MARK SCHUMANN
Indian River County Commissioner Bob Solar went on a local radio program this morning to complain that reporting on the County’s short-term rental advisory committee has not been balanced. Solari was clearly bristling at InsideVero columnist Milt Thomas’s most recent commentary, in which he reported the commissioner’s claims short-term rentals are not a problem.
According to committee chairman, Glenn Powell, after the most recent meeting of the County’s advisory committee on vacation rentals — a group stacked with members heavily invested in the vacation rentals industry — he, Powell, felt threatened by a citizen who attended and spoke at the meeting, and who challenged Powell after the meeting. “I was terrified,” Powell wrote in a memo to Assistant County Attorney, Bill Debraal.
Interestingly, though the word “assault” is being tossed around by Powell and Solari, Powell did not file a complaint with local law enforcement. Instead, he waited five days after the alleged incident to write a memo to Debraal.
Solari, who has yet to question the Press Journal’s failure to report on Florida Power & Light’s proposed $1.325 billion rate increase, told radio listeners this morning he wondered why InsideVero has not reported on the incident involving Powell. Solari does not seem to wonder why the incident, as reported by Powell, has not been covered by the Press Journal or the island weekly.
It could be that, unlike Solari, responsible journalists shy away from publishing claims that could be libelous? At this point, absent a formal complaint by Powell to law enforcement, all that is really known is that Powell is claiming in an email to Debraal to have felt threatened by a citizen who did not appreciate the dismissive treatment Powell supposedly gave him during the meeting.
Editor’s note: The County has yet to fill a public records request for records of communication between Solari and Powell.
Indian River Guardian 
Bob Solari is correct about short term rentals. As we all know the houses next to
the Holiday Inns and the Best Western Inns always have the highest resale values.
Fair and balanced news reporting is given more by Inside Vero than other news sources in my opinion. I’m still waiting to read about FPL’s proposed rate hike in newspaper of the Treasure Coast. I’m anxious to read all about the alleged threat to Mr. Powell and would like to see the police report and hear ‘the other side’. Mr. Solari leaves the impression he didn’t like to share the dais with 4 other City Council members when he was elected for one term (?). Mr. Solari does not tell any news person what to do…any more than I should.
A healthy democracy should thrive on dissenting opinion, and engage dissent in a robust debate.
This group wants none of that.
The scurrilous allegations, while calculated, are completely without merit. This is an attempt to shut down the press and dissent, and to remove permanently from public debate some of its most effective dissenters.
Bob Solari would have more balanced reporting if he had appointed a balanced advisory committee. He didn’t,so what we get are one sided voices reading from the same pro short term rental script. What the county commissioners and the asvisory committee will not face is the impact short term rentals have on people living close to these rentals. Because Mr Solari lives in the city of Vero, he does not worry about short term rentals ; they can be addressed legally. It is those who live outside the city, for the most part, who are in for some trouble when a neighboring house goes short term.They have no recourse.