06/13/2024 ISSUE 24

As the clock ticked down to pay day, employees at Sebastian River Medical Center were increasingly anxious as to whether Steward Healthcare – trying desperately to raise the additional funds needed to get through to an August bankruptcy auction of its hospitals – would be able to make this Friday’s payroll. In an interview, a retired senior administrator – long known to this reporter – who said she remains in touch with a number of SRMC nurses, painted a picture of an increasingly troubled hospital with a frazzled staff stretched thin, and worrying about both their patients and their jobs. Inspectors from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration have been on-site twice in the past few weeks, they said, conducting inspecNews 1-10 Arts 41-44 Books 34 Dining 56-58 Editorial 32 Games 38-39 Health 45-53 Insight 27-40 People 11-26 Pets 59 Real Estate 63-72 Style 54-55 June 13, 2024 Volume 17, Issue 24 Newsstand Price $2.00 TO ADVERTISE CALL 772-559-4187 FOR CIRCULATION CALL 772-226-7925 ‘Blue Jeans & BBQ’ helps Special Equestrians. P12 Bingo’s on money for seniors. P22 Advancements in treatment of esophageal cancer. P46 ‘Swan Lake’ will be ballet treat. Page 42 © 2024 Vero Beach 32963 Media LLC. All rights reserved. For breaking news visit Indian River County property values continued upward at a surprising pace in 2023. Even though the year did not have the boomtown feel of the two prior years, taxable values rose substantially in every town, city and taxing district, with Indian River Shores leading the way. When it mattered most in the long Three Corners process – when we needed the five members of the Vero Beach City Council to be at their absolute best – they gave us the disappointing and embarrassing clown show many local skeptics had predicted. But nobody was laughing last Friday as Mayor John Cotugno gaveled to a close the twohour, special-call meeting, after a council majority publicly disgraced itself with repeated and desperate attempts to defend the indefensible. Nobody should be laughing now, as we’re left to wonder why this majority chose to abandon the city’s best interests and disregard the concepts of fair play, integrity and honor. After six years of slow-butsteady progress that survived a global pandemic, a seemingly effective process to create a dining, retail, social and recreational hub on Vero Beach’s Concern over Sebastian River Hospital grows BY LISA ZAHNER Staff Writer BY STEVEN M. THOMAS Staff Writer There are few local sights more forlorn than the empty parking lot of the largely deserted Indian River Mall – unless it is the empty retail shops and fast food booths lining the dreary mall corridor and food court inside. But the Illinois owner of Indian River Commons, the shopping center immediately to the mall’s east, is not ready to give up. DTS Properties II is betting big that it can turn Indian River Mall’s sad decline around by transforming it BY JON PINE Staff Writer CONTINUED ON PAGE 8 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 CONTINUED ON PAGE 10 MY VERO BY RAY MCNULTY Three jeers for clown show on Three Corners It’s the end of an era as Marine Bank and Trust, the island’s only remaining local community bank, is being purchased in an all-cash transaction by Michigan’s ELGA Credit Union. Marine Bank, founded by a group of Vero investors led by the late George Slater, opened its doors on Beachland Boulevard in 1997, three years after The Beach Bank, at the corner of Beachland and A1A, was acquired by Northern Trust. New era as Michigan credit union will acquire Marine Bank CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 Property values continue to rise here, BY JON PINE propelled by ‘raging’ high-end market Staff Writer CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 PHOTOS BY JOSHUA KODIS Marine Bank President Bill Penney.

2 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ mainland waterfront was, for no good reason, brought to a halt last week. Worse, the wrongheaded members of this council majority – in a pathetic attempt to give its favored-but-flawed development group a “second bite at the apple,” as Cotugno put it – voted to reject all four of the submitted proposals and issue an entirely new Request For Proposals this summer. A do-over was the only way to save their beloved SuDa, CREC Capital, Madison Marquette partnership, the Pompano Beach-based development group that eked out a seemingly manipulated, one-point victory at the council’s May 28 meeting. The SuDa group clearly violated the terms of the city’s RFP, which prohibited direct communication with council members, when its lead partner, Gaurav Butani, sent emails to City Clerk Tammy Bursick on May 27 and May 28. In the body of both emails, Butani asked Bursick to “share” the correspondences with council members in what obviously was a last-gasp effort to enhance SuDa’s standing in the hours before the final vote. It was this infraction, which was mentioned during the May 28 dais discussion but not acted on, that prompted Cotugno to request a follow-up meeting last week. It was at that meeting Vice Mayor Linda Moore and council members Taylor Dingle and Tracey Zudans – they each had ranked a still-evolving SuDa proposal No. 1 and, for the most part, operated as allies on the dais – diminished themselves with their feeble and shameful attempts to excuse Butani’s actions. Dingle’s response was particularly troubling as he first questioned the need for a follow-up meeting, then wholly embraced the arguments and explanations put forth by the SuDa team, which, in addition to a melodramatic Butani, sent two attorneys and a just-hired professional lobbyist to the podium. The council newcomer also felt it necessary to give SuDa the benefit of every doubt, including attorney Mark Grafton’s nonsensical claim that Butani’s emails were “innocuous” and amounted to nothing more than “technicalities that are irrelevant.” Dingle, whose naivete was on full display, also bought Grafton’s absurd contention that sending the emails to Bursick with instructions to share them with council members was inadvertent – that Butani mistakenly placed the wrong names in the “To:” and “cc:” headers. The mayor didn’t buy it. Nor did Councilman John Carroll, who bolstered Cotugno’s rebuttal by noting the May 27 email’s subject line read: “Clarification letter to the City Council.” Sensing SuDa was in trouble, Moore rushed to the group’s defense, saying it was “incredibly reasonable for an outside person,” such as Butani, to assume the clerk was the city’s gatekeeper for the developer-selection process. Cotugno shook his head. “This is not their first rodeo,” the mayor said of the SuDa team, adding, “These are professional developers who engage in the RFP process on an ongoing basis.” The council then moved on to the meeting’s public-comment segment, where Paul Colella, a local software engineer, challenged the integrity of SuDa’s proposal, which he said appeared to have included images generated using artificial intelligence technology. Alluding to lingering questions about SuDa’s bare-bones initial proposal and an irrefutable conflict of interest involving the city’s marketing consultant, Colella suggested the group was not being held to the same standard as the others that submitted plans. “I don’t think we should be compromising on professionalism at every step for them,” he said. “I would really hate for us to put (the project) in the hands of someone who has not shown the level of respect that this deserves.” Retired developer Jeb Bittner, chairman of the Vero Beach Planning & Zoning Board and member of the city’s Three Corners Selection Committee, went to the podium to warn that lawsuits are likely if the council did not disqualify SuDa. One such lawsuit could come from Indiana-based Clearpath Services – the group that produced the aspirational $500 million proposal the Selection Committee strongly recommended, only to finish second to SuDa in the council’s final rankings. According to the RFP, the city was to identify its top choice and attempt to negotiate a contract. If an agreement could not be reached within 180 days, the city would then move on to its No. 2 choice. Thus, after the council disqualified SuDa, the city should have given Clearpath an opportunity to make a deal. But that won’t happen. The council’s decision last week to begin anew with an updated and amended RFP – a misguided move that appeared to be orchestrated by the pro-SuDa majority on the dais – deprived Clearpath of its rightful place at the bargaining table. Why? Moore, Dingle and Zudans still want SuDa to develop the Three Corners site, so they trashed the process in hopes of giving the group a second chance. NEWS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 My Vero

