COMMENTARY
MARK SCHUMANN
Discussing the likely impact of further cuts in city staffing and services at a recent Finance Commission meeting, City Manager Jim O’Connor suggested what is happening in the city now amounts to a shift “from a Macy’s mentality to a Wal-Mart mentality.”
O’Connor’s observation is at least close to the truth. At a deeper level, though, it is more accurate to say city leaders are proposing to surrender a rich and proud heritage for a Wal-Mart future.
If the Council troika of Craig Fletcher, Tracy Carroll and Pilar Turner is successful in gutting city services, gone will be the days when the quality of life in Vero Beach, on both the island and the mainland, was a source of pride, a cause for joy and enjoyment and a draw for tourists and new residents alike.
By her own admission, Carroll is not a reflective person. She prefers, she says, action. Her two budget-cutting allies don’t seem, themselves, to be given to contemplation.
I am forever checking the urge to mail Carroll a card picturing someone standing at the edge of the surf, as they absorb the wonder of a majestic sunrise. The card’s message: “Don’t just do something. Stand there.”
If Carroll, Fletcher and Turner stop to seriously consider what they are proposing to do to the city, it might occur to them that they are about to set the city on a path, not to distinction, but to extinction.
Unfortunately for now, the troika holds the votes to force cuts in services, such as eliminating the animal control officer’s position.
The good news, though, is that one member of the Council’s three-person majority is up for election in the fall. Carroll likely will benefit from tens of thousands of dollars in FPL money channeled her way through a political action committee controlled by the president of the Taxpayers Association. But it appears the great majority of the public does not want to see city services diminished any further.
Take, for example, the results of two InsideVero.com polls. One asked readers if they would prefer to see the city retain animal control services, or turn that responsibility over to the County. By an overwhelming margin of 94 percent to 6 percent, 365 respondents said they want the city to continue to provide animal control services.
To put those results in perspective, the latest four TCPalm.com polls averaged just 87 respondents, and that for a online news site serving three counties.
When asked about the proposal to sell Crestlawn Cemetery, 85 percent of 175 respondents said, essentially, they are not interested in a Wal-Mart future for the city.
Fletcher and Turner seem to have drifted off in their own world. They are determined to make the cuts they seem to believe are necessary, while selfishly clinging to their taxpayer-funded health insurance benefit.
Carroll may prove to be the swing vote on the proposed cuts in services. She can either reflect upon and honor the will of the public, or risk a sharp rebuke from voters in the fall.
Let’s hope between now at the next round of budget talks Carroll will be able to carve out some time for reflection.
Indian River Guardian 
Jim O’Connor’s use of the phrasing “Walmart mentality” is appropriate because the small governmen types concentrate on only one aspect of any transaction — cost. They have zero concern for those human beings that do the actual work. Thus, Walmat employees are the working poor who are heavily dependent on government support such as food stamps.
I would like to think that our civic “leaders” are not so selfish that they would want their neighbors to not earn a living wage or for the community to not have the beautiful amibance that makes Vero Beach so unique. Unfortunately, there is less and less evidence of anyone in our current government with a focus on making improvements in our community or even retaining the current level of services. Thus, it now seems inevitable that we will indeed have a Walmart future.