Indialantic is like a beautiful old house in desperate need of new plumbing. Town officials have performed triage as pipes collapse and leave gaping holes in streets. But unfortunately, what the whole town apparently needs is a total stormwater overhaul.
Instead of merely continuing the patch-and-go approach, town officials are asking Indialantic property owners to authorize a $3 million bond to fund new pipes under Indialantic’s roads, which are the most critical half of the pipes in danger of collapsing. The Town Council voted on Jan. 10 to hold a referendum by mail ballot of every registered voter within town limits only. Town Attorney Paul Gougelman said ballots will be sent out in early March and must be received by Supervisor of Elections Lori Scott’s office by March 20 to be counted.
Corrugated metal pipes installed to control flooding way back in the John F. Kennedy Administration have rusted through, allowing sand and soil to intrude. That sediment had actually been keeping most of the pipes from collapsing – until Hurricane Irma sent massive amounts of rainwater through the pipes.
Time is of the essence, Chinault said, as a March ballot would allow the town to report the new taxes to pay off the bond to the state and to the Brevard County Property Appraiser in July to get the additional one mil, or $1 per $1,000 of taxable assessed value on this fall’s tax bills.
“The quicker you can get the money in to replace the pipes, the greater the safety,” Chinault said, adding that the pipes could collapse under a school bus, a car or a truck, causing injury, property damage and costly lawsuits, since the town is well aware of the problem.
Councilman Dick Dunn concurred about the urgency. “If we put this off and something happens, they will ask why didn’t you do something,” he said.
Waiting until November, or even the August primaries would delay collection of the funds until November 2019. It would also mean the question would be buried at the end of a cluttered ballot, as the special one-issue mail-in ballot would not be allowed at the same time as a primary or general election.
The first phase of the work would take less than a year from start to finish, according to Town Manager Chris Chinault, and the $3 million bond will cover only the work itself. Money for design, permitting and interest on the debt would be factored in to the upcoming year’s budget.
Pipes buried under rights of way, sidewalks, driveways or parking areas need to be replaced, too, but most of those can wait a year or two, Chinault said. The town currently budgets, on average, $65,000 annually to handle emergency pipe replacements and Chinault said he expects that to continue.
It was suggested the town council could find the money for what will end up being a $5 million, multi-year project by trimming the budget elsewhere, possibly by cutting costs in the police or fire departments. But Mayor Dave Berkman said “we don’t have the money to move around,” referring to a $4 million general fund budget to run the whole town, with $2.5 million of that going to police and fire protection. “The cost to replace the pipes is bigger than the annual budget. Eliminating the police and fire departments doesn’t solve your problem,” Berkman said.
Chinault keeps a map in his office that illustrates the problem: seven different sectors of the town’s stormwater system – three major sectors and four minor ones – that empty, respectively, into seven different outfalls. The map is color-coded and scattered hot spots where pipes have already been replaced are noted by BSE Consultants, the town’s engineer of record on the stormwater schematics.
That map constitutes “the plan” for the pipe replacement. Several residents, along with Councilwoman Mary Jo Kilcullen, insisted the town should conduct a sea level rise study.
Chinault protested, saying that no study, no matter how well intentioned, will change the stark reality that the pipes are collapsing.
“It’s getting worse, not better,” Chinault said. “I can guarantee you they (the pipes) will fail. I can’t tell you when.”
Recognizing the lack of a scientific study might present a stumbling block to getting a “yes” vote out of some residents, the council voted that, upon passage of the referendum, the town would commission a comprehensive stormwater study and, if warranted, tweak the planned improvements accordingly.
