Stuart & Martin County Are In A Bad Marriage

If there was one wish to be granted, it would be that Stuart could obtain a divorce from Martin County. Stuart is like the battered wife that is abused mentally and physically by a domineering and mean husband.

Plato in “Symposium” wrote: “Each of us when separated, having one side only, is but the indenture of a person, and we are always looking for our other half.” Anytime I have officiated at a wedding, I have read those words in the ceremony. Stuart and Martin County are two halves of the same coin. We complement each other just as a husband and wife should do.

For some reason, instead of working together as any committed couple, Martin County, the man, needs to throw its weight around and dominate the wife, the City of Stuart. This analogy is especially true when it comes to the Brightline station. They were supposed to be working on submitting the RFP together. Instead, it appears that Martin County primarily needs to make sure that Stuart realizes who is the boss in this arrangement.

An RFP to determine whether Stuart and Martin County will receive the station is due in about two weeks. As I wrote in the last edition of Friends & Neighbors, that proposal is already in jeopardy because the county is using a 2018 agreement with Brightline as a basis for the submission. The agreement called for the county to pay half the cost of any station built in the county. And the county is sticking to it even though Brightline has written clear guidelines for what they expect.

(You can read what I wrote entitled “Too Close To Fail” here )

The often-changed proposed Interlocal Agreement between the county and city as of now has not been finalized even though the city commission will be voting on it on Monday and the county on Tuesday. The last version I read stipulated that the county would only pay for half the station leaving Brightline to pick up the rest. The full cost of the parking garage will be all the city’s responsibility. There is also the matter of the incidental expenses such as landscaping, sidewalks, and storm water that is left unmentioned.

Most of this project will be paid for by grants. However, in one iteration of the interlocal, it appeared that instead of the parties applying as one, it would be every entity for themselves. This is not how a committed couple acts. Yet Martin County is under the impression that Stuart is only their partner when it suits them.

And here is the rub…Martin County doesn’t need the city at all to put in an RFP. The land for the station and garage is currently the courthouse parking lot and surrounding area which the county owns. So why are they keeping Stuart in the mix.

Perhaps it is because the city was an eager partner, like any good wife is in supporting her man. Stuart on their own has applied for the CRISI (Consolidated Rail and Safety Improvements) Grant from the Federal Rail Administration with Brightline for a new railroad bridge. While no city funds will be used, one of the parameters is that a local government needs to ask for it. Martin County was nowhere to be found.

The main reason for the county to keep Stuart on the hook is to spread the expense. The more parties to the application, the more pockets of money there will be to go around. So why is Stuart so eager to remain part of this bad marriage?

For all intents and purposes, Stuart is built out. The real estate tax base will not grow as it has in the past. But Stuart’s expenses will continue to grow. At some point in the not-too-distant future, city services will have to be cut simply because expenses will outpace revenue.

If real estate won’t be a source of enough revenue, then the city will need to turn to other industries. Brightline is now running trains right through the city and no extra income is going to Stuart’s coffers. According to figures released by Brightline in October, there were 79,686 passengers travelling long distance from South Florida to Orlando. That is nearly 80,000 people rolling through Stuart.

According to Brightline the ridership includes South and Central Florida residents, domestic American passengers, and visitors from 92 countries. The rail company believes they will have 4.3 million long distance riders annually by 2025. They have already added a 7th car on some trains because of the demand.

According to the Tourist Development Board, Miami-Dade along with Broward is the number one area for visitors to Stuart, followed 2nd by the Orlando area, and then the New York Metropolitan area. How many more tourists would stop in Stuart if they could come by train? With new hotels proposed in the downtown area, the city would have a substantial new source of income from the those tourist dollars.

How much financial risk is Stuart obligating itself to? From what I have been told, the station projects in Aventura and Boca were paid for by grants to the tune of 70 to 80% of the cost. For years, the city has been toying with the idea of building a parking garage, this may make it feasible to finally do so.

Yet how much abuse should Stuart take at the hands of Martin County? Remember when the county says it pays for something by using the general fund like the study with the planning council for the station, every taxpayer in Stuart pays taxes to that county fund as every other county resident does. The truth of it is that a taxpayer in Stuart pays more to the county than it does to Stuart. No matter how much the parties want the divorce, we will continue to be intertwined.

We have the trains speeding through the county and city, and we should get a benefit even if one partner is abusive to the other. If we must live together, we need to come to a détente for now.