cuRRentsPitchford’s Landing stilltargeted after 8 years pg 8

FREE

Time to investigate county's bad habits Pg 7

Volume 5 Issue 2 • April/May 2015

Martin County

Hobe Sound seems livelier these dayswith new stores and even new murals. pg 17

UF Water Institute report gives clear direction:We need more storage, lots more money. pg 15

Finally, the Pacific Legal Foundation getsMartin County to compromise over rules. pg 5

From this today

... to this someday?

Martin County CurrentsApril/May 20152

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Features

All the articles and opinion pieces are authored and/or edited by Publisher Barbara Clowdus,except as otherwise noted. All the typos, mistakes, grammatical errors, omissions, andmisspelled words are hers alone, too. The good photos are taken by someone else. Allcontents are copyrighted 2015 Martin County Currents LLC.

EDITOR BARBARA CLOWDUSeditor@MartinCountyCurrents.com

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5Flash Beach Grille and

county reach compromise

ColumnistsOpen Letter to Customs Supporters ......... 7Commissioner John Haddox

One Florida Foundation ............... 12 - 13Capt. Don Voss & Nyla Pipes

Art Kaleidoscope ............. 18Maya Ellenson

Hopscotch ........................ 20Suzanne Briley

Pompano Reporter ........... 21Rich Vidulich

Calendar ...................... 22-23

cuRRentsMartin County

PUBLISHER -- Barbara Clowdus PRINTER -- Southeast Offset, Inc.WEBSITE -- Sonic Fish, LLC GRAPHIC DESIGN -- Simone FongA monthly newspaper, Martin County Currents LLC is distributed free throughout the county. Allopinions are those of its authors, and letters to the editor are encouraged. Contact information: MartinCounty Currents LLC, 5837 SE Avalon Drive, Stuart, FL 34997. www.MartinCountyCurrents.com.772.245.6564.

4Ethics Commission

finds probable cause8-10

Pitchford's Landing still

under fire

19Two HoSo authors publish their books

Martin County CurrentsApril/May 2015 3

6Hearing on septic tank

rule changes April 28-29

PICK UP A COPY -- All Martin County Publix; all Chambers of Commerce; all Public Libraries;Marriott Courtyard Hotels; Denny's in Stuart & south Port St. Lucie; The Original PancakeHouse in Jensen Beach; Fresh Catch in south Stuart; Fish House Art Center & Valero's inPort Salerno; CVS & Kwik Stop in Hobe Sound; YMCA on Monterey; Rines IGA in Indiantown;Alice's in Cedar Pointe Plaza & Portofinos's in downtown Stuart; Zynga's & Ripper's in PalmCity; The Mail Stand in Tequesta; plus numerous bank, medical and professional lobbies inhigh-traffic areas throughout the county.

Martin County CurrentsApril/May 20154 News Stream

Florida politicians have learned well that when you're in troublewith the Florida Commission on Ethics in Tallahassee to be sureto get a good Tallahassee attorney, which is exactly what MartinCounty Commissioner Sarah Heard did regarding recent allega-tions of ethics violations.

She was to appear at an Ethics Commission hearing April 17 toface numerous allegations of violating Florida's ethics laws overher past nine years in office filed by Palm City businessman JohnMcAuliffe.

Heard was not required to appear after Tallahassee attorney R.W. Evans success-fully negotiated a pre-probable cause stipulated agreement between Heard andEthics Commission advocate Melody Hadley, also a Tallahassee attorney, stipulatingthat Heard would pay a $2,400 fine for her violations.

Charges that Heard allegedly falsified expense reports and other charges weredropped as part of the negotiated agreement, according to a letter from the commis-sion to McAuliffe.

Documentation that showed deeds in Heard's name for properties out of statethat had been omitted from her financial disclosure forms were included in McAuli-ffe's complaint, as well as Heard's alleged failure to disclose her part ownership of asmall plane kept at Witham Field. The agreement stipulated that, if accepted by thepanel of judges, no “probable cause” would be found regarding those complaints.

“What I submitted to the Ethics Commission was documentation that showedshe had undervalued her assets by well over $2 million each year over the past nineyears,” McAuliffe added, “which I felt showed a pattern of deception on her part,but the commission said they only go back five years.”

The first two complaints were filed in June and July of 2014 amid allegations thatMcAuliffe's motivation was political due to an August election that would deter-mine the outcome of Heard's bid for a fourth term as county commissioner.

She won the election after accusing McAuliffe of using “dirty tactics that arenothing more than politically motivated. This complaint is bogus,” she declaredduring candidate forums in July. “My ethics are unimpeachable.”

According to state ethics rules, once a complaint is filed, three procedural stagestake place to determine if a possible ethics law violation has occurred: If the com-plaint is found not to be legally sufficient, the commission will order the complaintdismissed. None of the ethics complaints filed by McAuliffe were dismissed.

If not dismissed, the second stage of the proceedings involves an investigation bycommission staff as to whether there is probable cause to believe that a violation hasoccurred. If no violation has occurred, the complaint is dismissed. If probable causehas been found, as in this case, the accused has the right to request a public hearing(trial) to present evidence that would counter the complaint, which Heard declined.

The commission's findings, report and final disposition of the case will eventu-ally be released to the public. ■

Probable cause found in ethicscomplaint against Comm. Heard

Part of Stuart attorney Virginia Sherlock's courtroom signature is filling thegallery with her supporters, known also as “Sherlock's posse,” as she so oftensends them after whatever county issue she currently is tackling.

This time, however, Sherlock and her law partner, Howard Heims, sat at a tablealone as they spent two days examining hundreds of invoices in Martin County Cir-cuit Court on March 26 and 27. Finally, Judge George Shahood ended the NakedLady Ranch's five-year-battle with the Littman Sherlock & Heims P.A. Firm repre-senting a handful of the community's 100 residents in Palm City Farms, by ordering

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5Martin County CurrentsApril/May 2015 News Stream

T H E B E S T I N C O M M U N I T Y T H E A T R E

God of Carnage

MAY 29 -JUNE 14

Larger-than-life radio personality Sheridan Whiteside, recuperatingfrom a fall in a small-town businessman’s home, takes over theentire household in “The Man Who Came to Dinner.” This comictour-de-force by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman is on stageat the Barn Theatre from April 17 through May 3.

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Tickets can be purchased at www.barn-theatre.com or 772-287-4884or at the box office at 2400 East Ocean Blvd. in StuartMonday-Friday 12-4pm or one hour prior to shows.

Finally, Robert and Anita Breinig can now concentrate primarily on creating freshseafood dishes (and a mean cheesecake or two) for their Flash Beach Grillerestaurant on Bridge Road in Hobe Sound—without the threat that they couldlose their life's investment at any time.

And after spending close to $100,000 in staff time, according to inside sources,Martin County Attorney Michael Durham also can scratch one of more than 60 law-suits against the county off his list of things to do.

The settlement in March orchestrated by the Pacific Legal Foundation betweenthe county and the Breinigs will allow the Breinigs to expand their business and uti-lize much of the 40 ft x 70 ft plot at the center of the controversy with a reconfiguredpreserve plan that will accommodate the Breinigs' needs. The county also gave theBreinigs a $1,000 credit at the Palm City Natives landscaping company to assist withthe purchase, delivery and planting of vegetation to restore the less-than-half acreplot to a native habitat within the next six months.

More than two decades ago, the original owner of the Breinigs' land traded 16percent of the plot in exchange for a county permit to build a hot dog stand. At thetime, according to Durham, county officials were not required to record the pre-serve-area agreements, so no official record was tied to the deed. Subsequentlandowners received code enforcement fines for not maintaining the preserve area,which also were not recorded with the deed.

Although the county's Growth Management Department identified more than1,000 undersized PAMPs in the county, only about 100 of them had not beenrecorded, Durham said. Of those, about 22 are within Community RedevelopmentAreas, largely commercial, isolated from any other natural area by parking lots orbuildings, and targeted for revitalization, which prompted Commissioner JohnHaddox to propose that all undersized PAMPs within CRAs be exempted from thepreserve area requirements of the county's Comprehensive Growth ManagementPlan. His proposal was defeated in a 3-2 commission vote in October 2013.

The Breinigs say they were unaware of the preserve area restriction until 2013,when they applied for a liquor license, triggering code enforcement fines and anorder to move all equipment off the strip of preserve land, plant and restore it andestablish a buffer area, or face fines of up to $1,000 per day. No code enforcementfines ultimately were levied.

“We still lost part of our property,” says Anita Breinig, “but the county adjustedto it where it won't hinder our building plan.”

Martin County officials contended that a preserve area is not the same as a con-servation easement, marriage license or deed. “Like any setback or height restric-

Martin County makes concessionsto meet Flash Beach Grille's needs

Supporters of the state's first marine-aviation U.S. Customs facility at WithamField in Stuart have not given up, in spite of a 3-2 county commission vote thatkilled the fully funded project on March 17.

And in spite of what Commissioner Anne Scott called “an avalanche” of emailsand phone messages calling for her to rescind that vote at the commission's March21 meeting, she refused to change her mind, citing her concerns over the potentiallydeleterious impact on the marine industry and the county economy by the AllAboard Florida passenger rail project.

“If you are so concerned about this bad impact on the marine industry,” re-sponded Commissioner Doug Smith, “why would you not support a project thatcould potentially benefit them directly, as well as be a boon to our restaurants andother businesses?”

Over the past year, Scott had voted both in favor of and against the proposed in-ternational air-marine facility, but when the bid contract came in $200,000 higherthan was estimated four years ago, Scott said she portended failure, although thestate pledged an additional $200,000 to cover the increase in construction costs. TheAirport Enterprise Fund would supplement the grants to cover all operating costs,and an additional $200,000 from a consortium of marine and aviation businesseswas pledged for the first year, promising an additional $150,000 in private fundingover the next two years to cover any start-up cost shortfall.

The Marine Aviation Alliance has asked for an extension to the deadline to ac-cept the state Department of Transportation grants, and the contractor, Jacquin &Sons of Ft. Pierce, who submitted the lowest bid, offered to hold his bid for an addi-tional 90 days beyond the April 8 bid deadline.

Commissioner John Haddox also sent a personal letter to customs facility sup-porters, which is printed in full on Page 7. ■

Customs supporters still harbor hope

Sherlock's clients, to pay nearly every invoice for legal fees and costs incurred bythe non-profit corporation to have its contracts with residents upheld.

The small, gated community of million dollar-plus homes on the waterfront inPalm City Farms with a private landing strip, individual hangars for private planes,as well as equestrian facilities, requires that homeowners become corporation boardmembers when they purchase their homes on either five-acre or 10-acre lots, thusthey share in the costs to ensure the community's facilities meet residents' standardsuntil they sell their property.

A 2010 assessment to cover the costs of paving the Naked Lady airstrip, for land-scaping and to obtain a bank loan to cover unpaid homeowner assessments,prompted some homeowners to resign from the corporation, although they wished tocontinue to live in the community and pay a share of facility maintenance costs only.Their resignations were rejected as violations of their contract with Naked Lady.

They retained Sherlock in a quest to prove that the corporation was actually avoluntary homeowners association that would allow resignations, because it wasnot regulated under Chapter 720 of the Florida statutes for HOAs, although MartinCounty Circuit Judge Larry Schack had ruled in 1995 that the Naked Lady Ranchwas not a voluntary association. ■

The owners of Flash Beach Grille restaurant on Bridge Road in Hobe Sound, Robert and Anita Breinig, now can concentrate on growing their business--as they also grow some native vegetation--as part of a legal settlement with the county.

Bar

bara

Clo

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tion,” Durham said, “it doesn't need to be recorded, but instead of battling that out,we just came to an agreement.'

Pacific Legal attorneys Mark Miller and Christina Martin of West Palm Beach,defenders of individual property rights and unlawful takings by over-reaching gov-ernment regulations, were prepared to ask the Martin County Circuit Court to de-cide the issue, possibly clearing the way later for redress by all county landownerswith unrecorded preserve areas if the judge ruled in their favor. The Breinigs de-clined to pursue a court case.

