You want to rebuild the historic Humiston Beach boardwalk, rather than replace the storm-damaged and later-demolished structure with a sidewalk?
We do, too.
We believe, as former mayor Tony Young so eloquently stated last summer, that the boardwalk is “part of the fabric of Vero Beach.”
That’s why Vero Beach 32963 has enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to back this cause and rally around City Councilman John Carroll’s suggestion last week that a fund be established to allow the community to help cover the costs of the project.
This newspaper, in fact, has committed to joining Carroll and council newcomer Aaron Vos in launching a rebuild-the-boardwalk campaign.
“John and Aaron have each generously offered to donate $3,500 to such a fund,” said Vero Beach 32963 publisher Milton R. Benjamin. “We’ll join them and add $5,000.”
That’s $12,000, and we’re just getting started. We haven’t yet heard from other potential donors who council members say have expressed interest in joining this grassroots movement.
Surely, many of our neighbors in this community agree: The planned sidewalk may be functional, but it won’t offer the same Old Florida presence and seaside feel that attracts tourists and reminds us of the simpler, slower-paced, small-town Vero Beach of yesteryear.
Sure, building a sidewalk is cheaper.
The now-dated cost estimate for the sidewalk – along with two pavilions and four dune crossovers – was $709,000, while boardwalks were priced at $1.6 million to $1.9 million.
It was little surprise, then, that the council voted unanimously in June to approve replacing the Humiston boardwalk with a more affordable sidewalk, which Mayor John Cotugno still considers the more fiscally responsible and environmentally sensitive alternative.
The sidewalk, which would be more storm resilient and less costly to repair, would be built on the western edge of the dunes.
But at the council’s most recent meeting on Dec. 10, Cotugno was the lone council member who defended the summer vote, citing the city’s less-exciting but more-pressing needs.
The four other council members ultimately agreed to continue with the sidewalk plan – but they did not dismiss Carroll’s hopes of enlisting help from the private sector to rebuild the boardwalk.
Even Cotugno said he’d support the composite-boardwalk option if money were not a factor.
It shouldn’t be.
The County Commission, which was expected to consider at Tuesday’s meeting a proposal to provide the city with up to $400,000 to help fund the sidewalk, needs to do more.
Chairman Joe Flescher, Vice Chairman Deryl Loar and Commissioner Susan Adams need to grasp the importance of rebuilding the boardwalk, align with commissioners Laura Moss and Joe Earman, and partner with the city to do what’s best for the community.
They need to accept that Vero’s beaches are, by far, the county’s biggest tourist attraction. They need to realize that city residents are county taxpayers, and both use the local amenities. They need to at least double the county’s contribution to the boardwalk project.
And we need to make sure they know how we feel about it.
It’s obvious the commissioners aren’t going to budge from their wrongheaded position opposing the sharing of even a percentage of tourist-tax dollars with the county’s municipalities, including Vero Beach, which generates almost half of that money each year.
That’s a discussion for another time.
But, again, there’s no good reason the commissioners can’t work with the city through some type of inter-local agreement to help fund projects that are mutually beneficial, especially as the county continues to grow and additional revenues from new residential development pour into its coffers.
Remember: The city’s government operates within the confines of a $35 million budget that is often stressed to provide infrastructure, services and amenities to not just its 17,000 citizens but the daily influx of residents of a steadily growing county with a population more than 10 Vero’s size.
The county, certainly, can afford to help with rebuilding what was a popular-but-aging boardwalk, which was damaged by Hurricane Nicole in 2022 and demolished early last year after city engineers deemed it unsafe and unsalvageable.
Last week, the commissioners accepted nearly $4 million in budgeted-but-unspent funds returned by Tax Collector Carole Jean Jordan and Property Appraiser Wesley Davis.
That money went back into the county’s General Fund. Some of that money should be used now to help the city rebuild a nostalgic piece of its history.
The council plans to spend about $800,000 to construct the sidewalk. If the county matches that investment, we’re at $1.6 million.
That means the community needs to raise $200,000 to $300,000 to build some type of boardwalk, assuming the city’s still-pending appeal of a reduction in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds is rejected.
That’s a challenge.
But given this community’s long history of philanthropy, civic pride and coming together when it matters most, it’s not impossible.
Everything that makes our oceanfront community special – the charm, the aesthetics, the ambiance – tells us there should be a boardwalk at Humiston Beach.
We’ll do our part as your local newspaper to try to make it happen, but we need this to be a community effort.
Let’s do this.
Let’s do this together.