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Wednesday, March 9, 2022
A Brief Review:
The Master Parks Plans
Last night the last opportunity for resident input on the fundamental conceptualization of our park areas in the Master Parks Plan began. Tonight there is one more open meeting at the Village Hall, and the plans are to be on view at the Village Hall for a few weeks after. This brief note is intended to encourage Tequesta residents to go and view the proposals and to tell our Council members to prioritize natural areas when moving forward to the adoption and implementation phase of this project. (→ Council Email Form.) In our numerous discussions with Tequesta residents (and non-residents!), the overwhelming preference is for natural spaces and taking care of natural spaces because most people love these spaces and also understand that the great value of this region lies in the health and beauty of our land and water resources. Natural parks are also far less expensive to build and to maintain and so are an easy relief for taxpayers in contrast to infrastructure intensive rec centers and facilities. Especially in this time of increasing costs! (See Parks Master Planning 10 October 2021.)
The plans cover two park areas: Tequesta Park and Remembrance Park.
Tequesta Park. Our community development director and her team have three conceptual designs for this park. We thank Nilsa Zacarias for listening to residents in developing her proposals. It is a much appreciated gesture after the total lack of listening from the three Council members—Mayor D’Ambra, Bruce Prince, and Kyle Stone—who have repeatedly voted to push forward the request for state funding for a sports complex at Tequesta Park with no support from residents. Here are pictures of the options: Option A, Option B, Option C.
Of the conceptual designs, Option B for Tequesta Park is the superior plan because it features an increase in the natural area of the park. This is the key priority that we should pursue, for social, environmental, and financial reasons. There are three sports fields in this design, which is more than enough in our circumstances and for a village of our size and not nearly as intrusive on the existing natural areas and animals and birds that live in the park as the options with larger areas devoted to built and intensively-maintained spaces. If you do not wish to see tournaments and a sports complex such as the mayor proposed at Tequesta Park, and all of the associated dangers to the natural environment, traffic, and expenses to be borne by taxpayers, we encourage you to vote for Option B and to tell the Council that you want Tequesta Park’s built areas to have the small footprint. (→ Council Email Form.) Increasing the natural areas and prioritizing native habitat restoration benefits every Tequesta resident, even those who never go to the park, and is clearly the right choice from a financial perspective. This approach is also respectful of the lease governing the land under which the village is committed to prioritize taking care of the natural habitat of this state-owned land and of disposing it for nature-based recreation.
Remembrance Park. There are also three Remembrance Park conceptual designs. (Option A, Option B, Option C.) We especially like that Option A for Remembrance Park includes adding native plants to the two retention areas off of Riverside Drive. Adding beautiful plants and trees to these areas is not only an aesthetic improvement, it is also a cost-effective method help to mitigate flooding. We would prefer that the butterfly garden from Option C, or another area of plants and trees, replace the pond in Option A for reasons of both habitat restoration and cost, but believe that on the whole, Option A is the better choice.
Update on H.B. 3309. H.B. 3309 is the request to the State of Florida from the mayor for almost $10 million to build a sports tournament complex at Tequesta Park. As of March 9, this bill is still in the appropriations committee, after having been voted favorably out of the subcommittee on agriculture and natural resources, with no public discussion by subcommittee members, and despite numerous requests from Floridians NOT to advance this terrible bill. This is extremely disappointing. The subcommittee should not have voted to advance this exorbitant, ill-planned project. We hope that the appropriations committee will have better sense and spare Floridians from this wasteful use of their tax dollars and destruction of their public land.
The legislature is supposed to complete its work for this session on March 11. That might seem comforting, but please remember that the Village engaged a lobbyist for this bill. The lobbyist is paid with our tax dollars. He evidently dug up a sponsor for this bill after residents asked our local representative in the House, John Snyder, not to sponsor the bill and he did not. (We thank Mr Snyder for his prudent and considered decision.) The new sponsor is Mr Casello, a representative from the Boynton area. Further, the bill landed suddenly on the subcommittee’s consent agenda at the last minute at the beginning of February with almost no public notice before the subcommittee’s vote. This could happen at the committee level too.
It is not too late to write to the appropriations committee to tell them that you do not support H.B. 3309 "Tequesta Regional Park Improvements"! Please write especially to the committee chair Jay Trumbull (email form here: Mr Trumbull's email). Here are all the members of the committee, their contact forms are linked from their individual pages: Committee Members. A brief message explaining that you are opposed to the wasteful spending proposed in H.B. 3309 and the complete lack of planning and consultation with residents on this proposal would be fine.
Thank you for your care for the village of Tequesta and for Florida!
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