“All we had ever wanted was to be able to operate our business,” Anita said,“and with this compromise by the county, we could do that. It's time to move on.” ■

Martin County CurrentsApril/May 20156 News Stream

all interstate interchanges for hotels, science research facilities, or gas stations.The farmers contend that eliminating all septic tanks except one 2,000-gallon

tank, regardless of how large the parcel of land, would result in devastating im-pacts to citrus groves, cattle ranches, packing and processing plants, and otheragricultural endeavors.

The Growth Management Department expects that the recommended order forthe Chapters 1, 2 and 4 being prepared now by Judge van Wyk will be filed prior toher next visit to Martin County in April. ■

Challenge of new septic rules in AprilAdministrative law Judge Christine van Wyk, who heard the challenges to theprevious Comp Plan amendments to Chapters 1, 2 and 4 written by Maggy Hur-challa, on Sept. 29-Oct. 1, will be back in Stuart April 28-29 to hear nine farmers'most recent challenges to the county's proposed changes to the septic element ofthe Comprehensive Growth Management Plan.

The Martin Land Company, which owns land at the interchange of I-95 andBridge Road, joined the farmers in the challenge of the Chapter 10 rewrites that alsoeliminated the Expressway Transit Oriented Commercial Service Center zoning at

GOP sets foot down on tax increases“No more taxes” was the message sent loudly and clearly to the Martin CountyCommission at its April 14 meeting by the Republican Executive Committee ofMartin County.

Don Pickard, president of the county's GOP, addressed the commissioners say-ing that its membership had voted “overwhelmingly” in favor of a moratorium onraising taxes, including a sales tax of any size, as outlined in a resolution read in itsentirety by State Republican Committeeman Eric Miller. The resolution came in re-sponse to previous commission discussions regarding the possibility of conductinga mail-in ballot initiative this summer to increase revenue through a sales tax to ad-dress the county's growing $250 million infrastructure backlog.

County Administrator Taryn Kryzda reported to the commission that the back-log was the result of a combination of factors, including the state-mandated reduc-tion in ad valorem taxes due to the 2008 recession, coupled with the correspondingloss in property values, reducing the flow of tax revenue to a trickle. Also, a sharpdecline in impact fees coupled with a reduction in fuel tax revenues—the result ofmore efficient vehicles on the road—has nearly eliminated the only dedicatedsource of revenue maintain roads. Between 2008 and 2010, the county reduced itsannual budget by $63 million, so more cuts will likely result in a loss of countyservices, Kryzda said.

Miller said “and will be strongly opposed by the Republican Party of MartinCounty.”

Haddox had said previously that although the sales tax referendum was de-feated by only 72 votes last fall, that voters were expecting commissioners “to doour part first to cut expenditures wherever and however we can before we go backto them and ask for another sales tax.” ■

Depending on lawsuits to stop AAFSupport for All Aboard Florida's passenger-rail project seems to be growingthroughout the state except in the Treasure Coast counties of Martin, St. Lucieand Indian River, where the opposition still exceeds supporters.

Martin County protests, including Commissioner John Haddox, saw the levelof support from other parts of the state Monday, April 20, in Tallahassee, wherethey sat through a four-hour hearing before the Florida Development FinanceCorp., a quasi-governmental agency that must approve AAF's application to sell$1.75 billion in Private Activity Bonds. The bond sale was already approved bythe U.S. Dept. of Transportation last summer, but Indian River County filed a law-suit to reverse the approval, because the Environmental Impact Study had not yetbeen completed.

The impact study is also required prior to approval of a Federal Railroad Admin-istration's Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Fund loan for the 235-mileproject between Miami and Orlando. Since the study's release, more than 10,000complaints have been filed with the FRA on engineering plans that were only about30 percent complete.

With AAF plans now about 90 percent complete, some issues in the local areawere addressed. The addition of a second track through Martin County along theFEC rail corridor, will no longer take parking spaces from the City of Stuart, and itwill not eliminate the left-hand turn lane onto Dixie Highway at Confusion Corner;however, one of the most contentious issues—closing the St. Lucie bridge for traintraffic—has not yet been resolved.

The county dedicated $1.4 million to cover the cost of independent impact stud-ies and to retain attorney Steve Ryan, of Washington D.C., who is prepared to chal-lenge an apparently improper transfer of federal highway funds to the FederalRailroad Administration. No lawsuit has yet been filed from Martin County, butRyan is ready. ■

Martin County CurrentsApril/May 2015 Voices 7

Editorial: Call to state attorney general to lookat budget, disregard of citizens' due processThe Florida Attorney General should

investigate the Martin County Com-mission for misfeasance and three

particular commissioners for malfeasancefor abusing their power, ignoring statestatutes, including Sunshine laws, andtrampling residents' due process rights.Some actions are so egregious, Commis-sioners Ed Fielding, Sarah Heard andAnne Scott need to be held accountableand removed from office.

We cannot allege misfeasance for theirdecision April 21 to kill the 10-year-oldredevelopment projects on Bridge Roadin Hobe Sound and on Mapp Road inPalm City, although their votes confirm apattern of decision-making that assuresunfettered power.

Their votes, unquestionably arrogant,short-sighted and inept, killed these twoprojects that could have stimulated theeconomy, improved stormwater treat-ment, and expanded a tax base—withinthe urban services boundary—once theprojects had been completed. As distaste-ful, fiscally imprudent and out of touch astheir decision was, however, it does notdemonstrate misfeasance.

Misfeasance can be alleged, though,for the 15 years of misdirected TIF fundstaken from the county's seven CommunityRedevelopment Areas—for which the Stu-art CRA had to threaten court action to re-ceive—not so much because those fundswere to be spent only and entirely withinthe boundaries of each CRA district fromwhich they came, but because spendingtaxpayers' restricted funds comes withrules, even when done mistakenly. Theychose to ignore those rules.

Now the commission plans to “pool”TIF funds from the seven CRAs, so theycan spend $6 million on one large projectthey chose, which seems to violate morestate rules that TIF funds may be spentonly in the districts that generate them.

Fielding also ordered Community De-velopment Director Kevin Freeman onTuesday to “condense” all CRAs. Thereason? Not for the “efficiencies” thatFielding claims it seems, but more likely

so the CRA districts will siphon lessmoney from the general fund, but prima-rily to limit CRA zoning, which takesprecedence over all other zoning rules.

The new CRA direction was first dis-cussed during a strategic planning“workshop” Feb. 10, away from commis-sion chambers and public comment,posted on the county's website as anaudio recording made with no micro-phones and no identifying names. Com-missioners ultimately approved a list ofone-liners cloaked in government jar-gon—the county's Strategic Plan for2015—at a recent commission meeting,but with no explanations or details.

How different from the City of Stu-art's strategic planning session, whichwas a public meeting at 9 a.m. on a Satur-day morning in the Flagler Place audito-rium with microphones and ampleseating for a crowd. Now that's trans-parency, not the translucency far pre-ferred by the county, and shows respectfor residents.

Residents in unincorporated areasalso deserve respect, about to be deniedto the predominantly black Gomez com-munity, which will be severed soon fromthe Hobe Sound CRA without even astop sign to show for their part in 15years of TIF contributions, just one moreshort-sighted companion to the commis-sion majority's March vote to kill the cus-toms facility.

A disconcerting comment then byAnne Scott, overshadowed by her convo-luted reasoning to place blame on AllAboard Florida's devastating impact,which she used again to kill HobeSound's project, was this: “Fortunately,we now have a more scrupulous countycommission...”

What? Only if Heard's two career finesfor ethics violations are overlooked, andonly if we overlook the commission ma-jority's conflicts of interest in a vote bene-fiting their friends and benefactors, andonly if we overlook their translucentbudget and spending practices.

The millions in unbudgeted funds

spent for outside attorneys over the pasttwo and a half years never make it intothe county attorney's budget, which in-creased by only $60,000 last year Thusthe funds to pay unbudgeted legal feescame from a publicly approved countybudget without proper, approved alloca-tion, although they had been an antici-pated expense. Perhaps the reasoning is:If no one talks about them publicly, theywon't really exist.

Contracts with outside attorneys alsoseem not to have been publicly vetted percounty rules, until Commissioner DougSmith insisted that the process be fol-lowed to engage attorney Steve Ryan,who will lead Martin County's opposi-tion to All Aboard Florida.

The unbudgeted funds to pay all theattorneys prior to retaining Ryan werepulled from an assortment of county ac-counts, in addition to the emergency re-serves for hurricane recovery the publicwas told, including: $1,687 from the Eco-nomic Element account; $17,000 from theFire/EMS account; $50,000 from theOther County Capital Projects account.Capital Projects?

A forensic accountant should exam-ine the county's books for improprieties,perhaps most important, for the use oftaxpayer money to pay Heard's attorneyto protect her from an attempt to retrievepublic records from her personal com-puter, which she says disappeared afterher Yahoo email account was “hacked.”Her attorney contends they are not pub-lic records. A judge will decide, but shehad better be prepared to repay thecounty nearly one million in misspenttaxpayer funds.

The county's spiraling litigation costsare not reported, neither was another law-suit filed in January by 10 Martin Countyfarmers challenging the rewrites of theComp Plan. Their legal petition was omit-ted from the County Attorney's report inMarch, as was the Department of Eco-nomic Security's review calling the legalaction needless in light of the county's un-willingness to resolve farmers' issues.

“Planning through litigation is not amodel for success,” stated the DEO letterto Heard. We agree.

Fielding bragged publicly that he wassure the county would be sued, rathercavalier toward taxpayers, as well asfarmers, for sure, but the most egregiousconduct of our commission majority thatwarrants investigation is the Pitchford'sLanding project. If constructed, it wouldincrease desperately needed ad valoremtax revenues, stimulate the economy withnew construction dollars, dramaticallyimprove the aesthetics of Jensen Beach,and remove dozens of decades-old septictanks along the Indian River Lagoon.

Heard, Fielding and Scott have oftensaid publicly the project was “awful,” andneeds to be foreclosed upon; to be shutdown, insisting on breach proceedingswithout grounds, probably causing casualobservers to believe the commissionerswere facing a subversive force that had tobe quashed to protect the innocents.

Oddly, the county's Growth Manage-ment Department required that thePitchford project's engineers and plan-ners follow the new Comp Plan rules yetto be codified, resulting in 11 staff-re-quired changes to the Pitchford's FinalSite Plan that must meet the most recentComp Plan rules, and also match exactlythe original Master Site Plan approvedeight years ago. How is that possible?It's not.

When Pitchford's Landing comessoon before the county commission for itsfinal presentation in this Virginia Sher-lock-inspired toxic environment, enabledand encouraged by the commission-ma-jority bloc, how can its owners be en-sured they'll receive due process—theirconstitutionally guaranteed right to beheard before “a neutral and impartial de-cision-maker.” They cannot.

When Heard, Fielding and Scott re-vealed their prejudices, took part in de-riding the project themselves, and passedjudgment on it long ago, they abdicatedtheir positions as county commissioners.They need to go. ■

Dear Concerned Taxpayer,

Let me express both my sincere grati-tude for your clear and consistent sup-port for the Customs facility proposedfor Witham Field, as well as my regretover the recent setback it suffered.

Of all the projects to come before theMartin County Commission during mytime on the board, none has enjoyedmore broad-based community support,presented so little risk to taxpayer dol-lars and withstood more scrutiny andskepticism than the Customs proposal.It was overwhelmingly studied and vet-ted. That made its failure to move for-ward all the more disappointing.

Although Martin County’s unem-ployment rate has steadily improvedover the last four years, it still hovers

around 5.5 percent. I would like to seethat drop even lower.

