COMMENTARY

MARK SCHUMANN

Are Steve Merselis, David De Wahl, Victor Cooper, Robert Dewaters, John Burns, Frank Spitzmiller, George Bryans and Thomas Browne official representatives of the South Beach Property Owners Association?

Or, is the group nothing more than a band of dissidents without portfolio?

The SBPOA is a 25-year-old civic association representing the owners of some 2,600 residential properties on the south barrier island.

Last year, soon after at least several of them participated in a private meeting with County Commissioner Bob Solari held at the Moorings Club, the group of dissidents attempted to replace SBPOA president George Lamborn.

Since the attempted ouster of Lamborn last summer, south beach residents have, like celebrity contestants on the classic television game show “To Tell the Truth,” been challenged to determine who the impostors may be. That question is now before the courts.

Lamborn last week filed a lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment, as well as an injunction preventing the eight named defendants from “holding themselves out as duly elected members of the Board of Directors of the Association, from taking any action on behalf of the Association without authority from the Board,” wrote Lamborn’s attorney Paul Berg in his filing with the court.

Whether Merselis, De Wahl, Cooper and DeWaters were ineligible to be nominated and elected as members of the SBPOA board last year, as alleged by Lamborn, and whether Burns, Bryant, Spitzmiller and Brown have illegally attempted to undermine Lamborn’s authority, are now issues for a judge to decide.

Though the question of who constitutes the rightful governing board of the SBPOA may be in doubt, it seems clear enough the debate over whether and how to challenge the County’s failure to regulate vacation rentals has driven a wedge between residents on the south beach.

Until he became “Mr. Short Term Rental,” Solari was widely popular on the south beach.  By challenging Vero Beach’s right to continue providing water, sewer and reuse water service to the south barrier island, Solari held himself out as a modern-day Moses determined to “deliver his people from bondage.”

Lamborn, SBPOA board member Carter Taylor and others no longer see Solari as the savior of the south beach, at least not on the vacation rental. Last year, Lamborn wrote Solari suggesting that, because of the Commissioner’s support of the commercialization of the county’s neighborhoods, there is now some distance between Solari and the SBPOA, at least on this issue.

After receiving Lamborn’s email, Solari seems to have gone to work on the now dissident members of the SBPOA board. Whether Solari orchestrated, encouraged, or simply knew about last year’s attempted coup is not clear. What is clear is that he met with at least several of the named defendants soon before they attempted to oust Lamborn as president of the association.

Just last week, the County Commission’s Short Term Vacation Rental Advisory Committee completed its work, passing on a list of recommendations designed to relieve at least some of the political pressure building up over the Commission’s lax approach to short term rentals. That appointed advisory committee, made up almost exclusively of members with a vested interest in vacation rentals, has been actively challenged by Lamborn, as well as by members of the North Beach Property Owners Association and the Indian River Neighborhood Association.

Though Solari may hope otherwise, the negative impact of short term rentals on the county’s neighborhoods is an issue that will not go away. How divisive the debate becomes and how impactful it may be on Solari’s re-election bid will be clear by August, when “Mr. Short Term Rental” faces Jay Kramer in the Republican primary election.