The Palm Beach Post – Promised meeting with All Aboard Florida canceled

In August, All Aboard Florida agreed to meet with an opposition group of Treasure Coast and Jupiter communities after the coalition lobbied Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Ananth Prasad.

But the meeting between officials from the express passenger rail project and Citizens Against Rail Expansion, or CARE, was never held and may not occur at all. The reason? CARE would like to have its lawyer, Steve Ryan, present during the meeting. All Aboard Florida doesn’t want him there.

“Every meeting the All Aboard Florida team has done is with members of the community and not their outside legal representatives,” All Aboard Florida said in a statement. “We do not bring legal counsel with us in an effort to maintain an open dialogue. Therefore, we remain committed to having the same open dialogue with Floridians who are part of CARE.”

All Aboard Florida plans to run 32 passenger trains a day between Miami and Orlando on the Florida East Coast Railway tracks . Miami-to-West Palm Beach service is expected to begin in late 2016 with the Orlando leg starting in 2017.

Ryan, who is based in Washington, D.C., has been questioning several aspects of the service. He said there was a meeting for Oct. 7 scheduled for the two sides, but it was canceled.

“They don’t want anyone else in the room,” Ryan said. “There’s this feeling that this is inevitable. It’s anything but inevitable.”