The marine industry is our biggestemployer with more than 4,000 jobs anda direct annual impact to MartinCounty’s economy of nearly $700 mil-lion. Witham Field is a big job generator,employing more than 1,000 people andproviding nearly $300 million annuallyto our local economy. Of course, thetourism industry, which would be bene-fited by Customs, touches virtuallyevery aspect of our economy and makesour beloved quality of life possible.

Right now, Martin County is saddledwith an infrastructure backlog thatstands at more than $230 million andgrows daily. Even with a mix of budgetcuts, ad valorem tax increases and fee-based services – the latter two of which I

oppose – we will barely dent this debt.That is why as policymakers I firmly be-lieve is it our responsibility to supportsound, sustainable initiatives that im-prove our economy.

Customs is one such initiative. It is alow risk, low cost way to serve our citi-zens and boost our local economy.

Throughout my time in office I haveworked to bridge disunity and brokeragreement. The effort behind Customs,led by citizens such as you, embodiedthis commitment. I was especiallygrateful for the members of the marineand aviation industries who were will-ing to invest private capital to ensurethe success of the facility. Customscould have stood as a test case to meas-ure the success of future public-privatepartnerships between Martin County

and established local businesses.Despite the most recent defeat of

Customs, I continue to hold out hopethat this facility will again come forwardand get another chance to gain commis-sion approval. In the meantime, pleasestay engaged on this important issueand feel free to contact me with anyquestions or concerns you may have.Thank you.

Sincerely,John HaddoxMartin County Commissioner, District 5

Haddox Letter to Customs supporters provides hope

After being sued personally fordefamation and tortious inter-ference with a business relation-ship when some Jensen Beach

residents apparently crossed the line offair play, according to court records, bydistributing slick drawings and creatinga fake website that altered the heightsof buildings and exaggerated the scopeof the Pitchford's Landing project, theresidents counter-sued project owners,Bill and Nancy Reily of Jensen Beach,charging that the Reily suit was aStrategic Lawsuit Against Public Partici-pation, better known as a SLAPP suit.

One of the residents' attorneys,Howard Heims of Stuart, was quotedDec. 3, 2006, as saying: "We're going tohave to teach (Bill Reilly) a lesson,” hesaid. “We thought we already had, buthe hasn't gotten it yet. The battle is justbeginning here." And there seems to beno end in sight.

The suit and countersuit dragged onfor three years before eventually beingsettled, as the Jensen Group, which theywere called then, failed in five addi-tional lawsuits against Martin Countyand the Reilys to get the courts to over-turn the county's decision.

Those residents who sued MartinCounty and the Reilys simply changed

their venues—as did their attorney Vir-ginia Sherlock—choosing every tele-vised Martin County Commissionmeeting and using public emails to dis-tribute their message that the projectwill harm the Indian River Lagoon, al-though it will remove dozens of 60-year-old septic tanks on the property,stabilize and improve the shoreline, andbring thousands in much-needed taxrevenue to the county's coffers.

THE COMPLAINTS CONTINUE“At virtually every meeting, commission-ers have been asked to let residents knowwhat's going on with Pitchford's,” writesVirginia Sherlock in one of a dozenemails about Pitchford's posted on thecounty's website. “At virtually everymeeting, your requests are met with si-lence from your elected representatives.”

Commissioners did not remainsilent. The long-term toxicity aimed atthe Pitchford's project seems to havespread to the commission itself.

In the summer of 2013, Commis-sioner Anne Scott called for the countyattorney and his staff to initiate foreclo-sure proceedings on the property, insist-ing that the county take possession onthe basis of unpaid code enforcementfines and for noncompliance with

county rules regarding its shoreline pro-tection zone, following a week of partic-ularly vitriolic public comment.

As it turned out, no outstanding

fines existed and the project—whichwill redevelop an existing 150-space RVand trailer park (plus six cottages) into aKey West-style subdivision of 44 single-family homes and seven two-storybuildings with 39 condominium unitson Indian River Drive—had compliedwith all county directives, according toGrowth Management Department staff.

Scott also requested that GrowthManagement provide “regular” reportson the status of the Pitchford's project,and insisted on personal tours of the sitein March 2014, as did CommissionersFielding, Haddox and Heard.

By June 2014, Scott had called forthe county attorney to investigatebreach proceedings of Pitchford Land-ing's agreements, again with the intentof revoking its development order, andagain following a series of complaintsby the same residents, including emailsand comments by their former attor-ney, Virginia Sherlock. When they'renot attacking Pitchford's, they criticize

Martin County CurrentsApril/May 20158 News Feature

The rear of Bluesy's Happy Snapper Cafe at Pitchford's faces the Indian River Lagoon. A load of shell rock was delivered without the county engineer's permission to what is a parking lot on the Pitchford's plan, a violation of county rules that resulted in a $1,300 fine. Tables and chairs for guests also had to be removed, because the area is within the shoreline protection zone.

The property adjacent to the Pitchford's project, Conchy Joe's restaurant, is protected by aseawall. The building and an asphalt parking lot sit at the edge of the seawall with a privatepier over the Indian River Lagoon. The county-approved seawall at Pitchford's was challengedby The Jensen Group, then upheld in court, only to have the state Department of EnvironmentalProtection revoke the seawall permit.

The Pitchford's Landing project fights to survive

Eight years later, not much has changed. An intensedetermination by a core group of Jensen Beach residents to shut down the Pitchford's Landing subdivision, approved by the county commission in 2007, continues today.

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The architect for the project is Mitch Kunik of Affiniti Architects, who has designed homes inSeaside, Fla., and whose father lived in Jensen Beach for many years.

Martin County CurrentsApril/May 2015 News Feature 9

county staff and commissioners.“I do not know why the County At-

torney, your commissioners, and staffhave kept residents in the dark aboutwhat's going on with Pitchford's,” Sher-lock writes in a public email. “I do notknow why commissioners refuse to re-quire compliance with the directive (toinvestigate breach proceedings) that wasgiven nearly five months ago.”

Attorney Krista Storey, of the

county's legal staff, reported the resultsof the investigation April 7 of Pitchford'salleged contract breaches, includingsome apparently unfounded allegationsof an illegal dump that had requiredmultiple site investigations by countystaff from more than one department.Storey reported that the Pitchford's proj-ect was in full compliance within “thefour corners of Pitchford's PUD(Planned Unit Development zoning re-

quirements)” and were in compliancewith its Preserve Area ManagementPlan, and all development timetable ex-tensions were in order. The next devel-opment deadline that must be met bythe project is August 2015.

The Reilys have gone “above and be-yond what is required” to restore theshoreline along the Indian River La-goon, Storey added. The planting areapassed inspection, and the final pay-

ment of the restoration bond had beenreceived; she said, therefore, no groundswere present to warrant breach proceed-ings against Pitchford's.

HOW MUCH INFORMATION?Scott's directive to staff for weekly reportsof Pitchford's status are now being pro-vided and include descriptions of any ac-tivity of any kind by any member of the

PITCHFORD'S LANDING SITE PLAN -- The project extends from Skyline Drive on the left to the Indian River Lagoon on the right. Only an emergency access road with a locked gate and apedestrian walkway will lead from Skyline Drive into the project. The road access is from Indian River Drive only. A public park that includes a riverwalk, similar to the City of Stuart's Riverwalk, and a public fishing pier are planned as the project's public benefit. Recently, new wetlands at the shoreline that had not been present originally may interfere with constructionof the riverwalk. The county's original approval of a seawall, although upheld by the courts, was revoked by the Department of Environmental Protection following resident complaints. The architect for the project is Mitch Kunik of Affiniti Architects, who has designed homes in Seaside, Fla., and whose father lived in Jensen Beach for many years.

continued on PAGE 10

county staff—or apparently by anyoneelse anywhere else. Growth ManagementDirector Nicki Van Vonno told commis-sioners April 14 that she had seen a StuartNews dining review of the Bluezy'sHappy Snapper restaurant east of IndianRiver Drive, across from the RV park.

The restaurant leases the buildingincluded in the Pitchford's Landingmaster site plan, which will be reno-vated as part of the redevelopment,but the business itself is not owned bythe Reilys.

“If I were to see the word 'Pitchford'in a crossword puzzle,” said Commis-sioner Anne Scott in response to VanVonno's request for the detail desired bythe commissioners, “I would report it.”

Elected to the commission in 2012,Scott described the project as having “acheckered past,” thus the intensescrutiny was “appropriate.” The reportsby county staff, however, seem to painta different portrait—a project that it is incompliance with all county rules, whichcorrected a tenant's infraction quicklyand paid his fine promptly, and has metall filing deadlines.

The Reilys purchased the property in2005, which lies between Indian Riverand Skyline drives, one of the highest ele-vations in the county, with a panoramicview of the Jensen Beach causeway cross-ing the Indian River Lagoon. Amid the

Jensen Beach Group's protests in 2006, thecounty commission voted to delay theproject's public hearing for a year, askingReily to respond to residents' concerns.Twice the project was scaled back untilthe final version, approved by the LocalPlanning Agency, as well as the countycommission, reduced the original 137units to 83, and designed with two-storycondominiums in place of three stories.

Local columnist Rich Campbell ofThe Stuart News wrote several columnsabout the Pitchford's project, from firstcriticizing the project's intensity to themost recent in August 2013 telling com-missioners that if Reily meets thecounty's legal requirements, they shouldapprove the final site plan so the projectcan proceed.

“Denial would be an injustice toReily, a Martin County resident—not anout-of-town investor—who has workeddoggedly to obtain county approval, re-sponded to concerns raised by local resi-dents, and scaled back the project,”Campbell said.

“A denial also would be an act ofhypocrisy by the slow-growth commis-sion majority, which opposes develop-ment outside the urban servicesboundary, but repeatedly says it isamenable to infill development,” headded. “However, if someone can't puta 4.7-unit-per-acre development insidethe urban services boundary, then whatcan be built in Martin County?” ■

continued from PAGE 9

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One Florida Foundation commitsmuch of its work to enrollingchildren in river activities so

they will be armed with a love for thewater; to teach them the tools to advo-cate for it; to encourage them to thinkcritically and creatively; and to em-power them to know that solutions arewithin their grasp. The young man orwoman who ultimately solves the prob-lem of how to rid our water supply ofmicrobeads may be a 10-year-old learn-ing to kayak today!

Unfortunately, few children get out-doors and bond with our water. Somesociologists tell us that one of our chal-lenges as humans is something called“nature deficit disorder,” the lack of a

relationship to the natural environment,and recent declines in the number of vis-its to national parks seems to verify this.Reasons cited include: the difficulty forworking families to spend time outside,spending days off doing householdchores; an increasing dependence onelectronic media for entertainment; andan increasing fear among parents, con-

veyed to their chil-dren, that dangerlurks in the woods orin the water.

In Florida, chil-dren often do notbond with the waterbecause of either thelack of opportunity tospend time aroundthe water and/orfrom fear—fear ofdrowning, sincemany do not knowhow to swim; fear ofthe animals that livein the water; or fearthat the water is notsafe from disease.

To help childrenovercome fear, OneFlorida has beenworking with a groupof kids from SwordOutreach Ministries,who over the past six months “adopted”a portion of Moore’s Creek and LinearPark in the heart of Fort Pierce. Weshowed them how to visit City Hall andconvince City of Fort Pierce officials toadd kayak launches at Linear Park,where signs also will soon be posted toannounce the kids' efforts. We are con-ducting quarterly cleanups of this stretchof waterway, in conjunction with theSword Outreach Ministries, and alreadywe’ve seen vast improvements in reduc-ing litter and increasing communitypride.

Some of the high school-aged kidsfrom Sword accompanied us to theClean Water Rally in Tallahassee in Feb-ruary, a first rally for a cause for most ofthese teens. We met with legislators, andencouraged these youngsters to talk toour representatives, who, we explained,were there to make decisions as to howthe state is run.

The first meeting, they mostly ob-served. By the second meeting, they be-came more comfortable, and by thethird, well, let’s just say, there was nostopping them! They talked about wherethey lived. They talked about the chal-

lenges facing theirneighborhoods. Theyespecially talkedabout how they hadall just learned tokayak, and they wereworried about ourwater!

