Tequesta Notes
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A man tests his wingsuit concept by jumping off the Eiffel tower.
Saturday, July 31, 2021
A Review of the
Tequesta Park Plan
Tequesta residents: Speak up now to save your village from being saddled with a huge long-term financial liability and from being converted into a "sports tourism" destination. Make no mistake, the Mayor's proposal is right out of the aggressive development playbook that continues to destroy beautiful communities up and down the coast of Florida. Tell the Council to oppose the Mayor's plan. As discussed in detail below, this plan is:
→ financially reckless
→ harmful to the village and to residents
→ lacking in basic planning and due diligence
→ unnecessarily rushed
→ based on a concept entirely lacking in resident input and
→ neglectful of far superior & less expensive alternatives
The Council workshop meeting is Monday, August 2! Council email addresses are listed at the end of this post.
We can make Tequesta Park a spectacular spot for the village and residents at far less cost to village taxpayers than the Mayor's proposal.
Financially Reckless
Even if the state were to cover the full building cost, the village cannot afford the annual maintenance costs that this project would require, so you can expect it to lead to increases in taxes to support the on-going maintenance costs and to pay for the four or five new staff positions designated for the project. Even the estimates prepared by the proponents of this plan (and which therefore undoubtedly understate costs) reveal substantial long-term financial liabilities for the village. The proponents have offered no concrete plan for financing the on-going maintenance.
The starting point for thinking about the maintenance cost is to note that the current annual maintenance cost is $133,000. (Appendix fig. 1.) The proposed plan would require much more maintenance overall and much more intensive maintenance especially for the fields that will have to meet the standards of "high-quality tournament level fields." (Appendix fig. 2.) We should expect the actual annual maintenance costs for this plan to be multiples of the current maintenance costs.
The plan proponents estimate the annual cost to the village at $545,000-$650,000. (Council Agenda 2 Aug 2021, page 9.) This estimate is incomplete on its face as it does not include an increase in insurance cost, (Appendix fig. 3), nor does it include any reserve funds for replacements should things break or be destroyed. (Appendix fig. 4.)
The proposed plan also would add 4-5 new village staff to “market” the park and manage it. (Appendix fig. 5.) The village will need to set aside additional tax dollars for that purpose. The village currently does not have over half a million dollars to spare. And it is a sure bet that even a “sports tourism destination” complex won’t bring in anywhere near the amount of money needed to cover the substantial extra expenses. For example, Jupiter’s Recreation Department runs an annual deficit of over $1.4 million. (Appendix figs. 6-i and 6-ii.) The residents of Tequesta will be heavily subsidizing this fancy sports complex that the Mayor is proposing, and we won’t even be able to use the vast majority of the park when the tournaments full of out-of-town visitors are being played.
Note, by the way, that the municipal Facebook post a few weeks ago made no mention of the on-going maintenance costs. The Mayor's proposal would commit the village to these costs for the 34 years remaining on the lease.
"Sports Tourism" = Harm to the Village
The newly-disclosed purpose for this plan is sports tourism. (Appendix fig. 7.) What this means is that this park is actually not designed with you, residents of Tequesta, in mind as a priority. You are an after-thought. It is designed for people who do not live in Tequesta or even the local area. The justification in the presentation materials developed by the village for this concept is “to primarily attract [non-local] visitors” with a passing glance at “the additional benefit of hosting recreational and club programs in support of residents.” The description of the park in the village’s presentation materials even notes that the layout of the park is designed “to accommodate tournament activity.” This proposal does not prioritize the interests of residents or of the village. In fact the transience that it would cause will contribute to the destruction of genuine community.
And also, do any residents want Tequesta to be a sports tourism destination? We do not know anyone who would want this! That is an ill-advised priority and it would destroy the best aspects of this village. You can see in this explicit goal a complete disdain for what Tequesta residents actually value and want in this village.
Also, the point of Tequesta Park from its inception was to have a park that serves the local community’s recreation needs. That interest is not at all served by attempting to entice tourists from Miami or Orlando to come for a tournament weekend. It does exactly the opposite. That’s how you explode a community.
No Planning, No Due Diligence
The lack of planning here is easy to see. At the July Council workshop where the Mayor first presented his plan to ask the state for money to build this concept, it was clear that the proponents of this plan had not even read the lease agreement governing the use of Tequesta Park. For example, they did not know the provisions on maintaining the natural space of this park. Also, this plan overlaps with the recent and separate Council decision to resurface tennis courts in Tequesta Park and put in pickleball courts (at a cost of $130,000), so plainly this idea wasn't even on the Council's radar just a couple of months ago. And the fact that this plan is being pushed during the summer vacation time when Council members are coming and going on vacation, residents are not paying attention to the Council agenda, and information is difficult to obtain because people are away from work aggravates the lack of planning and due diligence. For the lack of planning and due diligence alone, the Council should oppose this plan.
