Per Florida Today:
http://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/local/2014/10/21/brevard-supports-financing-plan-for-all-aboard-florida/17669449/ (http://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/local/2014/10/21/brevard-supports-financing-plan-for-all-aboard-florida/17669449/)
The Brevard County Commission on Tuesday supported a financing plan to help All Aboard Florida develop its passenger rail service between Orlando and Miami.
The vote was 3-2, with Commissioners Trudie Infantini and Chuck Nelson voting no.
All Aboard Florida plans 16 train runs a day in each direction through Central and South Brevard, but will not stop here, at least in its first phase of operations. Interim stops would be in West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale.
Brevard County would not have any financial risk from the proposed $1.75 billion private financing plan.
But the county approval was needed as part of the funding plan that would make the bonds tax-free for private investors, thus more attractive to them. The commission vote involved modifying an existing agreement Brevard County has with the Florida Development Finance Corp., which would act as the issuer of the "private activity bonds," but would assume no financial liability.
Forty-three speakers addressed the commission during its three-hour discussion of the issue, with 26 of them supporting the All Aboard Florida plan. That group of proponents including company executives, as well as South Florida residents who came to the meeting sporting pro-All Aboard Florida shirts and stickers.
They generally touted the positive benefits of the project on the tourism industry and the economy; the reduced traffic along Interstate 95 and State Road 528; and the potential that All Aboard Florida could later add a Brevard County stop.
Among the local supporters addressing the commission were Cocoa Mayor Henry Parrish III, Palm Bay Mayor William Capote, Port Canaveral Chief Executive Officer John Walsh, Canaveral Port Authority Vice Chairman Jerry Allender, Ron Jon Surf Shop President Debbie Harvey and beachside hotel executive Tom Hermansen.
Walsh said Port Canaveral would coordinate funding a study of where the best possible location for a future Brevard stop for the rail line might be. The port hopes to eventually have convenient rail service between the port and Orlando International Airport for its cruise passengers.
Opponents said they were concerned about how the proposed rail line would affect the traffic, noise, safety and property values along its route. They also objected to the fact that, at least initially, the trains would not stop in Brevard County.
"Property values could drop as much as 20 percent" near the All Aboard Florida route, Space Coast Association of Realtors President Mitch Ribak predicted in his comments to the County Commission.
As part of the agreement with Brevard County, All Aboard Florida agreed to an eight-year moratorium on maintenance costs the county might otherwise have had to pay; and agreed to pay $500,000 for certain improvements that could help establish "quiet zones" along which the train horns would not have to sound at rail crossings.
All Aboard Florida expects to start service between West Palm Beach and Miami in 2016, and expand to Orlando the following year.
Due to a unique structure that counties use to acquire tax exempt bonds through the state, two counties had to vote to approve to lift the bond cap so that AAF could get tax exempt bonds to finance construction in their jurisdictions.
The legislation allows AAF to get the tax-exempt bonds without adding any bond risk to the local counties.
Per the Palm Beach Post:
By Kim Miller
All Aboard Florida is clear to pursue $1.75 billion in private activity bonds after two votes today by commissioners in Brevard and Miami-Dade counties.
While the U.S. Department of Transportation must still approve the issuance of the tax-exempt bonds, the approvals pave the way for the Miami to Orlando express passenger rail project to move forward with its full request.
Miami-Dade and Brevard counties were the only counties of the eight that All Aboard Florida will run through that needed to increase caps on bond limit agreements they had with the Florida Development Finance Corp. The corporation serves as the conduit issuer for the tax exempt bonds.
Miami-Dade's vote was an 11-0 landslide. But more than two hours of public comment was heard by Brevard commissioners before a 3-2 vote to approve the measure was made. Commissioners Trudie Infantini and Chuck Nelson opposed the item.
In exchange for the approval in Brevard, All Aboard Florida agreed to pay for the maintenance of railroad crossings for eight years, pay $500,000 in matching funds toward safety upgrades to allow for quiet zones, and give the county a $375,000 _ an amount equal to a waiver fee that is typically paid to the corporation for issuing the bonds. The corporation also agreed to pay its $375,000 waiver fee to Brevard County.
All Aboard Florida was also added as a third-party beneficiary to Brevard's crossing agreement with the Florida East Coast Railway.
??? This came in to the Metro Jacksonville email account this evening:
QuoteSubject: "NO NAZI TRAINS IN FLORIDA"
Driving up from Miami Beach to Melbourne on 10/20/14, an NBC report was on Nazi killers in the Holocaust, getting Social Security checks in the U.S. and that the State Department said they could keep those checks, in the $millions, if they left the country.
Instead of prosecuting these murderers they were rewarded by the U.S. and paid for by taxpayers. It didn't make Florida Today newspaper.