The kids also rodeup to the 22nd floorof the Capitol build-ing to the observationdeck, which was ahuge hit, as none ofthem had ever riddenin an elevator morethan four stories.They couldn’t believethat we could seeGeorgia! Addition-ally, we visited theMuseum of FloridaHistory, with a dis-play on the CivilRights Movement.

They drew parallels between those ral-lies and the one we had just attended,and it really opened up the conversationabout how their involvement in theprocess could affect change for ourwater, just as others had effected socialchange.

It is critical that we remember to in-vest in our youth along with our ownwater advocacy. Working with kids,teaching them how to love our water,and giving them the skills to do so withconfidence is very important. Sharingour knowledge on how the governmentworks, and that they have a say in thedecisions made will build a strong voicefor our water for generations.

Please feel free to contact us and joinin our efforts! We have regular familyfriendly events, and welcome all people,as the future belongs to all of us. We canbe found on Facebook, Twitter, and In-stagram, and our website is www.one-floridafoundation.org ■

Nyla Pipes is a founder of One FloridaFoundation, which addresses water issuesthroughout the state.

Recruiting youngstersfor long-term advocacy

Nyla Pipes, far right, and Capt. Don Voss, center, with a group of Treasure Coast students atthe Clean Water Rally in Tallahassee in March.

NylaPipes

One Florida Foundation

Drive, commitment, and passion are the words often usedto describe advocacy, but just as important are strengthand energy. When I ask myself why I do this, the answercomes easily: I do it for the future of our children and forour community. As a mom, I am acutely aware that ouryouth expect us to pave the way, but we also need themlater to pick up the torch and carry on.

12 Martin County CurrentsApril/May 2015One Florida Foundation

Representative Larry Lee talks withTreasure Coast student Deja Harris-Thomas, who went to Tallahassee for the Clean Water Rally.

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13Martin County CurrentsApril/May 2015 One Florida Foundation

Here on the Treasure Coast, muchexcitement arose from the Uni-versity of Florida Water Insti-

tute’s report about dealing with LakeOkeechobee water, most specifically, thePage-102 statement that “...the Floridalegislature should consider the sugarland purchase.”

One can see how that would be en-couraging to flow way advocates, but thereport lacked the emphatic “You must doit” response that would have given legis-lators and clean-water advocatesthroughout the state clear direction. In-stead, the report emphasized the value ofthe land, the short time left on the con-tract and the property’s swap value asprimary reasons the purchase “should beconsidered” for added water storage.

The flow-way concept—recreating theEverglades' original sheet-flow of waterfrom Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay—has floated around for 20 years, continu-ing to evolve until today's call to build a26,800-acre concrete reservoir south ofthe Lake where previously the flow waywas to be built, recognizing that a trueslow-flow of water from the Lake will nolonger be adequate to clean it to meet re-quired standards.

U.S.Sugar signed off on a sales contractwith the state for that land. All that keeps itfrom being a completed deal is the moneyto buy it; however, over the past 19 years,under different contracts, other parcelswere offered for purchase. At the time, the

South Florida Water Management Districtand the state were heavily criticized for si-phoning money from restoration projects topurchase land, and indeed much-neededrestoration was put on a back burner untilrecently. Obviously, it was a lesson theSFWMD has not forgotten.

No money was put aside for addi-tional land purchases until Amendment#1 was passed, and now we have resi-dents from all over the state who are aspassionate about getting their water is-sues resolved as those on the TreasureCoast—all fighting for the same pot withnot nearly enough to go around.

We need to take a deep breath hereand proceed with some accurate facts. Areservoir of 26,800 acres built to complyto current standards would hold 3 feet ofwater or 120,000 acre feet, unless it is sub-stantially reinforced at an estimated costof $2 billion. Even then, only about400,000 acre feet could be stored, or about25% of the needed storage.

TCPalm also states that after October2015, this land is lost forever, which may

not be the case if one follows the optionthat Nathaniel Reed proposed last fall dur-ing a Rivers Coalition meeting in Stuart topurchase another parcel of agriculturalland further east and under option until2020; therefore, the statement that this26,800-acre piece is the “last opportunity tobuy such a parcel” to protect the estuaryand save the Everglades is incorrect.

But we need to learn from our mis-takes. We waited until the 11th hour toseek statewide support for the purchaseof the 26,800-acre parcel of sugar land, as-suming we could use the funds madeavailable by passage of Amendment #1.We know now that its specific purchaseshould have been included in the amend-ment language if we believed it was socritical. We cannot wait until 2019 tobegin seeking support and making plansto purchase the next large parcel by thetime that option expires in 2020.

We believe the Governor, the Com-missioner of Agriculture and the Speakerof the House, who all have said theywant current restoration projects finishedas their first priority, will consider a landpurchase as their next priority. Why not?The Governor and the CEO of the Ever-glades Foundation and author of “Buythe Land and Send it South,” Eric Eiken-berg, stood together in West Palm Beachdeclaring they were working together tosave the Everglades.

We have to trust that Eikenberg andGov. Scott are on the same page about

water and the Everglades, and what bet-ter time than when the Governor surelywill be considering what he wants hislegacy to be for Eikenberg to engineer thepurchase of an even larger piece of agri-cultural land, if he starts now.

The rest of the University of FloridaWater Institute's Report gave prominenceto: 1. Reducing the flow of water intoLake Okeechobee. 2. Cleaning the waterat the source and as it flows. 3. Sendingthat clean water south. These recommen-dations underscore the same objectives asproposed by One Florida Foundationover the last 18 months. We will continueto seek solutions that follow these princi-ples and research any new ideas offered,as time is short. We have seen that pro-crastination and lack of resolve are notfriends of our goal of clean water.

We also should set a goal to eliminateseptic tanks at least near all our springsand waterways by 2030 to fall in linewith the completion of federal and stateEverglades restoration projects alreadyplanned—a goal as critical to clean wateras any land purchase. ■

Capt. Don Voss, nationally recognized for hisenvironmental initiatives to improve thewater quality of the Indian River Lagoon, willbe a regular contributor to Martin CountyCurrents. All advertising on these pages willbenefit One Florida Foundation, dedicated toaddressing water issues throughout the state.

Capt.Don Voss

One Florida Foundation

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14 Martin County CurrentsApril/May 2015Water News

Their conclusion, which camefirst on Page 10 and was reiter-ated throughout the 143-page

document, calls for “enormous in-creases” in storage and treatment ofwater than what is planned north andsouth of Lake Okeechobee, translatingalso into “accelerated funding” fromfederal and state sources.

The panel of independent expertsalso concluded that the current BasinManagement Action Plans to reduce lev-els of phosphorous and nitrogen will fallfar short of state and federal mandates,unless more aggressive standards areset, and/or more stormwater treatmentareas are built within “priority basins.”

The UF scientists studied all currentEverglades restoration plans and addi-tional projects of the South FloridaWater Management District, includingits Flow Equalization Basins and waterfarming projects, designed to reducehigh-volume freshwater flows to the St.Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries andto move more water from Lake Okee-chobee to the Everglades.

If all the federal and state waterrestoration projects currently plannedwere accelerated in funding and con-struction—which they are not—the lake-triggered discharges to the estuarieswould be reduced by less than 55 per-cent, according to the report, and the in-creased flow of clean water to theEverglades would be less than 75 per-cent of what is needed.

An estimated one million acre-feet ofadditional storage and treatment shouldbe added to drainage basins around thelake, north and south, the report said,and other options need also to be imme-diately considered, including deep-water injection wells, even if on a

temporary basis to mitigate high-waterdischarges from the lake.

The major hurdle to implementingthe report's findings is funding, accord-ing to legislators, even with recent pas-sage of Amendment 1 that dedicates athird of the documentary tax stamps forconservation land maintenance and ac-quisition, which this year will provide$750 million, and more than $20 billionin funds over the next 20 years.

The Florida Forever fund (for landacquisition) does not include the pur-chase of state-optioned agriculturallands owned by U.S. Sugar, whichmany voters assumed would be in-cluded for purchase after passage ofAmendment 1 would replenish theFlorida Forever fund. (The option topurchase about 50,000 acres of the totalacreage negotiated by former Gov.Charlie Crist in 2010 expires Oct. 12,2015, leaving another 158,000 acresowned by U.S. Sugar under option until2020, according to the South FloridaWater Management District.)

The funding for the sugar land pur-chase, therefore, would need to be addedto the state debt, estimated to be from$350 million to $700 million; however, nofunding exists to construct a reservoir onthe largest parcel of about 27,000 acres,estimated at a cost of more than $2 bil-lion and requiring 20 years to complete.The shallow-water reservoir would addapproximately 100,000 acre feet of stor-age, according to water managers.

THE OPTIONS TO CONSIDERThe technical review panel also identi-fied options for more effective protec-tion of the estuaries and restoration ofthe Everglades, and confirmed the ArmyCorps of Engineers' Reconnaissance Re-

port of 1994 and the South Florida WaterManagement District's 2009 “River ofGrass” report conclusions that a returnto the original, slow-moving flow ofwater south of the lake to the Ever-glades is no longer geologically or hy-drologically feasible.

The report summary, however, con-cluded: “The path forward requires sig-nificant long-term investment in theinfrastructure of the South Florida hy-drologic system.”

Options to be considered, accordingto the report, include the purchase ofU.S. Sugar lands under option or otheragricultural lands from willing sellers;use knowledge gained from the three in-jection-well pilot project to construct asystem of large injection wells to perma-nently dispose of excess flows fromLake Okeechobee in the deep BoulderZone; use the Holey Land and Roten-berger Wildlife Management Areas for

increased water storage; to consider con-struction of deep reservoirs (12 feet),rather than shallow reservoirs (four feet)in order to reduce the amount of landrequired for purchase; create new stor-age and conveyance along the westernboundary of the EAA, where LakeOkeechobee water is cleaner and excesstreatment capacity possibly exists in STA5/6; create more Stormwater TreatmentAreas in “priority basins;” and acceler-ate the Army Corps of Engineers damsafety study of the Hoover Dike to de-termine if higher lake levels can safelybe attained.

The full report may be downloadedfrom the Florida Senate website. Clickon the Water and Conservation Buttonto see a list of reports, or go to:http://www.flsenate.gov/UserCon-tent/Topics/WLC/UF-WaterInstituteFi-nalReportMarch2015.pdf. ■

--Barbara Clowdus

Increased funding, increased storagecritical to save waterways, the Glades

15Martin County CurrentsApril/May 2015 Water News

The Florida Senate-authorized study by the University of Florida Water Institute concludes that current plans, including all those of the Central Everglades Restoration Project, are notenough to save the estuaries and the degradation of the Indian River Lagoon possibly from reaching “a tipping point” from which they cannot return.

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16 Martin County CurrentsApril/May 2015Business Buzz

BrightStar Care owners, Jack and Diane Nicolof Hobe Sound, recently received the ClinicalExcellence Award at the BrightStar Care na-tional conference in Phoenix.

BrightStar Care, a national franchise withmore than 260 locations, provides medical andnon-medical care to private clients within theirown homes, as well as supplemental care staff tocorporate clients.

The Nicols were recognized “for going aboveand beyond” in their clinical practice, receiving aperfect Joint Commission survey score in adultand elder homecare and childcare, as well as sup-plemental healthcare staffing to area hospitalsand nursing homes.

BrightStar Care of Jupiter employs a RegisteredNurse to create individualized plans of care, makes supervisory visits, verifies care-giver competency and trains staff.

“When we first meet a family, they are upset and don’t know what direction toturn to in order to receive quality home care for their loved one,” said Jack Nicol. “Itis a testament to what we do when at the end of the day they are hugging us andsaying how much of a difference we made, and continue to make, in their lives.” ■

BrightStar Care honors local couple

Hobe Sound residents Jack and Diane Nicol, owners of BrightStar ofJupiter, were recently honored by BrightStar International.