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 3 which submitted a marina-centric proposal that was at the bottom of almost everyone’s rankings, including those of the Selection Committee – at No. 2. Also suspicious was Zudans’ stunning recusal from the vote to disqualify SuDa. Zudans, who is challenging County Commissioner Laura Moss for her District 5 seat in November, openly rejected Turner’s warning that, in his legal opinion, she lacked the statutory grounds for recusing herself. She claimed Barefoot’s May 30 email created the “appearance of a conflict of interest,” because he stated her decision to put SuDa atop her rankings convinced him and others to not support her campaign. “I have been advocating for you,” Barefoot wrote in his email, “but because of your vote, I will not be supporting your candidacy for County Commission, nor will many of my friends.” Is that sufficient grounds for recusal? Or merely politics as usual? More alarming was Zudans’ response to Barefoot: “It would have been helpful if you had told me that ahead of time. My biggest concern was whether or not NEWS CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 They punished Clearpath, which did nothing wrong, and rewarded SuDa for its bad deeds – and they did so dishonestly, ignoring City Attorney John Turner’s warning and relying on a bogus claim to accomplish their goal. Turner told the council members that, although the RFP gave them the discretion to start over, they must publicly provide a valid reason for taking such action. But they didn’t have one. So Moore and Zudans – with assistance from the SuDa team and no objection from Dingle – concocted a farcical tale about former Indian River Shores mayor Brian Barefoot being a principal in the Clearpath group. The allegation, intended to accuse Clearpath of the same RFP violation that disqualified SuDa, was based on emails Barefoot sent to Zudans and Dingle to express his disappointment with their rankings at the council’s May 28 meeting. But Clearpath’s representatives immediately refuted the claim, as did Barefoot. “I can’t believe they dragged me into this the way they did,” Barefoot said. “I’m not a principal. I’m not an investor. I’m an advocate for Clearpath’s plan, just like other people are advocates for other plans.” None of that mattered to the council’s three SuDa supporters. They manufactured a narrative that the selection process had been tainted beyond repair, citing the emails authored by Butani and Barefoot – even though Barefoot was not a member of the Clearpath team and his emails were sent as a private citizen. “We have two developers who potentially have been invasive in this process to try and affect what happens on this dais,” Zudans said, “and that’s not OK.” Lying is also not OK. Only one developer invaded the process and tried to influence the council. If the process was compromised, the blame goes solely to Butani. By disqualifying SuDa, the council provided the necessary cure. Moore, however, continued to push hard for a do-over, claiming the emails stirred distrust in the community. “This is crazy,” she said, adding, “I don’t see a way forward.” Clearly, she didn’t want to see a way forward that didn’t include SuDa. Truth is, there was no valid reason to discard the process, which, according to the RFP, should have continued on as scheduled with Clearpath replacing SuDa in negotiations with the city. Remember: SuDa was not a runaway winner in the council’s rankings, which rightfully raised eyebrows when Moore and Dingle both put Clearpath at No. 3 on their lists. Moore inexplicably listed the Fort Lauderdale-based Edgewater group –

4 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ they (Clearpath) could actually finance the project without taxpayer funding.” Was she implying that, if she had received Barefoot’s email before the May 28 meeting, it might’ve impacted her rankings? As it turned out, Moore was concerned enough about the potential risk of lawsuits that could be filed against the city – by Clearpath and, possibly, the Vista Blue Vero Beach and Edgewater groups – to vote with Cotugno and Carroll to disqualify SuDa for its RFP violations. Only Dingle voted against it. Minutes later came Moore’s motion to start over, and Cotugno, who spent much of the morning defending the process in place, returned the favor and voted with her and the pro-Suda majority. “The reality was that there were three votes for a do-over,” Cotugno said, “and I’m the last person on the dais to vote.” You’ll notice Zudans voted, too. Apparently, the alleged conflict that prevented her from voting on the SuDa disqualification magically disappeared before the council’s vote to cheat Clearpath and start over. Or was Zudans’ recusal based on a political calculation to avoid alienating county voters on either side of the SuDa-Clearpath divide? The lone council member to remain completely apolitical throughout this NEWS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3 My Vero Explore More Of Our Exceptional Vero Beach Collection PremierEstateProperties.com New to Market | Sunday Open House - 1-3 9261 Orchid Cove Circle $1.045 Million Info: V278490.com Lange Sykes 772.473.7983

