GUEST COMMENTARY

LYNNE LARKIN

Like a fresh ocean breeze, Amelia Graves has come back to Vero Beach and we should be very grateful. After watching her presentations and hearing her steady and intelligent perspective on her home town, Ms. Graves proves over and again that she takes on the rigors of campaigning for City Council quite handily.

Speaking honestly and openly, Ms. Graves brings new life to the standard “debates” held around town. Eschewing tiresome and rehearsed lines and instead tapping her deep knowledge not only of Vero Beach history but what its future might be, she has put in the spotlight so much more than mere utility issues. We need more than that now, as she points out. She has heard the voters on that score, and let’s move on.

Ms. Graves has done much since graduating from college, spreading her wings in some of the toughest places imaginable to start a career helping others — the far east countries of Cambodia and Thailand, as well as in Nicaragua nearer our own shores. Directing and coordinating aid programs with limited dollars that do not have reserve funds or back-up financing is not only hard work, it demands the best budgeting skills imaginable. Not to mention dealing with governing boards, bureaucracy and governments. Comparing that to the backgrounds of other candidates like Carroll’s bankruptcies and foreclosures and Heady’s amazing half-million in judgment debts makes a stark contrast. Heady’s tiresome rants and erratic behavior have never spoken well of any of his candidacies, such rants coming all the more often now that the FPL machine had to dump him off their bus. Carroll then threw him under that same bus she’s now driving, and there’s nothing uglier than a Brian scorned.

Entering such a morass of misery as recently the election scene in Indian River County has become, we might have worried another new participant would be feeling bus tires on her heels by now. Take a good look, however. The politicos have a real threat to their money-machine. The zip-code beach paper editor tried to put Ms. Graves in her place by stating she had no experience of merit. She would have none of that, answering his belittling and biased “questions” with aplomb. Evincing a presence rarely seen in those new to politics, she answered his attacks with calm facts and conviction about her broad skill set. Those who’ve watched the Inside Vero forum or the Carroll “pep rally” had to be taken aback that she wasn’t going to sit down for anyone’s misrepresentations of her or for the unprofessional way others act.

Ms. Graves also has a delightful sense of humor with which she deflects what can only be described as ugly partisan rhetoric. She joins Dick Winger in using a polite tone and factual basis in responding to the snide personal jabs thrown their way.

You can bet this will translate well into how she would treat the public when occupying a place on the dais and perhaps, at last, ending the snarling and snapping that the Council Troika use to reign supreme.

Ms. Graves knows what it means to appreciate this little city for more than just real estate investment. She grew up her among family and friends who appreciate the full spectrum Vero’s attributes, of open space, clean and protected beaches, green and wild areas, a lagoon worth saving for its recreation and wildlife, small businesses where buying locally means your neighbors benefit as well as yourself. While Vero Beach does indeed attract real estate investors, as seen in Turner and Carroll, the full range of what we own and value here speaks to so much more.

Saving communities and cities, indeed saving lives, as well as returning those populations to a level where people can thrive, takes patience, intelligence, and courage. Multi-task? Bring it on.

She hit the ground by directing Main Street Vero Beach, so as far as local knowledge, certainly she knows boards, budgets, coordinating large public events, and being a liaison to government. She is already back into the community and making a difference.

Fresh and smiling, Amelia Graves offers us new blood along with old roots in the community. She’ll care about all constituents, not just “ratepayers” as others say, and as she has proven elsewhere, she gets it done. How we got so lucky to have her volunteer to serve we won’t question, we should just be so very grateful. So very, very grateful.