If you noticed the new aluminum-decked fishing pier being erected in place ofthe old U.S. 1 bridge over the Loxahatchee River in Jupiter, you are looking at thework of Martin County builder, Ferreira Construction of Stuart.

When completed this summer, the $1 million fishing pier, just north of BurtReynolds Park, will be 225 feet long, 13 feet wide and approximately eight feetabove the mean water level, according to the Palm Beach County Department ofTransportation.

The concrete from the 1927 bridge will be used to build an artificial reef, accord-ing to officials. ■

Ferreira fo finish fishing pier soon

With the assistance of the Business Development Board ofMartin County, a local company marketed its products inter-nationally in January at Europe's leading showcase for turfprofessionals and buyers, BIGGA Turf Management Exhibi-tion in England.

Custom Agronomics in Palm City, formulators of liquid nu-trients, specialty chemistries, wetting agents and surfactants forprofessional turf management, agriculture and lawn and gar-

den applications, exhibited its products at the convention, made possible through agrant of $3,100 from Enterprise Florida.

The exhibition drew more than 9,000 turf managers, golf club owners, managersand industry decision-makers from throughout Europe, according to organizers. Thegrant included opportunities for continuing education classes offered at the show.

"The BDBMC helped to facilitate the application for Custom Agronomics," saidTim Dougher, executive director of the BDB, “a perfect opportunity for a local com-pany to expand into international markets." Dougher said. ■

Palm City company expands market

J.McLaughlin, a store that offers classic American clothingand accessories for women and men, chose Hobe Sound toopen its 96th shop. The 1,263 square-foot store is at 11770South East Dixie Highway, in the former C.Orrico buildingnext to Juno Shoe Girl in historic downtown Hobe Sound.

Jay McLaughlin, Co-Founder of J.McLaughlin, said the de-cision was made as the result of a series of highly successfultrunk shows held at the same location, but the new store will

be all signature J.McLaughlin, down to the paint colors.Two brothers, Jay and Kevin McLaughlin, who launched J.McLaughlin in 1977,

intended to create a new American sportswear brand that offered two key compo-nents: classic clothes with current relevance and a retail environment that had aneighborhood feel, according to the company's press release.

Since the J.McLaughlin brand values tradition, its stores offer a warm residentialfeel, exemplary customer service and a company culture of “being good neighbors,”making them prime candidates for membership in the Hobe Sound Chamber ofCommerce. If chamber Membership Director Jan Otten has not yet knocked on theirdoor, she will be soon! For more information, visit: www.jmclaughlin.com. ■

J.McLaughlin opens in Hobe Sound

One of the newest additions to HobeSound's eclectic mix of shops in its his-toric district is Chez Bim's Boutique,which faces the Old Post Office Alley. Awalkway opens in the courtyard adjacentto the Sea Urchin gift shop on Mars, soeven though Chez Bim's is tucked awayout of the limelight, it's also easy to findand has plenty of parking right outsideits door.

Inside is a dizzying array of “littletreasures,” which is how owner Jet Girarddescribes her assortment of gifts, homedécor and other “finds,” who recentlyhosted an open house and ribbon cuttingthat included an old-fashioned egg huntwithin her shop.

Her treasures run the gamut from deli-cate porcelain china tea sets to a wood-and-brass chandelier, from whimsicalporch decorations that sway in the wind tothat perfect, hand-crafted couch pillow.

“I just cannot believe how much 'stuff'is in that store,” says customer Amy Rick-ette, of Hobe Sound. “The longer you're inthere, the more you see, but you cannot see

everything at one time....which means you have to make a trip back again to seewhat you missed the first time. It's so much fun; I just love it!”

The shop is at 11764 SE Dixie Highway, Unit # 8, in Hobe Sound. You may alsocall 860.299.6352 or email danandjet@gmail.com. ■

Jet Girard, owner of Chez Bim's Boutique,hid Easter eggs among her "little treasures"as part of her new shop's recent openhouse in Hobe Sound's historic district.Photo: Barbara Clowdus

Martin County CurrentsApril/May 2015 Business Buzz 17

Waste Management was again recognized by the Ethi-sphere Institute, an independent center of research pro-moting best practices in corporate ethics and governance,as a 2015 World's Most Ethical Company.

This is the eighth time Waste Management will be hon-ored as an organization that “continue to raise the bar on ethical leadership and cor-porate behavior,” according to a press release.

The World's Most Ethical Companies designation recognizes organizations thatfoster a culture of ethics and transparency at each level of the company.

"As North America's leading environmental solutions provider,” said DavidSteiner, president and chief executive officer of Waste Management, “we striveevery day to provide excellent service to our customers, contribute to communitieswhere we live and work, and minimize our environmental impact. We're extremelyproud of our strong grounding and firm commitment to doing the right things andmaking the right decisions, day in and day out."

Waste Management is the only company in the Environmental Services industrybeing honored this year.

Scores are generated in five key categories: ethics and compliance program(35%), corporate citizenship and responsibility (20%), culture of ethics (20%), gover-nance (15%) and leadership, innovation and reputation (10%). The full list of the2015 World's Most Ethical Companies can be found athttp://ethisphere.com/worlds-most-ethical/wme-honorees, as well as more infor-mation about Ethisphere. ■

WM tapped for 'Ethics in Business'

A little vibrancy has come to Hobe Sound at long last. Part of the reason that residents and visitors are beginning to think of Hobe Sound

as a destination—in addition to its Festival of the Arts and Christmas parade—are thequaint new shops that have opened over the past 12 months or so in the historic St.Onge Building at the corner of Mars Street and Old Dixie, including an antique shop,a coastal décor and furniture shop, three gift shops, and a resort-inspired, moderatelypriced clothing and accessories studio.

The new shops joined an already established shoe, clothing and accessories shopthat was the first small business to move into the historic St. Onge building about twoyears ago, transforming and renovating parts of it—spreading out even more into atransformed former greenhouse and recently taking over another of its retail spaces.In addition to some other long-established shops on A1A, including a jewelry storeand a florist shop, a large art and gift gallery has opened, as well as a fine arts galleryin the Mancuso building on Bridge Road.

Indeed, Festival of the Arts visitors often are heard saying that they had no ideathat Hobe Sound had a “downtown” or a historic district, but it definitely is morethan just a drive through to Jupiter Island.

“It's encouraging to finally see some retail shops open up along A1A and to seethem doing so well,” said Angela Hoffman, executive director of the Hobe SoundChamber of Commerce and also chair of the Hobe Sound Neighborhood AdvisoryCommittee that makes recommendations to the Martin County Commission for revi-talization projects. Other stores are also opening on Bridge Road, adding to the mixand broadening Hobe Sound's appeal to shoppers.

“We've been wanting to get some attention for Hobe Sound and the great thingsthat are happening here in our downtown,” Hoffman said, “but it's really difficultwhen you cannot even get permission to put up banners on pole lights to draw peopleoff US 1 to our historic district.”

The first Saturday of the month during the cool winter months, the Chamber ofCommerce sponsors the Hobe Sound Art Stroll, beginning at the corner of A1A andBridge Road at Taste Restaurant—which has its own indoor art gallery. Visitors aretreated to specials from shopkeepers, lots of food vendors, arts and crafts booths, spe-cial prize drawings, and live music.

The Hobe Sound Chamber, in partnership with Landmark Arts and the HobeSound Bible College/Academy, also launched guided tours of Hobe Sound's murals,which include 20 completed works and a still-unfinished mural on an inside patiowall at Taste. Tour participants are encouraged to add their own painterly touches--paints, brushes and directions provided--to Taste's mural.

The murals, most of which were created under the auspices of Landmark Arts ofHobe Sound and directed by artist Nadia Utto, and the tour itself, will be featured ona video created by MCTV for broadcast on the government information channel andfor use by the county's new Tourism Department, currently developing a county-widebranding and marketing strategy.

A little known fact about the murals is that some of them were painted byrenowned artist Dan Mackin, including on the side of the little Pettway Store on OldDixie, and others were a community-wide project with a dozen or more well-known area artists contributing their timeand talent. Some businesses also havecommissioned murals for the sides oftheir buildings, adding artistry thatbuilds community.

Within each mural there is a hidden el-ement, Utto says, such as bumble bees orMickey Mouse ears, which adds an ele-ment of surprise to the tour, which is con-ducted on an air-conditioned tour bus,ending at Taste, where dessert and coffee isserved as part of the $22 cost of the ticket.

“I live in Hobe Sound,” said a recenttour participant, “and I drive by thesemurals all the time, but I didn't really seethem until I took the tour. There's somuch detail, so much more than we real-ize until we stop to really look at them.That's when you appreciate them andhow beautiful they really are.” ■

Hobe Sound no longer a sleepy spot

A new service for snowbirds or residents on vacation isbeing offered by retired law enforcement profession-als, Roger Myers and Mike Driscoll, who created theAll Secure HomeWatch Service.

The duo offers a combined 65 years of law enforcement service to absenteehomeowners from throughout Martin County and surrounding counties.

Myers, a retired FBI Special Agent, and Driscoll, a retired Special Agent with theFlorida Department of Law Enforcement, decided that their backgrounds added a much-needed perspective to their personalized exterior and interior checks of properties.

“Our clients can rely on us to watch their homes with the same level of integrityand dedication as we had in our professional law enforcement careers,” Myers said.“You will have the comfort of knowing your home will be periodically checked bythe All Secure team, who are completely reliable, trustworthy and responsible.”

Myers and Driscoll both are residents of Martin County, own their own homes andboats, and are active in the community, including with the Hibiscus Children’s Cen-ter, Molly’s House and the Stuart Air Show. For more information, visit www.allse-curehome-watch.com, call 772-692-5710, or email info@allsecurehomewatch.com. ■

Chez Bim's Boutique opens doors

The murals at Hobe Sound are rich in detail; this one of 20 can be found at Bluewater Landscaping.

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New service keeps eye on homes

18 Martin County CurrentsApril/May 2015Lifestyle

South Florida impressionist, DoreenLepore, takes us on a beautiful jour-ney to south Florida scenery, some-

how capturing all its enchantingfragrance and atmosphere in her works,although she was born and raised in NewYork. She enjoys the immediacy of paint-ing outdoors, or just sketching en pleinair, any time she is in the mood.If the intended size does notallow her to paint outdoors, shebrings back home her visions,sketches and squiggles to revivethem in full-size compositions inher Hobe Sound studio.

Her artwork has been fea-tured and juried at variousFlorida art galleries and exhibi-tions, including at the Elliot Mu-seum on Hutchinson Island andearning “Best of the Best” at theA.E. Backus Museum in FortPierce. In Florida, where artistscan walk barefoot almost all yeararound, the feel of nature is farmore intimate than in the Northwith its predominantly indoor lifestyle.This skin-to-skin immediacy in interact-ing with the land is the driving force ofDoreen Lepore’s impressionist art, im-parting to each painting a gentle lyricismand soft poetic tone.

Artist James McNeill Whistler oncewrote, “As music is the poetry of sound,so is painting the poetry of sight,” and

Doreen Lepore’s art undeniably reveals apoetry of colors through her one-of-a-kind painterly technique and artistic vi-sion. You'll not find bright, aggressivecolors or straightforward sunshine. Hercolors are balanced and delicate, and thepictorial beauty yields gracefully to aninner music of content, which is all aboutFlorida and its precious environment we

love and need to protect. An active member of

Plein Air Florida andsupporter of park paint-ing, Lepore in manyways continues a purelyAmerican archetype ofconnecting landscapepainting with environ-mental awareness, theparadigm that sparkedthe conservation move-ment in the second halfof the 19th century. Shesays she feels especially attuned to im-pressionism and California Tonalism,which emphasizes the atmosphere, ratherthan focusing on descriptive detail.