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 5 sorry session was Carroll, who relied on his 40 years of engineering experience and expertise to shred SuDa’s proposal. “The SuDa team made a mockery of the Three Corners RFP process,” Carroll said, harshly criticizing the group’s “incomplete flawed proposal” and “bait-and-switch” tactic utilized in its in-person interview with the Selection Committee on May 17, when he claims its updated presentation relied on “AI-generated images and random photographs of outdoor spaces, buildings and waterfronts.” He went on to say the ever-changing, still-incomplete SuDa proposal was “all smoke and mirrors” and didn’t provide nearly enough information – including accurate cost estimates for development – to allow the city to engage in contract negotiations. In fact, Carroll said SuDa’s initial proposal was so lacking that it should not have received any consideration, adding, “I told staff to kick them out, and it fell on deaf ears.” Carroll, who cast the lone vote against starting over, has conducted himself honorably throughout the RFP process, which functioned as it was designed until it reached the dais, where a we-know-better council majority shrugged off the Selection Committee’s recommendation. The plan submitted by Clearpath was spectacular, going beyond what anyone here believed was possible and possessing the wow factor to excite NEWS CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 DISCLAIMER: Information published or otherwise provided by Premier Estate Properties, Inc. and its representatives including but not limited to prices, measurements, square footages, lot sizes, calculations and statistics are deemed reliable but are not guaranteed and are subject to errors, omissions or changes without notice. All such information should be independently verified by any prospective purchaser or seller. Parties should perform their own due diligence to verify such information prior to a sale or listing. Premier Estate Properties, Inc. expressly disclaims any warranty or representation regarding such information. Prices published are either list price, sold price, and/or last asking price. Premier Estate Properties, Inc. participates in the Multiple Listing Service and IDX. The properties published as listed and sold are not necessarily exclusive to Premier Estate Properties, Inc. and may be listed or have sold with other members of the Multiple Listing Service. Transactions where Premier Estate Properties, Inc. represented both buyers and sellers are calculated as two sales. Cooperating Brokers are advised that in the event of a Buyer default, no commission will be paid to a cooperating Broker on the Deposits retained by the Seller. No commissions are paid to any cooperating broker until title passes or upon actual commencement of a lease. Some affiliations may not be applicable to certain geographic areas. If your property is currently listed with another broker, please disregard any solicitation for services. Copyright 2023 Premier Estate Properties, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Your Trusted Advisor for Vero Beach Luxury Real Estate 772.234.5555 675 Beachland Boulevard OUR INCOMPARABLE GLOBAL NETWORK 1510 OCEAN DRIVE, UNIT #2 $1.395 Million Info: V274890.com Melissa Talley 772.633.0407 7410 29TH COURT $1.095 Million Info: V277659.com Hendricks I Talley 772.559.8812 2700 OCEAN DRIVE, UNIT #104 $1.095 Million Info: V275440.com Brown I Talley 772.633.0407 109 ESTUARY DRIVE $3.1 Million Info: V278586.com Sallie Brooke 772.231.1679 2350 QUAY DOCK ROAD $17 Million Info: .V274770.com Talley | Brown 772.633.0407 727 SHORE DRIVE $1.385 Million Info: V276083.com Lange Sykes 772.473.7983 NEW TO MARKET PRICE IMPROVEMENT

6 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ According to the annual June 1 estimates released by county property appraiser Wesley Davis, real estate in the island community jumped 12.6 percent in value during 2023 and was worth almost $600 million more on Jan. 1, 2024, than a year earlier. “There was still a raging market at the high end on the island and there was a fair amount of new construction that contributed to the increase,” Davis told Vero Beach 32963. “The nature of the town itself and its demographic insulates it from a lot of external factors and keeps property values strong and resilient,” said Inresidents and tourists for generations. But because three small-thinking council members didn’t – or couldn’t – think big enough, the city’s much-anticipated Three Corners project is back to where it was nearly a year ago, with little reason to believe the next clown show will produce a different outcome. NEWS CONTINUED ON PAGE 8 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5 My Vero CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Property values rise dian River Shores town manager James Harpring. “It is a beautiful community that shares the ocean and the river and has its own public safety department, which is a big draw for buyers. People who are considering buying here look at the way the town is set up and say, ‘I could have a less than two-minute response time if I need help.’ That can be a decisive factor.” Indian River Shores has a low tax rate compared to most other county municipalities, collecting $1.33 per thousand dollars in real estate value, which amounts to about $1,330 in town property taxes on a $1 million home. Residents also pay property tax to the county, the School Board, the Hospital District, the Mosquito Control District, St. Johns River Water Management District and other entities, pushing the total property tax bill for a $1-million home well over $10,000. Deputy town manager and treasurer Heather Christmas said the $600 million in new taxable value will net the town an extra $700,000, raising property tax revenue to approximately $6.7 million. That more than 10-percent increase is a sizable windfall for a small town operating this year on a $10.8-million budget. Property values were up 10.60 percent in Orchid, the Shores’ north island neighbor. In the city of Vero Beach, which is split between the island and the mainland, the taxable value of property went up 8.13 percent, a $344 million increase. Vero Beach finance director Steve Dionne said the increase will bring in about $856,000 in additional revenue compared to last year. Vero has a tax or millage rate of 2.69 and a $33-million operating budget. Elsewhere on the mainland, property values were up 9.38 percent in Sebastian and 6.83 percent in Fellsmere. Property taxed to support the county’s general operating fund went up a bracing 9.6 percent in value, which amounts to a $2.54 billion increase. With a 3.54 millage rate, the increase will net the county an extra $8.5 million in revenue, according to County Administrator John Titkanich. That will be a solid boost to the county’s general fund budget, which was $132 million this year. Davis publishes tax role estimates at the beginning of June to help the county and municipalities figure out how much money they have to work with as they put their budgets together in July and August. He will put out his final tax role figures in August. Titkanich said it is not known yet how the county will spend its extra $8.5 million but noted that the “County Commission has adopted goals that involve environment, governance, infrastructure, public safety, and quality of life. These are the priority areas on which the county will focus its resources. “Please keep in mind, nearly 63 percent of the general fund expenses are related to our constitutional officers, and the Sheriff’s Office budget alone comprises 54.4 percent of the general fund. Just over 20 percent of the general fund is available to fund county operations.” Fifth District County Commissioner Laura Moss, who represents most of the barrier island, said the Commission will establish funding priorities during the budget process, but noted one major upcoming expense some of the additional revenue could flow toward. “The state law passed last year requiring us to convert homes and businesses from septic to sewer to protect the Indian River Lagoon with be a monumental undertaking far beyond this extra money, but the money will be helpful,” Moss said. “We have until 2030 to get it done, but still ... it will be a big bill. The good thing we have going for us in this process is we no longer have to convince the public that we need to get off septic. There has been a huge shift in public understanding about the need to protect the lagoon over the past 10 years.” Impressive as they are, the latest numbers from the property appraiser CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Marine Bank sold don’t come close to capturing the full magnitude of the jump in real estate values last year. Much of the actual value of county real estate is veiled in the June 1 estimates by homestead exemptions, the Save Our Homes limit on annual property tax increases, and other programs that protect property owners from rapid tax increases during real estate booms. For example, Davis’ final numbers for 2022 show a certified taxable value of $26,556,446 for the county but note a much higher “market value” of $45,765,316 – and even that number does not reflect the full value of county real estate. The county property appraisal process is necessarily backward looking and in a fast-rising market it is difficult to fully capture the value properties that have not changed hands. For instance, a house on Seahorse Lane in Vero Isles that had a taxable value of $718,000 and an official “market value” of $1,037,000 sold in 2023 for $1,275,000. A home on Dove Plum Road in John’s Island in Indian River Shores with a taxable value of $1,608,000 and a “market value” of $3,277,000 closed last year for $5,331,000. Based on ratios like those, this year’s taxable value for the general fund – $29,104,000,000 – represents somewhere between half and two thirds of the actual value of county real estate, which means more than $4 billion in wealth was added to the balance sheets of county property owners in 2023. Over the past three years, the bellwether general fund taxable value has gone up a solid 45 percent, from just over $20 billion in 2021 to more than $29 billion in 2024. Based on those numbers and the figures that can be drawn from them, at least $15 billion in real estate wealth materialized here since Jan. 1, 2021. “We clearly been through a tremendous real estate boom over the past three years,” said Davis. “It’s probably something we won’t see again for another generation.” After barely surviving the economic downturn of the late 2000s, Marine Bank sold a major stake to out-of-town investor Kenneth Lehman as part of a 2014 recapitalization that subsequently enabled the bank, under the leadership of President Bill Penney, to prosper and expand its service area south into St. Lucie County and north into Brevard County.

