INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — The county’s Beach and Shore Preservation Advisory Committee Monday put on hold a plan to raise money for beach repair by charging island property owners a fee prorated according to how much benefit they get from the beach.
Bob Bruce, president of Save Our Shores, presented the idea for a Municipal Services Benefit District, or MSBU, to make up for funding lost when the state and federal governments stopped contributing to county beach repair and renurishment projects.
Bruce said he had asked a friend to stand in front of him when he went to the podium to catch any stray rounds that might come his way, thus acknowledging the idea would be unpopular with some.
He and Jimmy Sellers, a Coastal Tech consultant who has helped create MSBUs in St. Lucie and two other Florida counties, explained how the district would work if the county chose to create one.
First its boundaries would have to be established and then a method of determining degree of benefit would have to be arrived at.
As he explained it, the county bed tax, which now goes in part to fund beach repair and protection along the entire 23-mile barrier island, would be more tightly focused to pay for improvements on county-owned sections of beachfront, such as parks.
Other areas would be funded by the new assessment on island homeowners. No new money would be raised on the mainland.
When Bruce asked for a motion on his proposal, which to be realized would have had to be approved by the committee and then by the County Commission, Indian River Shores City Councilmember Jerry Weick was the first to object.
He said island residents already pay for more than 50 percent of county infrastructure while receiving only 4 percent of the benefit and made a similar point about schools.
Several committee members, including Christian Hendricks, acknowledged there is a need for new funding but argued that approving a MSBU would be premature because the county does not have a clear picture of its beach repair revenue or costs.
County Budget Director Jason Brown said a similar method had been employed in the past when the county’s 10-year beach preservation plan was created. He said a type of MSBU had been included on a menu of funding options but that the county had not included it in the final plan.
The 10-year plan has to be updated this year, and the county is poised to hire consultants to advise on that process, and the consensus at the meeting was to let those experts figure out how much money the county needs for beach repair and how much it has and then consider whether a MSBU is a good idea.
Bruce said after the meeting he could see the wisdom of getting a clearer picture of the overall beach repair situation before deciding whether to go ahead with a special assessment district.
“I presented an idea and it got shot down,” he said.
