The $50 million land acquisition bond issue that’s on the November ballot was more than two years in the making, and a broad coalition of businesses, community organizations and environmental groups are now engaged in a final push to educate voters and secure passage of the measure, which would protect wide swaths of countryside from development.
“We want to at least make sure the voters know what the bond referendum is and what it’s for,” said Indian River Land Trust Executive Director Ken Grudens, who has been a key leader in the effort.
“It’s at the very end of most ballots, after the judges, and if voters don’t know what it is, they may just skip it.”
If the referendum is approved by a majority of voters, the county will use the money “to acquire and permanently preserve environmentally significant lands to restore the Indian River Lagoon . . . natural areas, wildlife habitat and drinking water resources … and to construct public access improvements” in the preserved areas.
Richard Baker, president of Pelican island Audubon Society, which has raised nearly $30,000 to educate voters and promote the initiative, called the bond issue “our last chance to secure remaining native habitat in Indian River County.
“We are losing the real natural Florida by cutting down our forests, draining our wetlands, and polluting our water and air,” Baker added in an email to Vero Beach 32963. “Our county has varied habitats with unique plants and animals found on beaches and in mangroves, oak hammocks, pine flatwoods, scrub, lakes and rivers. Current preserves need to have conservation corridors so that species are able to travel from one area to another to preserve biodiversity.
Saving more land will help us by filtering out pollutants that otherwise end up in the Indian River Lagoon where they kill plants and animals like seagrass, manatees, fish and birds that once thrived in our waters.”
The bonds would be backed by a .175 Increase in the millage rate, which would add about $44 a year to the property tax bill for a $250,000 house, according to County Administrator Jason Brown.
Land would be chosen by a nine-member citizen committee appointed by the county commissioners and purchased from willing sellers.
“Each commissioner would appoint one member from their district, for a total of five,” said Brown. “The board would then jointly appoint four more members – two with environmental planning credentials, one with credentials in real estate or finance, and one with expertise in land planning or engineering.”
The initiative began back in early 2020 when the Land Trust, Audubon and the Indian River Neighborhood Association banded together to formulate an environmental lands bond proposal, meeting with commissioners to seek support.
“A group of us – Dan Lampson, David Cox, George Glenn at Audubon and myself – began informally talking to commissioners in March 2020,” said Grudens. “But the covid curtain came down soon after that and we backed off. The commissioners didn’t think it was the right time.
“We renewed our efforts in late 2021 and in March the commissioners agreed to put the measure on the ballot.
“Shortly after that we formed a political action committee that got wide support from other entities and organizations,” added Grudens, who said that his board of directors gave him the go-ahead to spend a significant part of this time working in the bond referendum effort.
The PAC created an attractive informative website, ircforever.com, and began spreading the word via social media, mailers and other channels.
Grudens said they quickly attracted wide support from other entities and organizations, ranging from the Environmental Learning Center to the Clean Water Coalition of Indian River County, from the Indian River Cattleman’s Association to Vero Beach Rowing.
Businesses such as Marine Bank and Dale Sorensen Real Estate also lent support.
Now, with less than month before election day, with early voting underway, Grudens and his associates want to make sure the public understands the details of the bond referendum and what it will do for quality of life in the county if it passes.
Tax increases are seldom popular, but IRC voters approved two prior environmental land bond measures – one for $26 million in 1992 and one for $50 million 2004 – that resulted in the acquisition of 41 tracts that now have an appraised value of $148 million, according to ircforever.com.
“Historically, county voters have really valued our environmental resources and wanted to protect them,” said Brown. “They have twice before approved conservation land buys and I believe we have been successful in using the bond money to acquire environmentally sensitive land that enhances our quality of life.”
If the referendum passes, the county will move quickly – “within a few months” – to convene the committee and move ahead with issuing bonds to fund the purchase of prime environmental land, according to Brown.
Revenue from the .175 mill property tax increase – about $3.70 a month for the average homeowner – will be used to pay the interest and principle on the bonds.
