News Analysis
Never in recent times has a three-vote Vero City Council majority acted in such a self-serving manner as last week, when it voted to appoint former mayor Dick Winger to fill the final seven months of Joe Graves’ two-year council term.
In nearly 13 years of covering the Vero Beach City Council, we’ve seen members on the dais vote for policies both wise and foolish, in times of recession and times of surplus. But we’ve never witnessed anything quite like this.
The council had three or four other solid candidates for the seat left open by Graves resignation. But they chose Winger, who pledged to serve as a de facto rubber stamp for whatever the three-member voting bloc of Vice Mayor Rey Neville, Councilwoman Honey Minuse and Councilman Bob McCabe want to do.
In his interview during the public meeting, Winger, 83, said he would go along with the prevailing will of the council.
“I would not be the tie-breaking vote,” Winger said, adding that being merely appointed and not elected, he does not feel he would have the authority to push his own objectives or opinions, or to block the majority from acting.
What does that mean for Vero Beach taxpayers? Well, most likely it means hold onto your wallets. And prepare to pay a stormwater tax starting this fall.
Mayor Robbie Brackett will certainly continue to fight against government excess and question spending that will place an additional tax burden on city residents and businesses, but he won’t even have the support to get a second for a motion.
Brackett will continue as mayor until Nov. 15, according to City Clerk Tammy Bursick, as the city charter does not call for a new vote for mayor and vice mayor after the appointment of a council member – only after an election.
But Brackett likely will be on the lonely end of numerous 4-1 votes, with Winger committing to side with the other three council members.
After the vote to appoint Winger, Brackett accused his colleagues on the dais of walking into the interviews with a prearranged outcome in mind. “I wish it had been a little more transparent,” Brackett said.
There is nothing illegal about recruiting a person to run for office or apply for an open seat, but Neville, McCabe and Minuse all denied contacting Winger or asking him to run.
“I never asked him to run, I swear,” said Minuse.
Assuming that’s true, the recruitment contact may have been made through someone else in the leadership of the Indian River Neighborhood Association, which has strongly advocated for a stormwater utility tax and where Winger serves on the board of directors.
Brackett, who opposes levying a stormwater tax in a pandemic economy, believes Winger was encouraged to apply to bolster the stormwater utility agenda – or at least to prevent anyone who would challenge that agenda from landing the temporary job.
“The opinion was out weeks ago that Mr. Winger was the guy,” Brackett said.
Vero’s operating budget for the coming year is currently being formulated by department heads and managers who now know there will be little resistance to added spending as long as they can justify it as maintaining the quality of life in the city or bolstering city services.
With additional money from a stormwater tax rolling in, pricey wish list items and projects, held back in previous years, may burst forth into the 2021-2022 budget if it is not closely scrutinized.
Over the next seven months, public engagement and live public comment at meetings will be more important than usual if residents oppose the direction this new council could take the city.
That, plus ensuring that a fiscal conservative runs for Winger’s seat in November, is all that can be done to halt the long-term effects of whatever this council aims to achieve.