This was, however, in the papers I gave to the Brevard County Commissioners, who treated me with disdain and contempt and allowed me to wait for 6 1/2 hours before I was allowed to speak against "All Aboard Florida" picking Siemens, one of the worst German companies in the Holocaust involving massive slave labor, the Death Camps, gas chambers and a host of issues that is enclosed. If there was one company they shouldn't have picked it was Siemens to run their trains, given all the other choices out there.
But the game was obviously 'rigged' from the beginning.
While I had negotiated to address the commissioners two weeks ago, when I arrived at 8:45AM, there was a large crowd and many with "I'm All Aboard" stickers and some with tee-shirts with the same message.
It turned out that 43 would speak in 3 hours and I was not invited to address my issues on Siemens with this crowd or the media there. Talk about the cowards and collaborators on the commission.
K.C. Traylor of Florida Not All Aboard presented 32,000 signatures but the commissioners cared less and purposely ignored this grassroots impact to support AAF's desire to sell bonds with this vote and All Aboard Florida had brought up students and others from S. Fla. with weak, almost stupid statements on why this $1.6billion project should be supported.
Yet AAF's presentation and approach was mediocre and a zero in terms of a quality presentation and I kept thinking how is it possible for this project to have any support when locals asked for more time and research, totally ignored by the commission, in pushing all of this that could easily fly back in their faces and Brevard not even getting a station, but all the problems and then AAF offering $500,000 for quiet zones, when many more dollars will be needed to accomodate it all.
The Commissioners and AAF were an embarassment.
Apparently this commission has that reputation from a number of other issues. In the 3-2 vote for AAF, Commissioner Fisher, who is black, defended that anyone who owns the property (tracks) can do what they want with it and a couple of black ministers said this project would mean jobs, which ignores that building a railroad is a specialized field and not just anyone is going to get those jobs. As to private property, I would remind Mr. Fisher, that in Miami Beach we protected the Art Deco district, now worth $Billions and didn't allow the developers to tear it all down for more high rise insanity blocking out the sun.
Commissioner Anderson said his concerns had been met by AAF, but never discussed what they were in this and his cover-up.
"Queen Mary", who is leaving the commission, wanted her vote to be her 'legacy' and selling out the community and Fla. will indeed be her 'legacy'. How pathetic.
Commissioner Nelson, who is also leaving, said he wanted the new commission to handle it and Trudie, the one commissioner who is more open in her opposition to AAF, was also, I thought much tamer and more timid in her questions than in statements previously made in print by her. She too was a disappointment.
When I finally got to speak, on SCG tv, it was after 3P.M. I started with showing my poster: "SIEMENS-FROM ALL ABOARD AUSCHWITZ TO ALL ABOARD FLORIDA" and believe me, these commissioners were not prepared to deal with the Nazi mass murder reputation of Siemens or that Reininger of AAF, who was at this meeting and then left after getting what he wanted, never responded to our request not to use French or German trains who had participated in the Holocaust and never compensated survivors and heirs which was sent in March and in several other appeals he ignored, showing his lack of integrity and honesty.
His explanations were also just mush while he was stating that the bond holders would be considered before the residents of Brevard County or any Florida taxpayer, which I thought any legitimate commissioner would have taken issue with on behalf of their constituents.
The whole project stinks and for many reasons that this 'speed train' that will be backed by the taxpayers on behalf of those bonds, will somehow mean 32 trains from Miami to Orlando as if this is an extension of Disneyworld's Monorail.
I said to the commissioners that the time they let me wait to speak, I could have driven from Miami Beach to Orlando and in one more hour, I could have returned, so what was their point in who is going to ride this 'thing'? let alone treating me this way.
I advised them that many projects by promoters have been pushed only to have the voters tricked and deceived. For example, the 1000 ft. observation tower for Downtown Miami that was voted for and then the developer comes back and wants %5-8million from the taxpayers and that was only a couple of weeks ago.
That we could have saved the treasured Orange Bowl Stadium, but instead bought this 'pig in a poke' for $700millions and a low class Billionaire and his Pres. telling the community what fools we were for doing it and so the boycott for a mediocre team and lousy management and this facility for the Miami Marlins, mostly empty and the development in Little Havana they promised, never materialized and more happened for the locals when the Orange Bowl Stadium was there.
I had served with Miami-Dade MAPP on transit in the last few years and previously in the 1970's on the issue of mass transit and giving over 100 hours to deal with the present Dade County Metrorail system. I had recommended its extension to the Miami International Airport way back then and it was ignored and only last year it was finally done and cost the taxpayers so many more unnecessary $millions.
Why would the Brevard Commissioners etc. ad nauseum want any legitimate input on a deal already done?
But what can you say to those in public office who only operate from $dollars dancing on their brains and little else but the greed that foments so much of the distrust to them on every level of office and from a public that can't stand it anymore.
Siemens is so guilty on so many levels of bribery, corruption besides the Holocaust that they have paid in fines more than the All Aboard Florida agenda to begin with and why would they be chosen to give Florida this reputation of supporting Nazi trains and not compensating survivors and heirs and the same for Allianz also in this paper below and also now the Social Security scandal of paying off Nazi killers.
