INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — It wasn’t a town hall meeting. It wasn’t a live presentation. The much-anticipated All Aboard Florida “public meeting” Indian River County residents had fought to have in their county was widely characterized as a “dog and pony show.”
“This is not even a good dog and pony show,” said Vero Beach High Speed Rail Commission member Brian Heady. “They’re doing what’s required to inform the public. It’s underwhelming. It’s a bunch of Styrofoam posters and there are some talking points.”
It was a walkabout among dozens of pages of All Aboard Florida information slides from the project’s website printed on huge foam core boards propped on easels. There were maps and charts, lists of bullet point statistics, features and benefits of the project.
Nearly 30 rail employees with official-looking name tags circulated to answer questions. There weren’t a lot of questions, as the public in Vero and Sebastian has been following the issue quite closely and they’ve seen and heard it all before.
Black comment boxes sat on tables awaiting written comments on the passenger train and court reporters, fingers and keyboards at the ready, were on hand to let people talk for up to three minutes to lodge their concerns on the record.
Television crews taped interviews with opponents of the project. Petitions circulated. Buttons were donned expressing that not everyone is on board with 32 trains a day barreling through Indian River County at 110 miles per hour hurtling tourists from Miami to Orlando.
“I didn’t move to Florida to watch the trains go by, I could have stayed in Connecticut,” said 20-year Vero Beach resident John Consoli, who walked with the assistance of his cane around the room, rather disgusted.
“I see this as a big hose job and they’re spraying us all,” Consoli motioned like he was aiming a high-pressure fire hose around at the crowd that was gathered.
By 15 minutes past the 3:30 p.m. meeting start time, roughly 150 cars and trucks had filled the Richardson Center parking lot at Indian River State College’s Mueller Campus.
A queue of more than 50 people were lined outside, elected officials alongside activists, senior citizens, concerned parents, business owners, attorneys, engineers, government employees and uniformed law enforcement.
People who have been following the proposed All Aboard Florida high-speed rail project strode confidently up to the meeting, fired up with frustration and ready to make their gripes known. Within the hour, some of those same fired-up people trudged away from the meeting looking utterly deflated.
Ginny Miller, a 14-year Vero Beach resident sat filling out a City of Sebastian questionaire that would become part of the public record.
“I really just wanted my concerns heard,” Miller said. “My concerns are mainly that this is going to cut off streets to the hospital. Most of the elderly people live on the west side of town. Also, the increase in freight.”
“The public itself I don’t think is being taken into consideration, but there are some big forces that are taking exception to this and I hope they will have some power to do something,” Miller said.
Sebastian City Councilwoman Andrea Coy was passing around surveys, urging residents from all over the county to put pen to paper and document their objections to the train.
“I would not be sitting here fighting so hard if I thought this was a done deal or if I thought we couldn’t make a difference,” Coy said.
