Editorial: Wellington should get horse sense on equestrian events

Monday, Aug. 20, 2012

By Rhonda Swan

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

The sport of dressage is all about style and grace. Then there’s Wellington, where the political sport is to abandon not just style and grace but reason when discussing its hometown equestrian industry.

Last week, after the predictable marathon meeting, the council sort of, maybe agreed on hosting the 2012-13 Global Dressage Festival. As always, the issue came down to Mark Bellissimo, the festival’s producer, vs. the Jacobs family, which has a large horse complex in Wellington and this year spent $500,000 to install an anti-Bellissimo majority on the council.

Last month, the council revoked the previous council’s approval for a dressage arena that Mr. Bellissimo’s Equestrian Sports Partners had proposed in the Equestrian Preserve. The group missed a platting deadline required for a master plan for the 59-acre site and compatibility determination for the arena. Previous councils would have granted an extension. The new council chose not to, though all three who voted against the extension said during their campaigns that they supported the arena.

“This is the kiss of death for Wellington’s future,” Victor T. Connor, president-elect of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce wrote in a letter to The Post. “No business will invest in a community that retroactively un-approves previously approved projects and requiring returning the property to its previous use.”

The dressage arena was intended to be the centerpiece of a proposed $80 million Equestrian Village. The new majority’s coldness toward Mr. Bellissimo’s proposals prompted Equestrian Sport Partners to withdraw its bid to host the 2018 World Equestrian Games, which would have been an economic boost to the village. “Recent actions by the newly elected members of the Wellington Village Council to impede the development of equestrian sport in Wellington,” Mr. Bellissimo wrote in a statement, “has forced us to withdraw our bid.”

Mayor Bob Margolis has said previous councils favored Mr. Bellissimo too much. “I’ve never seen this type of open-door policy,” Mr. Margolis told The Post Editorial board,” for people getting what they want.” That may have been true. It’s just as wrong, though, to target someone for unfavorable treatment. Unless it starts looking out for Wellington first, the council will look like the wrong end of a horse.

Randy Schultz

for The Post Editorial Board