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March 10, 1981 Mr. Patrick B. Lyons, Chairman Board of County Commissioners Indian River, County Vero Beach, Florida 32960 Dear Mr. Lyons: We would like to register our opposition to any proposal which extends water service to the South County area at the expense of property owners with vested water rights. This would seem to be under consideration in reading the Supplement to South Beach, Indian River County Water Systems Analysis, dated March 5, 1981, prepared by Consultants to the Board, Sverdrup & Parcel and Associates, Inc. and Beindorf and Asso- ciates, Inc., which states in part: "The Fire Service Assessment could be utilized with either Impact Alternatives. Doing so would spread the total project cost over a larger user ase and allow for lower impact fees for new development." emphasis added) The Moorings Development Company entered into its original contract (hereinafter, "Contract") with the City of Vero Beach for service to The Moorings Subdivision in 1968. The consider- ation required of The Moorings Development Company by said Con- tract was that we pay for the entire cost of the extension and related system. There is no provision for additional monies to be paid for services which The Moorings had previously paid for. Having paid our way initially and since that time, we feel it would be unfair to have an additional price exacted more than 12 years later. We also note that said Contract addresses the question of fire hydrants, and presumably fire service in general. In particular, paragraph 8 provides: "The City will charge $90.00 per year for each hydrant constructed under the terms of this agreement and this charge will be prorated among the water customers located within 500 feet of each fire hydrant so installed, as measured a ong the curbline or street right of way, to each such customer, and this charge will be added to the annual January water bill of each such customer; the City reserves the right to increase or decrease this charge as may be recommended by its consulting engineer." (emphasis added) Furthermore, in 1977, we were compelled to enter into a law suit against the City of Vero Beach to defend our vested water rights. May we additionally point out that the agreement which the County entered into with the City of Vero Beach on October 22, 1980 (hereinafter, "Agreement") repeatedly states that impact fees and assessments are applicable only to new (non vested) property owners. It is, moreover, our contention that to desig- nate the proposed additional assessment a "fire service assess- ment" is a distinction without a difference. -For your edification, we would like to refer Agreement which is replete with assurances that w assessed, as has apparently been suggested by the Paragraph 3, in part, states: MAR 111981 37 you to said will not be consultant: BooK 46?AGE 37