COMMENTARY

MILT THOMAS

The overflow crowd at Wednesday’s Sebastian City Council meeting was dressed primarily in either white or red, depending on their feelings regarding two issues – whites were supporting the Council’s decision to approve a stricter fertilizer ordinance and the reds opposed the Council’s participation in the Seven50 planning effort.

The smaller white group got what they wanted, the City Council’s approval of a first reading of the fertilizer ordinance. The red group left angry. In fact, they arrived angry, at least from my vantage point. Their first disappointment was the Council’s decision to move public comments to the end of the meeting. That elicited a murmur of grumbling from the reds. The Council’s decision was made because at that point the meeting was already two hours old and they had not yet discussed the fertilizer ordinance. Also, this same group of red shirts had spoken for about 30 minutes at the last City Council meeting and probably had nothing new to add this time. The Council could have prevented them from speaking at all, since public input is designed by resolution for new information only.

When the City’s business was concluded, public input opened with a gentleman storming up to the dais with a stop watch complaining that the last speaker had more than the allotted five minutes. Mayor McPartlan, no doubt expecting a number of speakers, replied that as mayor, he decided how much time a speaker could have and he had five minutes. Then the speaker opened with, “I find that moving the public input section as a de facto attempt to silence most of the people who came to this session tonight who pay your salary.”

Apparently the man decided vinegar was better than honey in attempting to persuade the Council to his point of view. After chastising the Council, he reminded them of his comments at the last Council meeting and asked for a forum where Council members could explain why they are still in favor of this Seven50 plan while many colleagues in the county have decided not to participate. The timer went off and he left the podium to a round of applause from the other red shirts. Mayor McPartlan warned any more applause and he would call an end to the meeting.

Vero Beach resident Phyllis Frey spoke next. She claimed the consortium partnership agreement is a contract, which commits Sebastian to the terms and conditions, they were obligated to work with the Seven50 executive committee, modify local codes to the committee’s regional specifications, and commit to matching federal HUD grants.

Mayor McPartlan then asked City Attorney Ginsburg if he was familiar with this contract.

“Yes, I am.”

“Can they subvert our home rule here?”

“No. Home rule is not affected by this.”

“So we keep our home rule?”

“That is correct.”

“Nobody can take that away from us.”

“It can be taken away from us by state legislation.”

“Not by Seven50?”

“No.”

Councilwoman Coy then said she has received many phone calls as she often does, but it becomes annoying when she receives misinformation that she has to correct “and there’s an awful lot of it.”

Then she asked City Manager, Joe Griffin, “Do we have any current HUD projects in the city?”

Griffin responded, “Not that I’m aware of.”

“Is there any ten-story HUD buildings going up anywhere in the city?  If so, I want to meet the engineer because we have a 35-foot height limit.”

She then held up the document Fry had referred to. “I have the document here that says we choose what we want, if we want, or don’t want, to do. “So this nonsense of ten story buildings, this nonsense that somebody’s going to take over control, is just that. Nonsense.”

Another woman from Vero Beach, Melinda Meikle, then spoke. “The idea of seven counties joined together for fifty years, that’s why we are protesting. We want our own individual sovereignty as you are saying you do here. I believe the contract we signed in Vero says if you don’t legally pull out you are still in it. You may want to read the finer print.”

Ouch.

McPartlan responded, “Well ma’am, you just heard the advice we got from our attorney and he worked in Miami-Dade for a long, long time so he’s very versed in this language and he reads and everything, that’s why he’s employed, so what’s done is done.”

Next, a pleasant gentleman from the local Veteran’s Council spoke, asking the City to waive a bandstand rental fee for an event they were planning.  They could not waive the fee, but offered to waive the setup charge and he thanked them.

Then Mayor McPartlan noted that it was ten o’clock. The Council would have to approve extending the meeting for another 30 minutes. No one offered a motion, so the mayor ended the meeting.

A woman behind me complained to someone, “Democracy in action. I feel like we’re living in Nazi Germany.”

Actually, you history buffs probably know that Hitler’s minority party rose to power on the strength of his Brown Shirts’ bullying the public into submission. He hated red because that was the color of communism.