As she ushers me to view her beauti-ful pastel painting, “Banks of Loxa-hatchee,” which was featured in the “FineArt Connoisseur” magazine August 2014issue, she tells me: “Park painting is notjust about aesthetics, but caring for theland we live on.” Rendered in mutedpastel tones, the painting is suggestive ofmore that is yet to be discovered and to belearned, and about the whole of Florida'slandscape. This effect of retrospectiveawareness as a result of contemplatingher art imparts to her landscapes both asubtle and an intriguing magnetism.

“When I paint the local scenery, I amfully immersed and present in the set-ting,” she tells me. “Impressionism is allabout chasing the light, for it’s the lightthat weaves the tapestry of atmosphereand determines the mood and tonality ofeach piece.”

Her other pastel pieces, “Through theOaks,” “Spring March,” “JapaneseBridge,” and others, are rendered incharmingly harmonious midtones andclose values to enhance the shifting auraof nature’s scenes. Her pastoral scenes

with cows at Adams Ranch inFort Pierce exude serenity and analmost magical fusion withMother Nature.

The artist works also in wa-tercolor and charcoal, and her oilpaintings, rich in texture and thebalanced interplay of shade andlight, feature Hobe Sound andbeyond landscapes in an ever-changing kaleidoscope of sun-light, which transformseverything it penetrates.

Lepore’s paintings give us in-sight into what makes Americanimpressionism different from itsFrench counterpart, from whichwe learned much, but by whichwe never became consumed.Likely it's the free space between

the artist and the land with no shadowsof the past, as in Europe, that sets Ameri-can impressionists apart.

The greatest challenge the first settlershad to face was the wilderness itself, asthe founder of the White Mountain Schoolof painters, Benjamin Champney, de-scribed the father of American impression-ism, George Inness: “He learned muchabroad, it is true, but his knowledge thusgained he has used in truthfully illustrat-ing our own scenery.…His example is agood one to follow, by all students cominghome from foreign study, not to paintFrench pictures, but to trust to what na-ture can afford them here.”

Florida offers more to artists than thegeneric Sunshine State with gorgeousbeaches, for her multilayered landscapescontain a myriad of unique overtones tobe loved and cherished, and that such agenuine and talented artist as DoreenLepore can truly bring to light. ■

Russian-American Maya Ellenson, who holdsM.A. and PhD degrees in Russian languageand literature from Moscow State University,has lived in Martin County for eight years.A free-lance writer, she has a particular inter-est in world culture and art.

Painting as the chasing of atmosphere and lightMaya

Ellenson

Art Kaleidoscope

Grazin in pastel.

Artist Doreen Lepore in her Hobe Sound studio.

Through the Oaks, PastelJapanese Bridge, Pastel

Bouganvilla in Vintage Vase

Seabreeze, oil

Gillian Rothwell Rose calls herbook “a love story,” but it'sabout more than her mother's

all-consuming love for her father thatexcluded their three daughters fromsharing his life, his death, and even hisburial. The Poison Glen tells a family'sstory of poverty, of war, of triumph andtragedy, written on a page of Englishhistory itself.

The book began about 17 years ago,after one of Rose's three sons asked aquestion about her family that she couldnot answer.

“I don't even remember now whathis question was,” she says, “... butthat's when I realized that I didn't reallyknow anything about my grandparents,or even my own parents. I had left thembehind when I left England at 18 to sailto America, and I guess I just didn'tlook back.”

Although many in Hobe Soundknow Gillian Rose because she and herhusband, Terry, own the Old DixieCafe North on US 1 in Hobe Sound,where The Poison Glen is sold, few real-ize that Rose's roots grew first in Eng-land. Her accent, now buried underdecades of life as a U.S. citizen,emerges primarily when she talksabout “me mum and me dad.”

Gillian Rothwell was born and raisedin Wigan, England, where her parents stilllived when she called her mother to an-

swer her son'squestion.

“I guess I alsowas feeling veryguilty for notknowing moreabout my family,”she says, “butthen, once you getstarted and youlearn about thesepeople you don'tknow ... the moreyou want to know.”

Shortly afterRose's quest began,her father becameseriously ill, but hermother forbade heror her sisters to comehome to see him,even though he laydying. Rose foundherself resentingsomewhat that shewould lose the lastopportunity to talk toa father who had beena kind but aloof presence throughouther childhood. Time ran out, and hisdeath cemented her resolve.

She spent seven years researching andwriting her family's story. With the helpof a history museum in Wigan, Roselearned details about that part of the

world in the early1800s that breathedlife into her fam-ily's account.

“This bookcould not havehappened with-out the help ofthe History Shopin Wigan,” shesays. The docu-ments they sentprovided thebackground toher mother's an-ecdotes that be-

came the heart ofher book as shetraced the Oxleys' andthe Scanlons' and the Jacksons' andRothwells' journey from more than 200years ago to today. The book, whichwends it way among historical events,imagined dialogue and actual family ex-

perience, is compelling, because the sto-ries were told as they had been lived.

Rose recounted her grandmother'sforced inscription into labor at theTrencherfield Cotton Mill at age six,and you can feel the anguish of thoseoutside the Maypole Coal Mine after anexplosion: “We can 'ear men down'ere.” You live through her family'ssoul-wrenching experiences in the BoerWars in South Africa, as well as the twoWorld Wars that devastated her home-land. You witness great loves, a stoicdetermination to triumph, and the in-domitable spirit stamped on this fam-ily's DNA.

After Rose finished writing, poten-tial publishers asked about her “next”book. “I told them that this is the only

book I intend to write,” she says, soher manuscript sat unpublished for10 years, until she met Suzanne Bri-ley of Hobe Sound, who put Rose onthe path of self-publishing. The firstprint run sold out within weeks, andit's now on its second press run. (It's

also available as an ebook at Barnesand Noble, as well as at Amazon.com.)

“I'm glad I wrote the book,” shesays, “but I think most of all, even morethan having a family record for mysons, who might read the book some-day, I feel a little softer towards mymother, now that I know more aboutthe life she lived.” ■

A light-hearted look at serious business

19Martin County CurrentsApril/May 2015 Lifestyle

Those who knowSuzanne Brileyknow she's a multi-

talented, spiritual womanin perpetual motion: anaward-winning artist whofounded the Barn Artists inHobe Sound; an advocateof the Alzheimer's Associa-tion; an environmentalist; aconcert pianist; an avid gar-dener; a Currents columnist;and a successful entrepre-neur who “retired” to HobeSound after selling hermulti-million-dollar garmentbusiness in the '90s, launch-ing it with only $50 in the'70s when women still werenot permitted to have theirown credit cards.

Now she can add “published au-thor” to her credits after writing andpublishing Doing Business in a PalmBeach Taxi that chronicles an upbring-ing that fostered independence suitedto entrepreneurship, her struggle as adivorced mother of two, and the day-to-day obstacles as a woman navigat-ing a man's world.

“After I appeared as a guest onABC's 'Good Morning America' withDavid Hartmann interviewing self-made millionaires,” Briley recalls, “aNew York literary agent called me and

suggested that Ishould write abook. He evencame to our fac-tory in West PalmBeach to seeeverything thatI'd described,even our littleblue taxicabthat, at times,had

been my onlyoffice, as well as ourprimary mode for haul-ing rolls of fabrics from Miami—tied toits roof, no less—and for making deliv-eries to the posh Palm Beach shops thatwere our primary customers.”

Briley was too busy at the time towrite the book, but the agent planted aseed that continued to grow. It blos-somed last fall when her “project” fi-nally came to fruition with the adviceand support of her many friends. Shedecided to self-publish, she said, “be-cause I just wanted to see my book

printed, to see that it was finallyDONE. If I waited around for an an-swer from a book publisher, I knew Imight not live long enough to see mybook sitting on my bookshelf.”

What shines through brilliantly inthis, at times side-splittingly funny 173-page journal, is the personality that setsBriley apart from those who want suc-cess to those who achieve success: Adogged determination not to settle forwhat was handed to her. Even beforeshe knew she would become a business

owner, she sought ways to increaseher income: finishing a degree, seek-ing better employment, making im-portant connections, devising newavenues for creating additional rev-enue streams, and tapping into the

talents of family and friends to reachher goal of financial independence.

Eventually, she was making heart-shaped pillows from scraps of red velvetand lace for Valentine's Day that hermother convinced her could be sold tothe posh shops on Worth Avenue—thehumble beginnings of a fascinating, wildride into a successful career in business,ending with a little book that is a perfectsummer read on a porch swing.

The book is available for purchaseat the Sea Urchin gift shop on MarsStreet, the Elite Salon and Gallery onUS 1, and on Amazon.com, whichnamed it an “Editor's Pick.”■

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Answering a son's question leads to new book

Martin County CurrentsApril/May 2015Lifestyle20

It was at the end of summer in myEnglish village of Sherborne. Theday was golden, shedding light on

the old stone church in the Cotswolds,painting rose gold on the ancient belltower. A tinge of autumnal colortouched the leaves on the great beechand chestnut trees along the silver Win-drush River, and I could see theshadow of a quiet swan swimmingalong its banks, a reflective white colorshimmering in the water. Surely, ahappy day!

There was much excitement asguests began to arrive, driving down thelong lane from the village to the churchand along the curving drive.

Wedding guests walked to thechurch in such finery! Large frilly hatslike swirling puddings, fans, feathers,veils and glittering dresses of silver andgold. Handsome men dressed in tophats, black tie and tails. Some wore kilts!

It was 5 o'clock in the afternoon, andthe sun was sailing behind distant treesto present a magical story for the day'send. A few clouds were underlined withdark purple.

The vicar was all smiles in his bluefrock, collar and robe. The church wasfilled with white roses, lillies and limegreen bells of Ireland flowers.

In England all weddings are publicevents and can be attended by anyone,without an invitation. Interesting o me!

A large bell of flowers were hangingfrom the round arch, entrance to thechurch, streaming with more white lil-lies, roses and dark green ivy. Quitebeautiful! The same type of flowers ap-peared as small crowns for the youngbride and groom to be married there.

A lovely scent filled the little churchwith overwhelming and delightful fra-

grances, reminding me ofall that is wonderful about asummer's country weddingin an 800-old church. Thebells rang out, soundingacross the valley and chil-dren, babies and parents ap-peared, laughing. A happybusy-ness and anticipationof a special event to soontake place filled the air.

Soon the lovely bride,covered in a swirl of whitelace and net, stood at thedoor, and before her entry,three small boys—one, aring bearer, with shiningyellow hair—waited as herattendants. Dressed increamy, silk blouses withpeter pan collars, they wore pantaloonsto their knees. Their waists werebanded in lime green silk cumberbunds.Little silk knee stockings and whitesatin shoes completed their dress. Eachone carried a large circular ring hoopcovered with white flowers on greenvelvet twine.

Behind the attendants were threedogs, prancing down the carpeted aisle.A white Whippet, a malty coloredbrown one and a tiny Selihan terrier. All

three dogs were wearing roses aroundtheir necks. It was a magical moment.

The groom and his handsome father,a Scotsman of noble descent, stoodsmiling and waiting at the alter. Thechoir of Gloucester cathedral sang Eng-lish hymns. Vows were repeated. The"Owl and the Pussycat" were read, andat last for this happy occasion, theywere pronounced man and wife.Cheers! Hats flew in the air and the joy-ous music of Widor's “Toccata from theFifth Symphony” played on the churchorgan, filling the church with sound asfriend, family and villagers departed.

The bells once again rang out acrossthe meadows and fields of golden wheatand bright redpoppies, quietriver and fivethousandacres of Na-tional Trustland sur-rounding thevillage. A bagpiperplayed tunes of Scotland asthe bride, a farmer's daughter,and groom exited the churchunder an array of pitchforksheld high by four men in whitecoats standing at attention.

Petals of roses tossed and applauseadded to the festivity.

An old gypsy cart stood waiting. Itwas a shiny dark green with widewooden wheels, and a wonderful littlebrown and white horse stood by, pa-tiently, his mane shining silver-white inthe fading sun. A small ladder led thebride up the stairs to sit on floppy velvetcushions, groom beside her. Bright redHawthorne berries of the season deco-rated the cart in high style.

