INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Though the five County Commissioners aren’t yet clear on a legal strategy for avoiding the negative impacts that the All-Aboard Florida high-speed rail project might bring, the majority of the Board seemed willing to allocate funds to fight, if needed.
“There have been instances where a train project was effectively killed, but at a cost of several millions of dollars,” Commission Chair Peter O’Bryan said Tuesday during a discussion about how far the County wants to go to try to stop the project from happening, or mitigate its potential ills.
What came out of Tuesday’s meeting was that the Commission is not yet in full attack mode, but still in a wait-and-see mode. But a majority of members are adamantly opposed to the ills they say the 32 trains per day barreling through the community at speeds up to 100 miles per hour would cause.
Commissioner Wesley Davis said he feels the County should “see that the issues that are unique to this community get addressed and then if not, fight it as much as we can if they’re not looking out for our natural resources or our historic aspects or our safety.”
Communities up and down the coast along All-Aboard Florida’s proposed route from Miami to Orlando have taken various positions on the project — some ready to wage war, such as some in Martin County, which O’Bryan said aims to “shoot the thing and kill it,” and others semi-resigned to the fact that the train is coming, yet determined to make sure it’s safe and to not spend any taxpayer dollars on the project.
Commissioners acknowledged that there are very few wholehearted supporters of the project, Commissioner Joe Flescher joking that there are 11 people on record for it and Commissioner Bob Solari asking who the other four were because, by his count, there were only seven.
Talking tough about spearheading the effort to block the train has become a popular political bandwagon to jump on over the past few months.
That was before local and statewide media began to scrutinize the All Aboard Florida project and public opposition rose to the current fever pitch. At that time, Commissioners formally supported All Aboard Florida after meeting individually with Rusty Roberts, chief lobbyist for Florida East Coast Industries and liaison with local governments on the project.
The Board has since rescinded that support.
Commissioner Bob Solari said his position has evolved as the situation on the ground changed.
“A year ago, I thought it was a private project on private property with private money and I was happy for it to go forward,” he said.
Then this spring, details emerged that local communities didn’t bank on, including potential millions needed to pay for upgrades to qualify for “quiet zones” and the company’s wish to secure government loans and grants to help defray the costs of a project which local leaders across the board have agreed carries no benefit for Indian River County.
“If we, at the end of the day, have to spend $500,000 or a million dollars to protect our community than it’s money well spent,” Solari said.
Last month, Commissioners directed staff to hire an engineering firm and a legal team in preparation for the anticipated June release of the Federal Rail Administration’s Environmental Impact Study (EIS) on the proposed project.
All-Aboard Florida was required to submit to the EIS because it applied for a $1.5 billion low-interest federal loan to help fund start-up costs. The public will get a limited window of time to review and comment on the EIS findings.
Because no one on the county staff has specific railroad expertise, or experience in analyzing the technical or legal aspects of the EIS findings, the Commission approved more than $130,000 to retain professionals.
On Tuesday, Chairman Peter O’Bryan asked the Board for direction on exactly what the members want the lawyers and engineers to do.
“My fear is that I don’t want to have (County Attorney) Dylan (Reingold) have to come to us every week, the law firm says if you want to do this we need another $100,000 or $200,000 and we start shooting from the hip without a clear way that we want to go,” O’Bryan said.
In response to O’Bryan’s request, Commissioners directed County Attorney Dylan Reingold to tell the engineers and attorneys that the County expects a swift review of the EIS as soon as it comes out and an executive summary of about three pages to be delivered to Commissioners, with an overall impression of the findings and suggestions on strategies for challenging the project, if such opportunities exist.
Commissioner Tim Zorc, who last summer was the first of the Commissioners to become alarmed about the potential impacts of All-Aboard Florida after attending a meeting about the project in another county, said what he wants to see are the experts’ best assessment of the chances of a successful challenge.
“What I would want to see is if they come back and say this is a slam-dunk for the railroad, or they come back and say here are four things that we can do,” Zorc said.
Davis echoed this, saying that before he commits to a costly legal battle, he would want to know, “Is it a battle we could win?”
There was some discussion that if the application for the project and the loan appeared relatively bulletproof, that the County should lobby hard for a train stop in Vero.
Solari cautioned about anyone getting hopes up about that.
“I personally just don’t believe that given the densities of the Treasure Coast communities will ever have the density to support a stop,” he said.
O’Bryan said the Board will revisit its decision about strategy soon. In the meantime, Reingold was also asked to coordinate with other entities that are opposing All-Aboard Florida in hopes of making better inroads through cooperation, and to invite top Florida Department of Transportation officials to a commission meeting to discuss FDOT’s jurisdiction on the project.