The TC Palm – No Trains Rally draws crowd to county complex

By Susan Mehiel

 

We are extremely pleased to announce that despite the drizzle and mist on a recent Saturday morning, it cleared off enough for the show to go on and it was like a scene from the Costner film “Field of Dreams” when he heard, “build it, they will come.”

 

At 1:30 p.m. (the program started at 2) the cars and people started streaming in.

 

A review of the number of signatures on the petitions and letter to the governor indicate that we had about 600 people at the rally.

 

Rhett Palmer, radio personality, was master of ceremonies for a portion of the program.

 

Our plan was for an hour and a half program but we moved things along and it lasted just past an hour, which is all that people wanted.

 

The Bobby Owen Band was excellent and they played warm up and at the end – people were line dancing before we began.

 

Our speakers included Commissioner Solari, Randy Old (board member of the Vero Man archeological dig project and city council member), Stanford Erickson (nationally known author and journalist), Dam Lamson (director of the Indian River Neighborhood Association.) and John O’Connor from the Firefighters Union.

 

One of the more informative talks was about the archeological dig site. We learned there are 26 identified sites and the two being worked now will be destroyed by the rail construction.

 

KC Ingram from Florida Not All Aboard was present, as were a number of elected IRC and Vero Beach officials.

 

We asked the crowd to do 3 things: sign the Florida Not All Aboard petition, sign a giant letter we are hand carrying to the governor, and buy our bumper stickers, buttons and t-shirts.

 

Folks stood in line to do all three.