8 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Penney will continue as president, and promised that Marine Bank customers will still feel that hometown welcome, all 70 employees will keep their jobs and the seven current bank locations will remain open. But ELGA and its cash infusion will bring the ability to help more lowincome residents get loans, and small businesses get needed financing for start-ups and expansions, he said. The transaction was unanimously approved by the directors of both entities, and, pending approval by regulators, is expected to close in early 2025. A new name for the joint entity will be created in the coming months. The current board of directors of Marine – which along with other investors stands to realize a major profit from the sale at a price of $43.75 per Marine Bancorp of Florida share – will transition into more of an advisory capacity, Penney said. Current employees will be eligible for improved benefits, including better family health insurance plans and matching 401(k) contributions that ELGA provides its employees, he said. For ELGA, based in Grand Blanc, Michigan, and with approximately $1.5 billion in assets and nearly 100,000 members, the deal adds seven Florida Marine Bank locations – two banking centers in Vero Beach, one banking center each in Fort Pierce, Sebastian and Melbourne, and loan offices in Vero Beach and Port St. Lucie – and diversifies ELGA’s offerings to include commercial banking and financial management. Once the transaction is complete, the new entity will have total assets of approximately $2.2 billion, serving more than 105,000 members at 18 branches in Michigan and Florida. “We are in amazing markets with tremendous opportunities to expand,” Penney said. “Our goal is to bring more of our very personalized banking services to communities on the Treasure and Space coast.” into an innovative outdoor shopping and dining destination. On May 16, DTS purchased the main portion of the Indian River Mall for $14.8 million two months after purchasing the parcel that includes the former Macy’s building, along with property west of the mall, for $4.75 million. “The plan is to rejuvenate that mall from what it is today, which is basically dead, to a beautiful outdoor shopping center with restaurants and retail and supermarkets and shops,” said Joe Scarfone, owner of ONE Investment group in Pompano, which helped broker the purchase of the building from Kohan Retail Investment Group. “The tenants who are there, if they want to stay, will be open to the outside. You get a lot more Vitamin D on the outside,” he said. Exactly how it might look, and function, is still under discussion. He hopes to present preliminary artist’s renderings to county planners in about a month, he said. DTS purchased Indian River Commons, the shopping plaza east of the mall, in 2016 and paid $16.5 million. That plaza is home to Best Buy, Michael’s, and the space formerly occupied by Bed, Bath & Beyond, which is slated to become Total Wine & More. Presumably, Indian River Mall would follow that open-air theme, but would be configured in the general shape of today’s mall with more amenities than Indian River Commons. “It’s a long process and things will change along the way. We have to go through a lot of hurdles, but based on some preliminary meetings we have had, everyone is super-excited to bring this dead mall that’s been sitting there and decaying back to life,” Scarfone said. The central portion of the mall contains around 75 shops, 12 kiosks, a food court, a video arcade, a 24-screen movie theater, and two restaurant spaces. Thirteen retail spaces are occupied by a church, one by a beauty school, and several others by non-retail busiNEWS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6 Marine Bank sold CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 New life for tired old mall?

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 9 nesses. Twenty-five retail shops, three food court spaces, and one restaurant space are currently empty. The Debartolo Corporation developed the mall in 1996, with JC Penney, Sears, Dillard’s and Burdines as the anchor stores. Burdines became Macy’s in 2005, and heralded a long string of chain store exits, including the Gap, Disney Store and RJ Gator’s in 2008; Sears in 2019; and Macy’s in 2020. Victoria’s Secret and TGI Friday’s also closed in 2020. Owners Simon Malls entered into foreclosure on the property in 2014, owing $71 million on both the mall and the Indian River Commons property. It was put up for auction in 2015 and, with no bidders, C-III Capital Partners took ownership in trust for Wells Fargo Bank, the mortgage holder. Kohan Group purchased the mall in 2017 for $12 million but struggled to attract retailers and restaurants. Malls across the country have suffered a similar exodus of retail tenants as customers moved to online shopNEWS CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

