INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Four days after the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) released its draft Environmental Impact Study on the proposed All Aboard Florida high-speed rail project, the Indian River Board of County Commissioners voted 5-0 to oppose the project.
The vote was not to spend any more than the $100,000 allocated earlier this year for legal representation, and it was not to take any specific action other than directing County Attorney Dylan Reingold to draft a resolution emphasizing the Board’s grave concerns with the plan for 32 trains per day to blast through Indian River County at speeds up to 110 miles per hour.
County Commissioner Bob Solari encouraged anyone concerned about All Aboard Florida to file a written comment in addition to any official position the county might take. He said, “There are two different things – we ought to have our own county document. But I think it’s more powerful if we have 10,000 different comments.”
“I would like to see the FRA flooded with 10,000 different comments from Indian River County, 10,000 comments from St. Lucie County and 10,000 from Martin County,” he added.
During the discussion of the resolution, Chairman Peter O’Bryan asked for clarification from Solari about whether or not he was interested sentiment, or more forceful action.
“If we really want to try to kill it, now you’re talking about ramping up the legal costs, so I just want to clarify, is this just a motion, and a resolution, or do we really want to say, okay, to the law firm we’ve hired, gear up. We want you to kill this thing?” O’Bryan said.
“That is an excellent point,” Solari said. “But today I’ll limit it to the resolution.”
Solari said the County has been in contact with others who oppose All Aboard Florida and he suggested that the County Attorney talk to the outside legal counsel “to see what additional expenses may be necessary if we really want to kill it.”
“I actually believe when I originally brought up the first $100,000 that we will be spending more than that on this at the end of the day,” Solari said. “I believe that this issue is as important to Indian River County as the electric issue is to the City of Vero Beach and they’ve already spent about $1.8 million to sell their system.”
Resident Bob Johnson asked how he could get a copy of the 522-page document, and Solari said that he could download it online, and that the County has a copy on file that O’Bryan added that the County Commission office has the document on a CD and that they could burn a copy at the public request.
The document is available in PDF form on the Federal Railroad Administration website.
Comments can be submitted by Dec. 3 by mail to Mr. John Winkle, Federal Railroad Administration, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE Room W38-311, Washington, DC 20590 or by email to AAF_comments@vhb.com.
The local public meeting about the All Aboard Florida draft EIS will be held from 3:30 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 5 at the Richardson Center on the Mueller Campus of Indian River State College, 6155 College Lane, Vero Beach.
Take State Road 60 west to 58th Ave. Turn left on 58th Ave. past Home Depot and Ruby Tuesday. Turn Right at the entrance to the college, go past the Indian River Charter High School, following the bend in the road and the Richardson Center is the building that sits just east of the Brackett Library.