MARK SCHUMANN
The Fellsmere City Council this evening directed City Manager Jason Nunemaker to work with its sister cities in Indian River County to seek representation on the newly formed Indian River Lagoon Council.
Fellsmere, along with Sebastian, and possibly Vero Beach, are acting in response to a void created when the Indian River County Commission recently voted not to participate in the regional effort to save the Indian River Lagoon.
Citing concerns that the new Lagoon Council does not reflect a truly “representative form of government,” County Commissioner Bob Solari persuaded his fellow Commissioner to decline to participate in a coalition that was to be made up of representatives of five counties (Brevard, Indian River, St. Lucie, Martin and Palm Beach), along with voting membership for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, and the St. John’s and South Florida Water Management Districts.
Though the three state agencies are contributing more than 80 percent of the start up money for the coalition, Solari specifically objected to their having voting representation on the Council.
Vero Beach City Manager Jim O’Connor said earlier this week that if the cities of Indian River County can participate in the Lagoon Council in a meaningful way, he will support joining with Sebastian and Fellsmere to “seek a seat at the table.”
Indian River Guardian 
Since when did Bob Solari become endowed with the all seeing power to call the shots on cleaning up the lagoon or any other matter. He is totally wrong on this issue and on many other issues . Fellsmere, Sebastian and Vero should override the 5 “goonies” and proceed with a plan to clean the lagoon. I never take Solari at face value when he speaks. I simply do not trust him.
Now the residents of the three cities will finally get to see how little we need the county government structure. In many states they are eliminating county government because it is too costly and it is less expensive to have towns and cities do what they do more efficiently. I for one would not shed a tear if we dissolved the beaucratic layer of our local government.
A great idea—eliminate county government and get freeloaders off the pad. We would have less expensive government by eliminating all unincorporated areas. Let locall governments annex those areas now being run by the county Government, and watch taxes go down. The closer to the people that elected officials are, makes for better government. Because Bob Solari and the rest of the “goonies” don’t want to clean up the lagoon, is no reason for all of us to suffer.
Hopefully someone smarter than us will figure out how to eliminate the county government. But wait where will bankrupt builders and other unsuccessful business people go for a pay check?
People who have had to declare bankruptcy should not be serving the public ,and collecting a pay check, until all the people they owe money to are paid back in full.