10 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ ping giants like Amazon and Walmart, Scarfone said. Communities are responding by reimagining shopping centers and malls by reducing largescale anchors in favor of unique smaller shops and dining and social experiences that can’t be found online, he said. In the meantime, the mall will continue to be managed by Premier Assets Management, Inc., with business pretty much as usual, Scarfone said. NEWS tions and asking employees about working conditions, supplies and patient care. There’s a lot of pressure to paint a rosy picture, to not be singled out as the person who complained. But even though some hospital staffers assured our reporters the hospital was fully functioning in the early days of the bankruptcy, it is not business as usual, this source said. Nurses angry over the positive reports had told her parking spots for physicians were full not because the hospital was full of doctors, she said, but because a certain disregard for order has taken over to some extent, and “people park wherever they want.” The census of patients in the hospital has been way down in June, she reported, with all but emergent cases, or people too sick to transport, opting to go to Cleveland Clinic Indian River or Health First Palm Bay Community Hospital. Nurses and other employees have been burning their sick time, and the lucky ones who have found good jobs elsewhere have departed, leaving the remaining staff overworked, and scrambling for even the most basic supplies. Departments have begun hoarding things like copy paper and pens, and the printer ink is now under lock and key like a controlled substance. Arriving for their shift, nurses don’t quite know where they’ll be working or what they will be doing, or if they will be called to float to another floor before it’s time to go home. The two 30-minute breaks that nurses are entitled to per shift are also falling by the wayside when staffing is scarce, they say, so nurses at times work 13 hours and only get paid for 12 or 12.5 hours. Decent staff meals used to be produced by the hospital, but with vendors more and more leery that they won’t get paid, and the hospital having been sued by one food vendor for delinquent bills, more often than not, the best option employees have when they don’t pack a sack lunch is a food truck in the parking lot. Vending machines sit empty – all the soda, candy and chips either taken back by the vendor, or never filled once sold out. Mealtime for patients is often a joke, as staffers say patients laugh that they shouldn’t ask for an extra applesauce or extra toast because the hospital is broke. Even outside of work, employees must deal with the fact that the whole community is aware that the operator of SRMC has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. One employee who made the mistake of stopping at Walmart in her scrubs said she was accosted in the aisle while picking up groceries on her way home by a stranger who told her, “You guys need to pay your bills,” referring to a number of local companies who, in good faith, have supplied the hospital with goods and services only to be left with unpaid invoices and the option to file a claim in federal bankruptcy court and hope for the best. She explained to them that she’s not the person in charge of paying the bills. Who is paying the bills for Sebastian River Medical Center right now? Is anyone paying the bills? As of press time Monday, no financing plan had been announced to tide Steward over the eight or nine weeks until the bidding closes on all 31 hospitals, and on the physicians’ group called Stewardship Health. Some employees at Sebastian River see their direct deposits credited to their bank accounts overnight on Thursday mornings, but technically, pay day is every other Friday. This Friday. If employees don’t see their money by Friday morning, it’s unclear if the hospital will be able to function. Nurses and other licensed practitioners who walk off the job on Friday if they don’t get paid may be called to answer for abandoning their patients if there’s no one to take over the care. Those who don’t show up for work on Friday night or Saturday could be terminated. Those who can moonlight have taken on per diem work at other hospitals to get their foot in the door if they need to find another job quickly. In the daily exchange at the nurses’ station of “What do you know? What are you hearing?” co-workers at SRMC have discovered that they’re competing with each other for open positions at Palm Bay Community Hospital on Malabar Road, and at Cleveland Clinic. Their greatest hope is that a solid, responsible and professional operation comes in to manage the hospital – sooner than later. They love their patients. Their colleagues are like family and they would love to stay in Sebastian and to continue to be of service, but not under the current conditions. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Sebastian hospital CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9 New life for tired old mall?

Mike Lacorte, Natalie Lacorte, Gwen Heake, and Dar Dennis. YOU’RE ‘BARN’ TOOTIN! ‘Blue Jeans & BBQ’ attendees kick in to help Special Equestrians

12 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Some very special equestrians showed off their horsemanship skills for a supportive crowd at the annual Blue Jeans & BBQ fundraiser to benefit Special Equestrians of the Treasure Coast, held at its barn and arena. Arriving guests mingled, visited with the sweet horse therapists, bid on auction items and purchased items from a giving tree, before enjoying a catered BBQ dinner from 14 Bones. Karen Johnson, SETC executive director, introduced everyone to the eight gentle horses who are charged with carrying their precious riders. Some horses had been donated, some purchased with grants, but each displayed the calm, sound demeanor needed to work with special needs children and adults. “For a person with physical, developmental or emotional disabilities, being around horses is very therapeutic,” said Johnson. “And it can be transformative for those who can actually ride one. They come out here once a week and ride for 30 to 40 minutes, and not only is it something fun to do but it helps them with balance, confidence and independence,” she noted. Johnson stressed that as safety is their No. 1 priority, all of their volunteer instructors are certified by the Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship International. As the riders and instructors mounted their stalwart steeds and paraded in the arena in front of an adoring crowd, pure joy was written on their faces. Among them was 18-year-old Natalie, who sat tall in the saddle, with her dad and her instructor walking beside her. “Natalie has been coming here for 14 years,” said her mother, Susie Lacorte. “She’s 18 now and still looks forward to coming every week. This program has done amazing things for her posture. When she started, she had no trunk support, and she was slumped over. The instructors had to carry her to the horse, and they had a special pillow that they used to prop her up,” Lacorte recalled. “Eventually she gained more trunk control, and she was able to support herself. She acquired better balance and posture and, while she doesn’t use her right hand, she has actually learned how to hold the reins. She has progressed physically and also emotionally by learning to interact with other students,” Lacorte added. Since 1992, Special Equestrians ‘Blue Jeans & BBQ’: Kicking in to help Special Equestrians BY KERRY FIRTH Correspondent Susie Lacorte, Natalie Lacorte, Dar Dennis, Mike Lacorte. PHOTOS: JOSHUA KODIS PHOTOS CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 13 of the Treasure Coast has provided equine therapy to individuals who are challenged by mental, developmental, physical and emotional disabilities. The organization has grown from one horse and a couple of volunteers to a stable of eight horses and some 50 dedicated volunteers. Recently an anonymous donor gifted 24 acres of land in Fellsmere to the nonprofit organization, which will enable them to expand and establish a permanent home. “We plan to build a barn and a covered arena where we can give lessons in the shade when it gets hot and add more programs to serve the special needs community,” said Johnson. “We’ve got very generous donors, but we’ll still need to raise more money to make our dream a reality. We’ve got ways to donate on our website and we are actively looking for board members with connections to help with building, marketing and fundraising.” For more information, visit SpecialEquestriansTreasureCoast.org.

14 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Amanda Zazo and Wayne Stair. Juliana Fulmer and Lexie Moore Mary and Marisa Lindquist. Terri Watkins, Audrey Willmot and Mike Watkins. PHOTOS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10

PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 15 Kepler and Laura Funk with Maggie Stewart. Clarke, Angela and Greg Nelson. Nicki Maslin and Loren Gatlin Fran and Mel Phillips with John Nicoletti and Dawn Forsman.

