INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — County Commissioners Tuesday voted 4-1 against approving a private-public partnership with the Pelican Island Audubon Society to rehabilitate the Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area.
“It’s a disappointment,” said Juanita Baker, a member of the organization, that the commissioners would not support protecting the preserve. Commissioners cited concerns that leasing land to the Pelican Island Audubon Society would in some way diminish the organization’s ability to advocate on the behalf of nature.
The argument did not hold water for Baker, who said after the vote that even as the organization was working on the lease for the land, it was fighting the county over the Oslo Road boat dock.
“It’s not anything personal,” she said.
Commission Chair Peter O’Bryan, a former member of the Pelican Island Audubon Society’s board, said that the request from the organization “has been a very difficult issue for me for a lot of reasons.”
While he said he fully supports what the organization was trying to do, he felt it in the group’s best interest to deny the request.
“It’s kind of like having a child and punishing that child,” O’Bryan said. “You know, it hurts. But you’re doing it for the good of the child. And I see not allowing this to go forward – it may hurt. It might be like punishment to the child, but I think it’s for your own good.”
Two members of the Pelican Island Audubon Society spoke in opposition to their organization’s lease request.
Melissa and Jens Tripson told commissioners they were concerned about the affect the lease would have on their group’s ability to speak out against county projects the Pelican Island Audubon Society deemed ill advised.
“My gut feeling is that if we enter into this lease agreement on county-state lands we will be constantly having the shadow of elected officials at the county level and the state level…when we oppose a county or state project,” Jens Tripson said.
Melissa Tripson added that she was also concerned that the organization was planning to staff the facility with volunteers only. In talking with other nature centers around the state, Tripson said she learned it is difficult to fully rely on volunteers.
While the Pelican Island Audubon Society’s main mission is to the advocate for preservation and conservation, the organization also promotes environment education. It did just that in establishing the precursor to the Environmental Learning Center on Wabasso Island.
The organization spun off a non-profit organization that was tasked with running the ELC and raising funds, allowing the Pelican Island Audubon Society to focus on its advocacy role.
O’Bryan told the organization that he would support a lease with similar spin-off non-profit provided the Pelican Island Audubon Society refrained from using the facility for its own purposes.
Baker said after the vote that the Pelican Island Audubon Society is a non-profit, a 501(c)3 organization.
“It’s not a new thing,” she said of such Audubon groups having environmental centers for education and volunteer training as her group had suggested with Audubon House.
The organization had planned to build a center on a burned out citrus grove that would have been used to house a classroom for volunteer training and educational workshops, teaching those interested how to maintain and rehabilitate the preserve.
There would have been an office for the volunteers staffing the Audubon House and an office for the Pelican Island Audubon Society, along with a covered pavilion for picnickers.
“They can’t let it lie fallow,” Baker said of the preserve, explaining that someone has to maintain it in order to keep the invasive plants from killing off the natives.
Commissioner Gary Wheeler was the lone supporter on the commission for the lease agreement with the Pelican Island Audubon Society.
“I really feel this is an opportunity we should take advantage of,” he said. His motion to approve the lease agreement died without a vote.
As part of the lease agreement, the county would have spent a maximum of $90,000 for the parking area and a boardwalk on the site. The boardwalk and picnic pavilion would have satisfied the county’s obligations to the Department of Community Affairs for attaining the property.
