The three men running for Indian Trail Improvement District Seat 3 were among the participants in an Acreage Landowners’ Association candidates forum Monday evening at the ITID office.
Incumbent ITID Supervisor Ralph Bair and challengers Alan Ballweg and David Bradley will be on the Aug. 26 primary election ballot. If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two vote-getters will advance to the November general election ballot. Two other ITID seats are up for election this year, but not until November.
Bair has served as an ITID supervisor on and off dating back two decades. His current stint on the board began in 2006. He told the audience that his experience and special training through the Florida Association of Special Districts makes him the most qualified candidate in the race.
“The job is a complicated job,” Bair said. “It’s not something you just walk into. We do our best to do what we can for the taxpayers, as well as provide services.”
Bair has been married more than 40 years and has two daughters who are teachers.
Ballweg said Tropical Storm Isaac motivated his involvement in community affairs, and more recently he has been busy opposing overdevelopment in what he calls “Traffic Storm Minto,” the proposed Minto West project, as well as other proposed developments.
Since Isaac, Ballweg said he has attended and participated in every ITID meeting, as well as meetings with county and South Florida Water Management District officials about drainage and protection from overdevelopment.
He has lived in The Acreage for 14 years and is a graduate of Stanford University, where he studied economics and engineering management. He has worked mainly in electrical engineering on large projects and telemetry systems, which he said gives him a good knowledge of drainage and flood control.
Bradley, 28, is a firefighter at Pratt & Whitney’s Jupiter industrial facility. “I’m as transparent as they come,” Bradley said. “You know what I feel when I feel it because I wear it on my face. People say I speak with emotion, and sometimes emotion is what politics lacks.”
Bradley noted that he was born and raised in the community.
“I’ve lived here for 23 years,” he said. “After moving to join the Marines, I moved back home here because this is my community. This community helped shape who I am. My wife, Jessica, is pregnant with our very first child, and it will shape that child’s life as well. I would love nothing more than to represent this community and its interests.”
Asked to state an opinion on future development and how it would affect the community, Ballweg said Minto West would change the character of the area’s rural, agricultural and equestrian way of life. “It will bring massive traffic, noise and congestion, stress on infrastructure and resources,” he said. “It will make our job situation worse by bringing in many more people than available jobs. We do not want a city in the country. Indian Trail needs somebody to advocate for The Acreage. I’ve been doing it.”
Ballweg added that Minto West could start a domino effect where its density would be used to justify increased density for other large planned developments.
“It could double or triple the population and turn us into an overdeveloped area like Broward County,” he said. “It will require a concerted effort of legal and political influence, as well as direct discussions with county commissioners, planning staff and engineers. I have been doing this already. I’m not waiting until I’m elected.”
Bradley said people chose The Acreage because they wanted a more rural lifestyle.
“We choose to live out here,” he said. “We chose this lifestyle. It wasn’t forced on any of us, and it’s at a precipice of change. To not prevent that change would be the downfall of this community. Minto West alone is talking about increasing trips of upward of 55,000 trips per day, 33 to 38 percent of those trips are going to go right through the heart of this community… I do not want the community to be affected as impactfully as Minto West claims it will be. It will be a significant detriment to our way of life.”
Bradley said he would work with county commissioners, Wellington, Royal Palm Beach and Loxahatchee Groves to come up with a group plan and try to stop overdevelopment nearby.
Bair said that in the 35 years he has lived here, he has seen The Acreage grow from about 4,000 to about 40,000 people.
“Growth is a scary thing, and you don’t want to have it forced upon you,” he said. “I’ll do everything I have to, including help the county and local municipalities and other areas develop a regional plan that will stop this kind of out-of-control growth. Minto has proposed what looks to be a city instead of a town center.”
Bair said he would assure that Persimmon and Orange Grove boulevards are blocked off so that traffic from the development could not come through The Acreage.
“It’s bad enough that we’re going to have to have them on Seminole Pratt and possibly, a necessary evil, 60th Street. I don’t want that, but I don’t know any way we can prevent the county buying the property to finish that road. I will do everything I can to make sure they stay out of our area.”
The candidates also discussed their opinions on the extension of State Road 7 to Northlake Blvd. along the original alignment east of Ibis.
Bradley favored the project and said it would help his commute to work. “I’m a little biased on this,” he said. “I drive the Beeline Highway every day to and from work.”
He said the proposed route is the best one available. “It needs to follow the plan that has been in place, that has been approved,” Bradley said. “The Acreage, with these coming developments, needs the support of reliever roads.”
Bair said he has been a longtime supporter of the completion of SR 7.
“It has been proven that we can build environmentally friendly roads, and I believe that one can be done just exactly like others,” he said. “The Acreage needs that extra outlet to go out to the east to relieve some of the burdens that we have on our other roads. We need to see that it gets pushed through. There is no reason that it shouldn’t be. We’ve been pushing hard for it. It needs to be done, and I’m going to make sure it gets through.”
Ballweg said the reliever road from Okeechobee Blvd. to Persimmon Blvd. has been a success.
“I remember, before it was built, going down Royal Palm Beach Blvd. past the school,” he said. “It could take 30 to 40 minutes to get past the school because of all the congestion. The reliever road carries 16,600 trips per day, and it has pretty much solved that problem on Royal Palm Beach Blvd.”
Ballweg said it is important to remember that the reliever road’s current route is not in the boundaries of ITID, and the board of supervisors cannot vote on it except to issue an opinion. He added that when finished, the extension will relieve about 4,000 trips per day on Seminole Pratt about 5,000 trips per day on Royal Palm Beach Blvd.
“As an Indian Trail supervisor, my responsibilities will be to insure that the wishes of the residents of The Acreage are respected and their rights and responsibilities will be protected,” he said.
Another hot topic was the pros and cons of an incorporated Acreage.
Bair noted that the community tried in 2001 to decide through the ALA and special meetings to figure out what type of government it wanted.
“We looked at going back to being just a water control district, remaining an improvement district, becoming a municipality, different things like that,” he said. “We just had too many people who didn’t want the city life, and all came from a city that took over their rural lifestyle. It was up to the people, and they decided what should be done. Indian Trail didn’t have power to do anything about it.”
Ballweg added that the last time the board considered incorporation, the supervisors were voted out of office in the next election.
“A study would cost about $300,000, and Indian Trail is not allowed to fund it,” he said. “The issues have not been recently studied, but a careful analysis of the pros and cons could and should be made by the board.”
Ballweg said that if the district did incorporate, the roads would become public; now, they are not.
“My feeling is that incorporation is likely the path toward bigger government and toward more taxes, and away from small government and a rural perspective,” he said.
Bradley said he did not know the pros and cons of incorporation.
“I’m going to be honest: I really don’t know,” he said. “I’ve only known this life. I cannot speak on a topic I’m not really well versed on. That would be unfair to you and unfair to me and unfair to this race… All I can promise you is I’ll never stop learning.”
Other candidates vying in the primary election also attended Monday’s forum, including Palm Beach County Commission District 6 Democratic candidates Kathy Foster and Melissa McKinlay, and Palm Beach County School Board District 6 candidates Marcia Andrews and Joe Moore. The forum was moderated by Sandra Love Semande.
ABOVE: ITID Seat 3 candidates Ralph Bair, Alan Ballweg and David Bradley at Monday’s candidates forum.
Why would Mr Ballweg make a campaign contribution to his competitor’s fund? Smells fishy Mr Ballweg.