16 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ John’s Island Foundation board members lauded its donors at a cocktail reception at the John’s Island Club to thank them for contributions that enable grants to local nonprofits for capital expenditures, such as construction expenses, vans, equipment and furnishings. Don Blair, JIF president, said that over the past six years, the foundation has set new records for fundraising and capital investments. This year, the JI Foundation granted an impressive $1,697,551 to 26 agencies, 21.5 percent more than last year, including $1,056,867 in core grants, $600,000 in McCabe Leadership Grants, and $40,684 in accelerated grants. “Since our inception 24 years ago, we’ve invested over $15 million in capital support for local nonprofits. Capital funding is essential to build their capacity to serve,” said Blair. Recently they have provided accelerated grants to address urgent needs, and leadership grants to significantly impact such critical issues as homelessness and a lack of afford- ‘Grateful’: Targeted grants of John’s Island Foundation hit the mark BY MARY SCHENKEL Staff Writer Luke Webb, Amanda Robinson, Rennie Gibb and Bob Gibb. PHOTOS: JOSHUA KODIS Molly Butler Hart, Marcia Floyd and Francie Cramb. PHOTOS CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 17 able housing. Leadership grants included $500,000 toward the Hope for Families Center expansion, and $100,000 to Habitat for Humanity to fund critical home repairs. In a video presentation, several nonprofit representatives spoke of the grants’ impact. “I can’t express how grateful we are for the John’s Island Foundation. Without this type of support, without these capital improvements, there is no way we could do what we do,” said Phil Barnes, executive director of the Youth Guidance Mentoring Academy, which provides mentoring, a pre-apprenticeship program and a new parent aid program. “The John’s Island Foundation has been so generous to us over the years. We couldn’t run our business without what they do for us,” said Karen Deigl, CEO of the Senior Resource Association, which offers numerous senior services and community-wide transportation. “The John’s Island Foundation has been phenomenal, not only for the Arc, but the community at large,” said Heather Dales, CEO of the Arc of Indian River County, which provides a continuum of care to special needs individuals. “Just in the last few years, they’ve helped us by providing funding for a new house, window replacement for impact windows, and a pavilion project. It helps us provide the building blocks for tomorrow.” “Together, we are making a difference,” said Blair. For more information, visit Johns IslandFoundation.org. Andrea and John Pettibone. Michael Pierce, Shirin Kaufman, Jim Marver and Warren Schwerin. Charles and Pam Richards. Ted and Sherry Ann Dayton. Lynda and Bill Glavin.

18 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Cathy Filusch with Chuck and Mary Susan Lyon. John and Patty Dudzik. Bill and Mary Lee Stalkamp. Don and Mary Blair. Tom and Anne Weinstock with Barb and Dick Detwiler. Susan and Bill Dake. PHOTOS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 14

PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 19 Paul Hanson with Susie and Bill MacDonald. Theresa and Jim Kilman. Bruce and Gale Gillespie. Sandy and Randy Rolf. Lyndal and Chris Hill. John and Lee Moore. Camile Broadbent and George Higgs.

20 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Indian River Habitat for Humanity celebrated the power of community and generosity during its annual Donor Reception at the Holy Cross Parish Hall. The event, attended by donors, volunteers and Habitat homeowners alike, was an opportunity to acknowledge their vital support while also sharing stories of impact and transformation. “You do so much more than just help us build houses,” said Habitat board member Connie Poppell, welcoming everyone. “You help us build homes and hope. What you do for Habitat is priceless.” Trevor Loomis, IR Habitat executive director, expressed his gratitude as well, acknowledging their pivotal role in fulfilling Habitat’s mission of providing safe and affordable housing for families in need. “Every nonprofit has to raise money. This community is so generous and has really stepped up to the plate. In the face of the affordable housing crisis, we’re raising over $1 million more every year than what we were doing just two years ago,” said Loomis. Loomis also highlighted the RV Care-A-Vanners, a group of volunteers who travel around the country in recreational vehicles, stopping to volunteer at Habitat construction sites. “Since 2020, Indian River County went from a relatively reasonable place to live, to now being the most expensive housing market in the country when compared to wages. So people are spending a higher proportion of their money every month on housing costs, if they can even find a place to live,” said Loomis. “We’re doing as much as we can to meet the need.” He commented that IR Habitat is on track to build at least 16 new houses this year and, by the end of June, they will have provided more than 100 families with critical home repairs. Additionally, their scholarship program is creating opportunities for educational advancement for homeowners and their dependents. Loomis noted that their new Housing Counseling program is meant to assist potential homeowners, adding that, “Historically, it was harder to get into Habitat than it was to get into Harvard.” The program is designed to accommodate every person who comes through their doors, assisting them with their housing needs, financial literacy training, and one-on-one counseling on an ongoing basis to determine their individual road maps to housing stability. He said they have already served more than 100 families in the first few months of the program’s operation. Loomis also disclosed that they have 115 lots and pieces of land under development, which are slated for Habitat homes over the next five years. The Critical Home Repair program is another success, having increased from serving 60 per year to 100 lowincome homeowners. He said these are often aging individuals who have owned their homes for a long time and need repairs to make their homes safe and secure. A panel discussion featured two Habitat homeowners and a dedicated volunteer who shared the profound impact of Habitat’s work on their lives. Attendees gained insight into the journey of homeownership, illustrating that in addition to providing shelter, the process fosters empowerment and stability. Habitat for Humanity: Donor support provides the foundation BY STEPHANIE LaBAFF Staff Writer Charles Green and Jeff Francisco. PHOTOS: JOSHUA KODIS

PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 21 Helen and Andy Bowler. Gisela Elliston and Judy Myers. Caryn and John Morrow with Jim Raphalian. Gene and Jean Cravens. Barbara Crosby and Yamilet Cendejas. Rick and Susan Hahn with Heidi and David Sommers.

