County seeks to have it both ways on All Aboard Florida

COMMENTARY

MARK SCHUMANN

at the County, Commissioner Bob Solari is perhaps the harshest critic of Vero Beach's electric rates. Yes, he and his fellow Commissioners tack on another 6 percent to those very same rates. — Bob Solari.

According to Indian River County Attorney, Dylan Reingold, the County Commission is officially “neutral” on the merits of All Aboard Florida, a proposed high speed rail service between Orlando and Miami. Yet, Indian River County Commission, Bob Solari, perhaps the Commission’s hardest puncher, will be one of two contenders in a prize fight to be put on by the Taxpayers’ Association today at the Vero Beach Country Club. Solari will spar with All Aboard Florida President Michael Reininger, as the two set out opposing views on the proposed high-speed passenger rail service.

Among his earlier wins, Commissioner Solari successfully led a local band of red shirts in persuading the County Commission to withdraw from participation in a regional planning effort they seemed to think was a United Nations plot at least partly intended to force Vero Beach residents off the barrier island into tenement housing to be built downtown near the railroad tracks.