Sir Mark Palmer, an eccentric cousinof the queen, was the driver of the cartused for this splendid affair. He wasdressed in a dark suit, silver threads andred shoes. His wife, Lady Catherine,stood nearby in a dress designed to looklike wall paper. Black with large pinkand and red roses, green shoes and abright yellow hat with large blackfeather. A sight to behold!

The little horse trotted back along thelane with dogs, children and happyfriends following, back to Dairy Farm,home of the bride where a large whitemarquee covered a field, and happychampagne toasts, speeches,music andmerriment lasted the night. At dawn,the happy couple sped away for a hon-eymoon in Spain, Rome and Portugal.

It was a wedding I will always re-member! ■

Suzanne Briley, who lives in Hobe Sound, isan artist, author, entrepreneur, environmen-talist and world traveler. She may be con-

tacted at hopscotch@ hscurrents.com.

English country wedding makes fond memoriesSuzanne

Briley

Hopscotch

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Springtime and Mother Naturebring us what we once anticipatedeagerly. Rain! The Kissimmee

River, a once-convoluted environmentaltrail of islands and pockets, now chan-nels the sky-pure water into a dead-endreservoir—Lake Okeechobee—pickingup developmental runoff and cattle and agri-cultural deposits on itsway to degradation.

Naturally the waterhas the intense momen-tum to go south. Weknow the story a thou-sand times over!Thesouth is nothing morethan a corporate cul desac with a rim canaland a berm! Unnatu-rally, if the corporationhas too much rain southof them, they are wellarmed, unlike us, to dosomething aboutit!They pump it into thepeople's reservoir,adding to the east andwest deplorable out-falls—now the only per-mitted way to relievethe pressure on an under-fortified dike.

Amendment 1 was a special non-par-tisan Floridian outcry to allow us tobegin remedying this problem, but theunfortunate results have been obvious!The people own the lake, but we are notable to finance the politicians to fight theGiants and win. In baseball jargon, weare the bums and the bums are ill repre-sented in this once-great Florida.

We should relish the roots of why wemoved to "La Florida," and understandwhy so many of us want a small piece ofole Florida back. We shouldn't allow abunch of corporate sandspurs to destroyour Nature! Ponce de Leon came toFlorida to find waters that would healpeople and more. The water must behealed, not sacrificed!

Somehow, with all odds against theocean, the "Spring Pompano Run" hasbegun! What are the odds that the com-bination of a late March nor'easter and adeluge of polluted water could combineto produce a surf bite? No analytical logscould predict a low-salinity flush out ofthe estuary as a pompano run, but ithappened! The river discharges emptiedlarge volumes of fresh water on the out-going tides and every river pompano,sheepshead, bluefish and muddy catfish

fled for a breathable en-vironment.

As a result, HobeSound, Blowing RocksPreserve, Jupiter andJuno Beach all har-bored schools of riverpomps. River pompanoare not the prettyocean-going silvernuggets we're used to,but they are every bitas delicious. So what'sthe difference! Riverpompano migrate inlate August from thenorthern most reachesof our estuary. Theyschool up in regionssurrounding Eau Gallieand move south with

the incremental nor'easters, accompa-nied by a drop in water temperature.They don't empty out the inlets unlessharsh river conditions become harmful.These fish are a dirty yellow color with amuddy appearance. A life in the estuaryand their skin becomes stained. Theyonly migrate in the river and can perse-vere in the toughest of climates.

Truly, this first run of river fish wasnot the official “Spring Run,” but a luckyweek for beach anglers nonetheless.April will be the “reel deal” for sure. Thefirst signal to look for is the calico crabmigration. March and April is calicospawn month, and if you drag one in,they do make great bait! Just crush oneand slide the leg out of the body with themeat on the knuckle. The entire leg canbe used if the crab is no wider than sixinches. Larger crabs legs are too large toswallow so break the leg in half and al-ways hook thru the knuckle meat, andwork the hook in between the first joint.

This presentation is a feast for bigpompano, large whitings, and permit.How do you know that they are here?Simple. You'll be losing baits in twominutes or less. They will chew yourfloats to smithereens, feast on clams,fleas, shrimp and artificial scented strips

like "Fish Bites." Not fussy at all. ButPUHLEEZE do not kill a crab carryingan orange roe sac. It's against natureAND against the law.

I'm happy to acknowledge two newshops selling my Pompano Fluorocar-bon Rigs: The Snook Nook in JensenBeach and the Treasure Coast BoatRental in Ft. Pierce, join the Stuart An-gler in Stuart and Reel Life Bait andTackle in Hobe Sound. I'm looking for-ward to meeting my fellow anglers atThe Florida Sportsman Expo on April

11-12 at the Ft. Pierce Civic Center. Mybooth number is No. 1, so stop by andsay hello. Happy April to all and let'sline the beaches with pompano. NOWIS THE TIME! Tightlines. ■

Rich Vidulich, a commercial pompano surffisherman who traverses the beaches of Mar-tin County and points north for his "goldennuggets," lives in Jupiter. Send comments orquestions to Pompano@ MartinCountyCurrents.com.

Lake O discharges chases river pomps out to surf

A gleeful Jeff Daugherty.on HobeSound Beach.

Martin County CurrentsApril/May 2015 Outdoors 21

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Rege Kobert has a good day at Juno Beach. Rich Vidulich shows river pompano with a yellowish tint to its scales.

22 Martin County CurrentsApril/May 2015What ’n Where

Friday, April 24Lionfish Clinic & Hunt to BenefitArtificial Reef ProgramAttend a lionfish clinic at the Loxahatchee River Centeron Friday, April 24, from 6-8 p.m. to learn everything youneed to know about lionfish, including how to capture themand prepare them for cooking, and how they are harming theecosystem. The hunt begins Saturday, April 25, at 8am, followed by a dockparty from 12-4pm. Fun for all ages that will benefit the Martin County Arti-ficial Reef Program. The Loxahatchee River Center, 805 US 1, in Jupiter. Formore information, go to www.mclionfish.com.

Weekend, April 25-2618th Annual Downtown Stuart Craft Festival Over the years, this festival has grown to be one of the most anticipated fes-tivals in this area. The show is set up along Osceola Street in Stuart's historicdowntown, bringing together some of the best crafters in the nation withpaintings, wooden sculptures, ceramics, one-of-a-kind jewelry, handmadebaskets and much, much more. An expansive Green Market complementsthe weekend with plants, orchids, tangy BBQ sauces, and homemade soaps.The festival starts at 10 a.m. on Saturday until 6 p.m. on Sunday. For moreinformation, go to www.artfestival.com.

Weekend, April 25-26Dr. Dolittle Jr. at the Maltz Jupiter TheatreA treat you'll long remember: Dr. Dolittle Jr. features 33 local children ingrades 3 – 5 who have been preparing for the Maltz Jupiter Theatre produc-tion since August. Directed by Conservatory instructor Lea Roy, Dr. DolittleJr. is based on the popular stories by Hugh Lofting and Twentieth CenturyFox film. The musical tells the classic tale of a wacky but kind doctor whocan talk to animals, taking audiences on a journey from a small English vil-lage to the far corners of the world. Join the fun as Dr. Dolittle trots, crawlsand flies to the far corners of the world in search of the Great Pink Sea Snail– the oldest and wisest of all creatures on earth. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. onSaturday, April 25, and 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 26. Tickets are $25 for adults;$20 for children. For tickets, call the Theatre’s box office at (561) 575-2223 orvisit www.jupitertheatre.org.

Wednesday, April 29Outstanding Volunteers CeremonyThe Martin County School District will honor its 2014-15 Outstanding Vol-unteers and Business Partners of the Year at a recognition ceremonyWednesday, April 29, at 6:30 pm at Stuart Middle School, including senior,adult, and youth, as well as each school's business partners. Stuart MiddleSchool is at 575 Georgia Avenue in Stuart, and the event, open to the public,will be in the cafeteria.

Thursday-Sunday, April 30-May 313, the Musical at StarStruck

A hilarious, coming-of-age musical about discover-ing that "cool" is sometimes where we least expectit. With an unforgettable rock score from TONYAward-winning composer Jason Robert Brown, 13is a musical about fitting in – and standing out!StarStruck's award-winning Academy stars bringthis PG-rated rock score to life on the StarStruckstage at 2101 S. Kanner Highway in Stuart. Per-formances are at 7 p.m. on weeknights and at 3p.m. on Sunday. For tickets, call 772.283.7787.

Until they're all soldPhotography Exhibitat Alice's to BenefitHouse of HopeAn “Images of Hope” exhibit by localphotographers at Alice's Restaurant inStuart is raising money for House ofHope in the fight against hunger andhardship in Martin County. Check outthe pieces submitted by the membersof the Treasure Coast PhotographyGroup displayed on the restaurant'swalls inside. Alice’s Restaurant is at2781 S.E. Ocean Blvd., in the CedarPointe Plaza, in Stuart.

Until May 3The Man Who Came to DinnerThis show is an award winning comedythat is not only nostalgic in its depic-tion of life around 1935, but is funny,full of wit, and we get to celebrateChristmas in April at the Barn Theatrein Stuart. Brian Pecci, an accomplishedwell-known actor, has taken on the roleof Sheridan Whiteside. He is sur-rounded by a remarkable cast, and thestage set is stunning. Tickets can bepurchased by calling the Barn Theatrebox office at 772-287-4884 or via theBarn website at www.barn-theatre.com.

Now on DisplayBob Wyatt’s ModelCircus at the ElliottThe Elliott Museum offers visitors a treatfor fans of the circus: an amazingly de-tailed and captivating collection ofminiature renderings of the circus, in-cluding colorful railroad cars, sideshowacts, animals, attendees of all ages, andmore. The Bob Wyatt Model Circus waslovingly restored for many weeks by El-liott Museum volunteer Kurt Spence.Last year, the circus parade was on dis-play, but now the full circus is located onthe museum's second floor. Visit thisunique display at the Elliott Museum,825 Northeast Ocean Boulevard, Stuart.For more information, call 772.225.1961or visit www.elliiottmuseumfl.org.

Saturday, May 2 2015 Relay for Life in Hobe SoundThe American Cancer Society Relay For Life

is the world's largest fundraising event toend cancer, uniting communities across theglobe to celebrate those who have battledcancer, remember loved ones lost, and takeaction to finish the fight once and for all. TheHobe Sound Relay for Life event will be atSouth Fork High School on Saturday, May 2,11 a.m. to 11 p.m. The chair is Kim Waser-Nash. To participate, contact Ralph Perrone at562.650.0128 or ralph.perrone@cancer.org.

Saturday, May 2Beach Cleanup at Stuart BeachKeep Martin Beautiful will host a clean up ofStuart Beach on Saturday, May 2, beginningat 8 a.m. For more information, or to make asuggestion of other community clean-upevents you'd like to see happen, contact KMBat events@keepmartinbeautiful.org or call772.781.1222.

Saturday, May 832nd Annual Golf Tournament at Hobe SoundOne of the most popular events in HobeSound, the 32nd Annual Golf Tournament pre-sented by Metz Construction Co., will be Sat-urday, May 8, at the Hobe Sound Golf Club.Eagle sponsors include Mr. and Mrs. GaryUber and Senator and Mrs. Joe Negron. Bra-man Motorcars of Jupiter and David andBecky Nagy of Cruise One are the Hole-in-OneSponsors. The four-player scramble starts at 1p.m. $150 per player, or $600 per foursome.RSVP online at www.hobesound.org.

Weekend, May 14-16Stuart Sailfish RegattaThis high-speed thrillsweekend kicks off witha pre-racer party atChillin' the Mostrestaurant, 4304 NEOcean Blvd in JensenBeach with music,raffles and the start ofa full-throttle weekend ofhydroplanes, race boats, and powerboats! Theraces will once again be held on the StuartCauseway on an oval racecourse on the north-ern side of the bridge. The Stuart Causewaywill again be closed with the approval of Se-walls Point town officials offering incredibleviewing from the bridge. Visitors to this year'sevent can expect a new and improved layoutoverall and additional food, beverage and cus-tomer services. Since the race is sanctionedby the American Power Boat Association,some of the nation's top-tier racers will becompeting. For tickets and more information,go to: stuartsailfishregatta.com.