Drinking water wells. Tequesta operates several wells for drinking water in the park. Does it make sense to douse pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers as would be required for the intensive field maintenance of a "premier athletic facility" on the land right above the aquifer we drink from? No one has explored this question.
Street traffic. The tournaments would mean a lot of out-of-town traffic to the fields. That means more traffic on Route 1 and Old Dixie, probably substantially more at peak times. According to the proposal (Council Agenda 2 Aug 2021, page 11), the times when that would happen would be Friday nights and all day Saturday and Sunday. Has anyone considered the extra traffic and how that would be handled? How about the impact on people who live off of Old Dixie or go to Publix that way or go out to eat at the Route 1 restaurants on Friday night? Has anyone asked the condo owners across the street on County Line if they’d mind having that additional traffic? Or the people off of Seabrook/County Line who use those roads? All these questions point to the complete lack of planning here.
Unnecessarily Rushed Process
The process undertaken for this project has been terrible, and an awful outcome is almost guaranteed if the Council goes forward with the plan. It doesn't need to be like that, however. Everything about this project would be much better for Tequesta residents if we take the time to consider this park carefully and consult with residents, beginning with the concept phase.
Artificial deadline. The Mayor has justified his rushing the project suddenly by claiming that he needs a project ready to present to Florida legislators in time for the state appropriations process. This is really no excuse at all. The Mayor could have started the process last fall. And also we can simply plan on thinking through the park carefully this coming year and preparing a plan for the appropriations cycle that starts in 2022. State appropriations occur every year. There is no excuse and no special need to rush now! And rushing now does not serve the interests of the village or of residents. We can take as much time as we need to get the plan right. The only thing we get from this haste is a significant risk of setting up the village for a huge financial, technical, or legal liability.
The presentation materials for the August 2 Council workshop illustrate the extremely rushed nature of this poorly thought-through project. We now see belated justifications that are being thrown around to deflect from the fact that: 1) Tequesta has no current way to afford the maintenance/new staff/insurance necessary for the Mayor’s plan, and 2) this project is being thrown together on the fly and is likely to result in very expensive errors.
No Resident Input
The Mayor's concept does not embody what residents want because residents were not consulted in the drawing of the concept. The concept phase is, however, the most important phase for resident input. This lack of consulting Tequesta residents is, on its own also, sufficient reason to oppose the plan.
Tequesta residents have diverse recreation interests and more than a few of these are going completely neglected. There is no natural recreation space operated by the village beyond the walking path around Tequesta Park, and that would disappear if this proposal comes to fruition, because the plan is to use about a third of the current trail for roadway pavement and parking lots. Whereas natural recreation space was a key point of the park under the lease and the law.
Far Superior Alternatives
We already have recreational baseball and soccer fields for Tequesta. The village should improve them and maintain them, but we don't need to spend all this money to chase after sports tourism. We can have beautiful fields and courts, build a nice new pavilion, get rid of invasives and add shade trees and native plants in the numerous deadzones of grass that are not playing fields and that are unused. We can make this a spectacular spot for the village and residents for far less state and village money than the proposed concept. Shade trees are inexpensive. A nice pavilion that can be used for gatherings would serve a real community interest. These are much less expensive improvements and they would be well used by residents. They promote genuine community and they serve our environmental interests. The village would not need to hire any new staff to manage this.
As a third alternative, we could completely re-imagine this space in a way that is consistent with the conservation purpose of this imperiled sand pine scrub set out in the lease and in Florida statutes. (Appendix figs. 8-i & 8-ii.) Every town around us has baseball and soccer fields. We could do something completely different and make the village even more unique. We could envision a spectacular natural space perhaps in partnership with a non-profit. This would be the kind of idea to explore by consulting residents at the concept stage of this project.
Email the Council!
Don't just stand by and watch the destruction of your village and its character. Speak up now and tell the Council to oppose the proposed concept for Tequesta Park. It does not serve the long term interests of residents or of the village. You can email the Council at these addresses below. Please tell them that you oppose the proposed design and you oppose the rushed process.
→ Email Council Member Kyle Stone. Ask him to oppose the rushed proposal. kstone@tequesta.org.
→ Please also email Council Members Laurie Brandon lbrandon@tequesta.org and Molly Young myoung@tequesta.org.
→ Email Mayor Frank D’Ambra fdambra@tequesta.org and Council Member Bruce Prince bprince@tequesta.org and express your opposition to the rushed plan.
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