential” documents included in its bid package were exempt from Florida’s public records laws.
According to the company, the documents — consolidated financial statements, and a projection of future revenues, expenses and profits — were exempt from disclosure because they “reflect[ed] its business model.”
SeaStreak is now taking its argument to court.
On April 18, the company filed a suit in Pinellas County Circuit Court requesting both a hearing and subsequent order banning the City of St. Petersburg from releasing the two documents.
“The Exempt Documents are confidential and proprietary financial information of SeaStreak comprising trade secrets under Florida law provided to the City as a requirement of a competitive solicitation process, and therefore should not be disclosed by the City in response to a Public Records Request,” the suit says.