Elliott Museum Volunteer Kurt Spence puts thefinishing touches on the Museum’s hand-carvedcircus which he restored, as LaVaine Wrigley, Elliott Museum Collections Manager watches. The Circus was in storage until recently. Other volunteers built the base and stand for its display.

Coming to an end May 31Rock N' Riverwalk Free ConcertsIf you've been promising yourself you're going to get to downtown Stuartfor their free Riverwalk concerts, you'd better do it soon. They will come toend for the season on May 31. Live bands play a variety of genres each Sun-day from 1-4 p.m. on the Riverwalk stage next to Stuart City Hall.

Sunday, May 10 Hobe Sound NatureCenter Turtle Walks The season for the Hobe Sound NatureCenter's careful watch of turtles leavingthe sea to lay their eggs on Hobe Soundbeach will begin again on May 10 at 9p.m. The watches often last until mid-night, and there's no guarantee a nest-ing turtle will be sighted. But if you'dlike to experience this amazing phenom-enon, you'd better sign up now. Regis-trations are required, since groups arelimited to 30 at a time, and they fill upfast. A $5 per attendee donation will berequested. For more information, con-tact the nature center, or go to:www.hobesoundnaturecenter.com.

Saturday, May 16Let's Talk TechnologyTo share with the public what STEMopportunities are available locally andto communicate the importance ofSTEM education throughout the schooldistrict, S.P.A.M. Team 180 will host atechnology fair, "Let's Talk Technol-ogy," on Saturday, May 16, from 9 a.m.to 1 p.m. at IRSC's Wolf TechnologyCenter on Salerno Road. The event willinclude demonstrations, career oppor-tunities and exhibits. Exhibitors arebeing sought from the engineeringcommunity, the medical communityand various robotics and mechanicalvendors and manufacturers in the areato have displays, as well as to solicitresumes. “This is an exciting projectfor S.P.A.M. that we hope to see as anannual event,” says Stuart engineerSusan O'Rourke. “It is the goal ofFIRST to 'change the world' and this isan excellent opportunity for us to leadthe conversation in our community.” Tovolunteer, to be an exhibitor or formore information, emailFrcteam180@gmail.com or se-orourke@comcast.net.

Monday, May 252015 Paddlefest & SUP Race

Come out andenjoy Memo-rial Day onthe Lagoon atSandspritPark for the3rd AnnualPaddlefest &SUP Race.Race registra-tion is at 7:30

a.m., and admission for non-racers is$5, with proceeds to benefit a host oflocal charities. The day will includelots of vendors, music, food, demon-strations, and after the awards presen-tation at 11:30a.m., the biggest groupclean-up of the lagoon ever organized!For more information, go to the Pad-dlesfest Facebook page.

Saturday, May 30Touch-a-Truck at MartinCounty FairgroundsThe perfect family fundraiser will likely beTouch-a-Truck to benefit the Early LearningCoalition of Indian River, Martin and Okee-chobee counties. Set for Saturday, May 30,from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at the Martin County Fair-grounds, proceeds will benefit the non-profit’sBuilding Blocks for Educational Success. Thisinteractive experience allows youngsters toclimb on, learn about and discover their fa-vorite big trucks - and what an exciting collec-tion it will be—an engine truck from theMartin County Fire Department; a City of Stu-art bucket truck, a side loader, a brush truckand Sammy the Sailfish; a Martin CountySheriff Office Black Humvee, patrol car and,possibly, bear cat truck and helicopter; a limofrom Leighton Transportation; Stuart PoliceDepartment patrol cars and a crime scene ve-hicle; from the Coast Guard, "Coastie"; a towtruck from Reliable Towing; a garbage truckfrom Waste Management and, possibly, aschool bus, a tug and some construction vehi-cles. Vehicle drivers and operators will be onhand to educate the public about their vehi-cles and answer any questions. Admission is$5 per person and you’ll be able to buy lunchor snacks from one of the many food trucksthat will be at the Fairgrounds. Booth spacewill be available for non-profits who would liketo participate by offering a craft suitable forchildren and present information about theirorganization. Sponsorships are available. Con-tact Lisa Holland of Team Holland for more in-formation at 772-631-6611 orlisa@teamholland.info.

Sunday, June 7Don’t miss the boat! The voyage for children K-5 for Vacation BibleSchool begins Sunday, June 7, and ends onThursday, June 11. St. Luke’s Episcopal Churchon Salerno Road presents Oceans of Love Vaca-tion Bible School. “Get on board with the St.Luke’s Adventure Cruise Line as we sail thehigh seas and meet people whose liveschanged course because of God’s love,” saysSusan Auld, one of the organizers. “Days will bepacked with an exciting mix of songs, stories,crafts, games, delicious snacks.” Kids also willplant a “personal garden” to take home. St.Luke’s Episcopal Church located is at 5150Railway Avenue in Port Salerno. $5 per family,and registration is being accepted now at thechurch office, Monday - Friday 9 am - 12 noon,or call 772.286.5455 during office hours.

23Martin County CurrentsApril/May 2015 What ’n Where

Celebrating our historic pastHistoric Preservation Month in Martin County will kick off Monday,

May 1, at 5 p.m. at the Stuart Heritage Museum--the restored Stuart FeedStore built in 1901—on Flagler Avenue just east of Stuart City Hall. Noadmission charge, and lots of very short remarks from some of our fa-vorite politicians and friends of historic preservation—an important ele-ment in this community's unique character.

Also on Monday, beginning at 6 p.m. at the Hoke Library in JensenBeach, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Friends of the MartinCounty Library System, is a free lecture by noted historian Alice Luck-hardt on “Jensen Pioneers—Raw, Wild and Unspoiled.” There will alsobe a Florida Frontier story time for the young folks. The Hoke is at 1150NW Jack Williams Way, right off Jensen Beach Blvd., only a block east ofUS 1 in Jensen Beach. For more info, call 772-629-5282.

Many special events have been planned throughout the month, in-cluding:

• Tours of the historic Seminole Inn, built in 1926 by S. DaviesWarfield, restored by the Wall family and filled with rich murals that tellthe stories of the Seminole families that settled the area first, which willbe lead by Jonnie Wall Flewelling and Iris Wall at 10 a.m. and at 2 p.m,on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. The inn is at 15885 SWWarfield Blvd. in Indiantown. For more information, call 772.597.3777.

• Free tours of the historic and fascinating Tuckahoe Mansion (builtin 1938) in Indian RiverSide Park in Jensen Beach every Wednesdaythrough May at 10 a.m. and at 11 a.m.

• Free tours of the Captain Sewall House (built in 1889), also at IndianRiverSide Park adjacent to the Tuckahoe Mansion at noon and at 2 p.m.,featuring historian Sandra Thurlow, who will present “The Captain Se-wall House, Its History in Pictures.” Bruce and Barbara Osborn will por-tray Captain and Mrs. Sewall in period costume.

Other special events include a plaque dedication at the Apollo School(built in 1924) in Hobe Sound, only surviving two-room schoolhouse inMartin County, 9141 SE Apollo Street, on Saturday, May 9; an archaeolog-ical tour of Mount Elizabeth on which the Tuckahoe Mansion standssponsored by the Southeast Florida Archaeological Society (meet at thepavilion adjacent to the Mansion at Tuckahoe) on Saturday, May 16, at 10a.m., after which the public may attend from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. an openhouse at the historic Salerno Colored School (built in 1930) in Monrovia,across the street from the Stuart Middle School. It is a one-room school-house built during the era of segregation and is at 4455 SE Murray Streetin New Monrovia Park.

The complete calendar of events will be available at the Stuart HeritageMuseum, and will include special lectures by Nathaniel Osborne on thehistory of the Indian River Lagoon, by John Hennessee on the commercialfishing industry of Port Salerno, and Fred Burky on the history of MartinCounty's once prodigious flower business, among many other events talks,open houses, and events, capped by the naming of the esteemed “HistoricPreservationists of the Year” during a reception at the Lyric Theatre.

Firefighter/paramedic Brautie Garcia, ELC board memberWill Laughlin, ELC Executive Director Jacki Jackson, LisaHolland of Team Holland and firefighter/paramedicCameron May get ready for Touch-a-Truck.

Martin County CurrentsApril/May 201524

Historic Preservation Month coming in May! A Celebration of Martin County's Historic Past

Apollo SchoolSince its construction in the feverish days of Florida’s land boom, the Apollo School has been an important part of the social fabric of Hobe Sound.

FLORIDA SENATOR JOE NEGRON was instrumental in obtaining a significant state grant

to boost renovation of the Apollo School, a 15-year effort led by Apollo SchoolFoundation PresidentKathy Spurgeon, aformer ApolloSchool student.

Developer Malcolm Meacham created theOlympia Improvement Company in the ambitiousdays of the 1920s Florida land boom for the purposeof establishing a master-planned resort on Jupiter Is-

land, as well as a city on the mainland. Roads named forGreek gods were built in a radial pattern around the newly created ZeusPark in 1924. By 1925 the Olympia School (in which you now stand) andapproximately 20 other mission-style buildings had been built, each de-signed by prominent New York City architectural firm Treanor and Fatio.

On May 12, 1925, the School Board of Palm Beach County author-ized “a school at Olympia with Mrs. Pauline Towles as the appointedteacher.” The building had electricity, indoor plumbing and large windowsfor natural light, all of which were unusual for semi-rural schools inFlorida at the time.

The Picture City Company purchased the interests of the OlympiaImprovement Company In the summer of 1925, which coincided withthe most intense period of wildly escalating real estate prices during thefevered land boom. In October 1925 the newly created Martin Countyagreed to manage the building to educate white children and redesig-nated the site “The Picture City School.”

Heavily promoted plans to build a major center for the burgeoningmotion picture industry came to a halt with the crash of the Florida realestate market in 1926. Since 1999, community volunteers have worked to raise

money to refurbish the building. The Apollo School Foundationpurchased the building in 2000 and continues to raise funds torestore it. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in

2002, the Apollo School Foundation held an open house in 2013 to celebrate thecompletion of a major portion of the renovation.

In January 2015, the first cultural event, a speakers series entitled, “LocalReflections,” was launched to feature cultural, ecological and historical perspec-tives on people, places, and events in Hobe Sound and surrounding areas.

In the early 1930s, the remnants of the Olympia develop-ment that surrounded the school were purchased from the de-funct Picture City Company by the newly formed Hobe SoundCompany. During the 1930s, the renamed “Hobe Sound White

School” was serviced only by a single teacher who taught all gradesand handled administrative duties, a result of declining tax revenues in the wakeof the land boom collapse and the Great Depression. The school’s Parent TeacherAssociation built a modest playground in 1939 and the federal government’sWorks Progress Administration provided funds for a new roof.

The building was used by the town in many capacities, from a neighborhoodmeeting hall and theater to a place of worship by Olympia Community Church, untila dedicated church (Hobe Sound Community Presbyterian Church) was built in 1936.

In the summer of 1942 the building served as a canteen for military mem-bers stationed at nearby Camp Murphy. Many of the lots surrounding the schoolhad remained empty until the area began to grow along with Florida’s populationin the days following World War II.

By 1962 the town’s growing population and school desegregation meant thatthe two-room building could not serve all of Hobe Sound’s children. A new HobeSound Elementary School was built a short distance away on Gomez Avenue.

1920s 1930s

Following construction of a new school, the for-mer school building, which had been used only oc-casionally, gradually fell into disrepair. The originalcupola had disappeared, perhaps a casualty of one

of Florida's storms, as well as its signature arched windows.

1970s-

1980s

1990s-

2000s