Where does it end?
How can you tell today's youth not to commit murder or rape or be a terrorist, when those who did previously did this horror get rewarded and literally get away with murder and then get paid for it no less?
They never learn, but I demanded more than my five minutes and asked these politicos to tell All Aboard Florida not to use Siemens and their Nazi past and present awefulness and these commissioners were like deer in headlights and stunned that anyone would ask them to behave morally and actually support the victims of Siemens.
I asked them to take a stand that no company in Brevard that participated in the Holocaust and never compensated survivors and heirs be allowed to do business and to be a model for this effort for the state. The look on their faces, asking them to be moral, was mindboggling. It was worth the whole experience because the issues are so corrupt and so full of it and I know that hitting them with this approach is not one they want to deal with or can deal with.
The rest is all rigged by the same low lifes in public office that can easily be bought off and care less about anyone other than themselves.
I want to thank Patti who drove 10 hours from N. Caroline to join and sit with me for over 5 hours and bear witness to this whole sham and scam from AAF and the Brevard Commissioners, WHO WERE ALL ABORED AS WELL.
Afterwards we ate and talked on how we need a very different approach from the 3 hours of testimonials and previous activism to stop this monstrous operation.
"NO NAZI TRAINS IN FLORIDA" and 'SIEMEN: FROM ALL ABOARD AUSCHWITZ TO ALL ABOARD FLORIDA" are legitimate issues that AAF and their politicals cannot answer to and only showing that AAF etc. can't be trusted to begin with on any level of this project, if they can't get passed this issue of rewarding the Nazis and again attacking their victims with this insult to injury.
We have many thousands of Holocaust survivors in Fla. and they require special needs besides Medicade and why isn't Siemens doing their fair share on any level? With half of the survivors below poverty level, this continues the crimes against them and humanity.
The Brevard Commissioners or All Aboard Florida or Siemens could care less.
In another tragedy today, 10/22/14, an Islamic Nazi convert kills a soldier at their Memorial to Canadians who gave life and limb to stop the Nazis in WWII. This was in Ottawa and the third event since last Friday. On Monday, two Canadian soldiers were run over and one killed and that Islamic Nazi connected with ISIS was also killed, as was today's attacker.
No mention of security for AAF trains who might well be transporting ISIS all over the place.
Yesterday's event wore me out and obviously another strategy is necessary.
I have been invited to address the Brevard 9/12/.net group at 6:30 P.M.on Nov. 6 at Kol Maschiach Synogague,1621 Lake Washington Road in Melbourne and to protest at the Brevard County Commission at Noon on Nov. 7, 2014 at this betrayal from them and that we don't want Siemens or any Nazi trains running in Florida or Nazi stations either.
Enclosed, is also a list of meetings we will be at to expose and oppose Siemens and All Aboard Auschwitz to All Aboard Florida.
What makes this so scandalous is that there are at least 9 bus companies that run daily from Miami to Orlando and running from as low as $25 to $54 and maybe other great deals as well.
One can fly from Ft. Laud. to Orlando for $55 or round trip for $80 or so and six airlines with many flights from S. Fla. to Orlando.
AMTRAK from Miami to Orlando costs $43 to $95 depending on advanced reservations as well as the airlines. AMTRAK goes 79MPH and All Aboard Florida will go 110 MPH for $1.6billion and all that inconvenience and host of issues on why folks oppose this project along the East Coast to begin with, when if it should be built at all, could go along other existing tracks that are inland or along the Fla. Turnpike, but AAF doesn't want to spend their real monies on this.
Renting a car could cost as little as $4.95 a day out of Ft. Laud. and allow the renters all the leisure of having a car they will need to get around either in Orlando or Miami and many wonderful spots to visit in-between.
What is All Aboard Florida's point, except that reason isn't the issue when the scam is in and big bucks can be made, no matter how many folks it hurts.
Then add insult to injury with Siemens and its Nazi past being rewarded is so disgusting and why would Fla. put up with this crap on every level?
Please get this information to your networks, show up at these meetings; help to donate to: "Defend Jerusalem", P.O.Box 402263, Miami Beach, Fla. 33140 so that we can order signs and stickers and buttons with the above messages. Attend rallies being planned and don't give up, which AAF is depending on and the ONLY way they can win.
'NO NAZI TRAINS IN FLORIDA', ISN'T THE CAMPAIGN THAT THE BOND HOLDERS IN NY WANT TO SEE AND HEAR FROM THE VAST MAJORITY OF FLORIDIANS WHO DON'T WANT THIS ALL ABOARD FLORIDA ABOMINATION.
In summary he objects to AAF on the following:
- Rewarding a German corporate parent (Siemens)
- Doesnt think its needed
Was upset because:
- As a non-Brevard resident he had to wait behind 43 others before he could speak
- NAAF presented 32,000 signatures of non Brevard Residents objecting the service were ignored
- Didnt think that the 2 Brevard board members who voted against it didnt take the objectors seriously