22 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Wearing their best Western wear, guests moseyed up to the Oak Harbor Club for another fun-filled, Solid Gold Country-themed Bingo Luncheon to benefit the Senior Resource Association of Indian River County. In between posing for pics and sipping champagne and a special western cocktail, the crowd perused an extensive selection of auction items, and purchased raffle tickets for a beautiful pair of gold and diamond earrings donated by Victoria Ashley Fine Jewelry, before making their way into the dining room. “We’re going to celebrate Senior Resource Association’s 50 years of service to this community,” said Karen Deigl, SRA CEO, in welcome. “Fifty years. And you are a part of them. We couldn’t do it without you,” she added, particularly thanking past and present board members, sponsors, donors, Meals on Wheels volunteers and the event committee, co-chaired by Eileen O’Donnell and Jen Courtney. “Thank you all for your continuing commitment to this wonderful organization. Everyone in this room today plays a vital role in our ability to serve the seniors in our community who so desperately need our help. Together we make a difference in our community.” Deigl introduced Jeff Petersen, who returned for a third time to host the intensely competitive bingo game, and Anna Valencia Tillery, who had ladies searching their bags for a variety of unlikely items in the ever-popular Purse Game. Emphasizing that while lots of fun, the event was an afternoon of “bingo with a purpose,” videos showcased some of the many individuals the SRA has been able to assist over the years thanks to their generosity. Among them, a man already living on a tight budget whose rent was tripled, leaving him little money to buy food. “Meals on Wheels was magical; they came to the rescue. They brought food that day,” he said. “You know, it’s like a family. I look forward to seeing them every day.” Another man spoke of the significant impact the Day Away program has had on the health of his wife. “SRA has done a super, super job of bringing what used to be a happier lady back into this world. The happiness and the smile on her face is something that I’ve missed, and SRA has put it back on her face for me. I’m most appreciative of that.” Another woman, who has lived since 1932 in the Gifford house in which she was born, said she worked for a family in Riomar from age 22 until 70, sometimes walking there and back. Now blind, Meals on Wheels volunteers deliver daily meals and ensure she is OK. “It has been a joy for me. I’m sure it is as much help for other people too, who are in my shape, some worse. So I would say thank you and keep up the good work.” Proceeds will go toward such SRA programs as Meals on Wheels, DayAway Adult Enrichment & Respite, Public Guardianship, In-Home Services and transportation. For more information, visit SeniorResourceAssociation.org. ‘West’ case scenario! Bingo’s on the money for area seniors BY MARY SCHENKEL Staff Writer Karen Deigl, Trudie Rainone and Jenna Suleman. PHOTOS: JOSHUA KODIS PHOTOS CONTINUED ON PAGE 22

PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 23 Discover why our members are passionate about Oak Harbor Club… call Kathy Jones, Membership Director (772) 562-3808, ext. 418 for a personal introduction. *Residency within Oak Harbor is not required for Club membership. Meet Kathy, Member since 2023 “I am excited about the number of activities available. I can play Golf, Bocce, Pickleball, Croquet, and attend the Stretch and Tone exercise classes three times a week. The Club provides lectures, special events and interesting day trips that are so much fun. Because everyone has been so welcoming, my move to Oak Harbor has gone well and I have many new friends. Oh, and I love the Book Club!” Located minutes from shopping, Riverside Theatre, Vero Beach Museum of Art, beaches, and the medical corridor, Oak Harbor Club offers the most popular outdoor sports, Bridge and Mah Jongg, fine and casual dining, Fitness Center, heated pool, and social activities that today’s seniors are seeking. Unique to Oak Harbor Club is the RN staffed Wellness Center, a key resource for members. A Passion for Healthy Activities, Great Dining, and Social Inclusion WHY OAK HARBOR CLUB? Karen Schiefelbein, Sandy Gross, Mary Fran Driscoll and Eva Gurley. Ann Hamner and Shelly Davis. Rebecca Emmons, Susan Perry and Cindy O’Dare. Maureen Campeau, April Dooley and Carmen Stork. Henriette Churney and Elke Fetterolf.

24 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Anne Erickson, Laurie Wykoff, JoAnn Crosby and Liz Cundari. Linda Triolo, Mary Ellen McCarthy, Mary Ciasca and Laurie Wykoff. Brenda Lloyd, Lauren Michaels and Robin Jones. Eileen O’Donnell and Ann Marie McCrystal. Don Wright and Anna Valencia Tillery. Liz Bruner and Victoria Kerkela.

PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 25 An inaugural Veterans Cup tournament treated tennis enthusiasts to a special evening at the Boulevard Tennis Club highlighted by past champions and current touring professionals, to support three nonprofits headquartered in Vero Beach: The Boot Campaign, Do You Give A Ruck and the Community Health Coalition. “We have some of the best tennis players on the tour; we have five of the former No. 1-ranked doubles players,” said Tim Brueggeman, director of tennis at the Boulevard. Hosted by the Boulevard Charities, a philanthropic arm of the club, the event’s major sponsor was Tom Collins Insurance. Activities began earlier in the day with a clinic with the pros and, following opening ceremonies, people wandered around the facility to watch as the players competed in a pro-am format on all six courts. “We felt like there’s a lot of great events, but there’s definitely not been a tennis event that benefits veterans,” said Brueggeman, explaining that the charities included two for veterans and one for the community. The Boot Campaign strives to improve the lives of veterans by providing personalized care through nationwide programs that address each individual’s mental and physical wellbeing and their overall quality of life. “Our main program, where we spend the bulk of our effort, energy and funding, is in the health and wellness arena. We provide individualized care for people struggling with brain injury, post-traumatic stress, chronic pain, self-medication and insomnia,” said Shelly Kirkland, Boot Campaign CEO. Do You Give A Ruck raises awareness funding through Ruck Marches, distributing monies they raise to veteran-related organizations on the Treasure Coast that assist veterans with areas such as food, housing, mental health care, car repairs, service dogs and education. The Community Health Coalition assists marginalized communities with medical, emotional and spiritual assistance through two projects. The Knock Out Rabies Vaccine Initiative vaccinates dogs in central Africa to reduce the high rate of pediatric rabies. In Vero Beach, their Sugar Bloom Foundation collaborates with local oncologists to extend emotional support to cancer patients through letters and the gift of Sugar Bloom orchids. Opening ceremonies included members of the local Vietnam Veterans of America Color Guard presenting the flags, and JROTC cadet Zara Ramirez performing the National Anthem. Among the top pros were twins Bob and Mike Bryan, who Brueggeman said were “by far one of the greatest double teams of all time”; Juan Cabal, three-time Grand Slam Champion in men’s doubles; Robert Farah, two-time Grand Slam Champion in men’s doubles; Cyril Sauinier, who has played all four Grand Slams; Gold Medalist Nicolas Massu, ATP World No. 9; and JeanJulien Rojer, a four-time Grand Slam champion. In the end, three Vero Beach players did our little town proud. The winning doubles pair was Jean-Julien Rojer, partnered with Dani Garza, eight-time Davis Cup veteran for Mexico and currently a high-performance coach at the Boulevard. After a hard-fought battle, they had bested Marco Osorio, a former Mexican Davis Cup captain and currently director of racquet sports at Grand Harbor Club, who played with tennis aficionado and coach Mike Hickey, broker/owner of M&M Realty Associates. For more information, visit BoulevardTennis.com, BootCampaign.org, DoYouGiveARuck.com, or CHCVero. org. Inaugural Veterans Cup tennis tourney aces it for those who served BY MARY SCHENKEL Staff Writer Bob Bryan, Richie Bryan and Reilly Opelka. PHOTOS: JOSHUA KODIS PHOTOS CONTINUED ON PAGE 26

