STUART — Two weeks after city commissioners appeared to have killed the chances of a Brightline station downtown, they reversed course Monday and are returning to the negotiating table.
The decision was made at the end of a long city council meeting that lasted until after 11 p.m.
“We’ve got to find a way to make this work,” said Mayor Campbell Rich, who listed a number of benefits a station would bring, including reduced pollution, the ability to travel and access resources elsewhere in Florida and as a legacy for future generations.
Supporters gather in front of the station
About 100 people gathered on the city’s Riverwalk before the meeting to urge the commission to save the station. After the meeting, they marched to City Hall, carrying signs reading “Bring Back Brightline” and chanting “Save our station.” At the start of the commission meeting, they chanted outside City Hall, saying, “We want Brightline.”
“This is for our children in the distant future,” Rich said at the rally as supporters, many of whom were once again wearing yellow shirts, looked on approvingly.
Nina Brody said her daughter took a job in Philadelphia because she no longer wanted to drive from downtown Stuart to West Palm Beach. If Brightline stopped in Stuart, her daughter could take the train, she said.
Brightline officials did not respond to a request for comment on the commission’s action.
An advantage for people with disabilities
Valerie Potvin, who has a visual impairment, attended the meeting before the city council met.
“When the train stops here, a whole new world opens up for us,” says Potvin, sitting next to a friend who is also partially sighted.
They both said that it is very difficult to drive around with their disability and that they often depend on others to transport them.
Collins explains his reasoning
Commissioner Christopher Collins, who voted two weeks ago with Commissioners Laura Giobbi and Sean Reed to revoke two agreements related to Brightline and scrap the deal, explained that vote Monday.
“My problem wasn’t with this station,” he said. “My problem was with this deal.”
Five years ago, Collins said, Brightline promised to pay 50 percent of the station’s costs.
However, Brightline did not want to fulfill that obligation when it chose Stuart as its location, Collins said.
“That was my biggest problem with the deal,” he said. “Effectively, Brightline, in this public-private partnership, … got away with it.”
Collins said the city could also have had to pay $45 million and a parking garage.
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“I’m happy to entertain a station with a deal that looks more like the deal we were going for for five years, until the last minute, when everything changed,” Collins said. The comment was met with applause from the audience.
In addition to wanting Brightline to perform better financially, Collins wants to see more stops planned in Stuart than the two northbound and two southbound stops the railroad originally committed to.
Keith Burbank is TCPalm’s watchdog reporter covering Martin County. He can be reached at keith.burbank@tcpalm.com and at 720-288-6882.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Stuart to attempt to renegotiate Brightline train station deal