26 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Shelly Kirkland, Tim Brueggeman and Jimmy Jackson. Bernardo Feitosa, Nicholas Massu and Juan Sáez. Maggie Shackelton, Mike Ryan, Emmery Clarkson, Alex Shackelton and Chandler Higdon. Jean-Julien Rojer and Ed Shanaphy. Rachel Clark and Amanda Pfennig. Erin Kitchell and Katherine Eppink.

28 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ INSIGHT COVER STORY On Japan’s windy western coast, in a region known for heavy snowfall and sake brewing, the world’s largest nuclear plant sits idle. The Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, a sprawling 4.2-million square meter complex by the sea, was once the crown jewel in Japan’s strategy to boost atomic power to 50% of the country’s energy mix by 2030. Inside, a framed certificate from Guinness World Records acknowledges the facility’s potential output of 8.2 gigawatts as the most globally. Right now that output – enough to power more than 13 million households – is zero. The seven reactors at KK, as the facility is known, were shuttered after the 2011 tsunami and meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant in eastern Japan that prompted the government to rethink its dependence on nuclear energy. That decision is proving costly: resource-poor Japan spends more monBy Shoko Oda | Bloomberg ey importing coal, liquefied natural gas and other energy sources – about 27 trillion $172 billion last year – than it makes exporting cars. Japanese households and businesses have been pressed to conserve power during peak-demand periods. And the country’s stubborn reliance on fossil fuels threatens to put its promises to address climate change out of reach. Now, with the country looking to boost the economy by courting chip makers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and energy-hungry AI data centers, a debate is heating up over whether KK and its owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co. – the operator during the Fukushima disaster – deserve a second chance. It’s not just Japan taking a renewed look at nuclear: In one scenario, the International Atomic Energy Agency forecasts that capacity to generate electricity from nuclear plants could rise 24% by 2030 and 140% by 2050 from 2022 levels. At least 15 countries are building new reactors, led by China, which has 24 under development. India wants to triple its nuclear capacity by the early 2030s. Even oil giant Saudi Arabia is in talks with the US about building out its civilian nuclear program. None has a facility like KK. “It’s very important for Japan to be able to count on Kashiwazaki Kariwa again,” Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the IAEA, said in a March interview in Tokyo. “How many countries have that idle capacity? Many countries wish they just had it.” Yet restarting idled reactors – let alone building news ones – is proving politically difficult. Nuclear plants can provide carbon-free power consistently, unlike more intermittent wind and solar, but new facilities often take Rebooting NUCLEAR POWER Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant. The operating floor inside the reactor unit 7 at Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant.

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 29 COVER STORY CONTINUED ON PAGE 30 INSIGHT COVER STORY more than a decade to build and they generate waste that remains hazardous for thousands of years. In 2017, two idled reactors at KK won approval from the nation’s nuclear regulator to resume operations, yet neither the company nor the national government set a date on when that could happen since they have yet to secure the local government’s endorsement. The regional assembly for Niigata prefecture, where KK is based, is slated to meet soon and will likely consider whether to support a restart. The stalemate comes just as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government embarks on a major review of its energy strategy, a process that takes place at least every three years and involves a panel of company executives, academics, politicians and industry groups. Members will debate a target for the share of electricity generation from nuclear plants, and likely consider complaints that Japan isn’t doing enough to boost clean energy. There’s little argument that Japan needs a new way to power its $4.1 trillion economy. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and conflicts in the Middle East have underscored the risks of depending on imported energy, which Japan relies on for 70% of its electricity generation. Meanwhile, 21 nuclear reactors around the country sit unused. “We need to secure a stable electricity source for our customers – it’s important to have some source that’s not dependent on overseas fuel imports,” Tepco President Tomoaki Kobayakawa told reporters in April. While Japan has restarted other nuclear reactors – 12 since 2011 – restarting anything at KK, under Tepco’s management, carries a potent symbolism. Confidence in Tepco was undermined in 2007 when a magnitude-6.8 earthquake damaged KK, causing radioactive material to leak and leading to an investigation by the IAEA. The company responded by reinforcing the reactor buildings, among other measures. The Fukushima disaster four years later delivered a bigger blow. The company failed to cool the facility’s reactors after a shutdown sparked by the earthquake and tsunami, causing a release of radiation. More than 150,000 people were displaced and some areas remain inaccessible. The incident is considered the world’s worst nuclear disaster since the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown, with a total cleanup cost pegged at about 23 trillion yen. Then in 2021, the nuclear regulator temporarily barred Tepco from operating KK after security lapses, including when an employee used a badge

30 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 29 INSIGHT COVER STORY of another staff member to enter the central control room. Authorities lifted that ban in December. The company says it has addressed safety concerns. Its website lists eight ways it’s working to make KK “the world’s safest nuclear power plant.” They include erecting 50-foot-high seawalls and flood barriers, building a reservoir to hold 20,000 tons of water – the equivalent of 30 Olympicsized pools – to help cool reactors in an emergency. Despite that, safety fears surfaced again this year when a magnitude-7.6 tremor struck the nearby Noto Peninsula on New Year’s Day. While KK was minimally affected, local officials say the episode raised red flags. “After the January 1 quake, we saw how difficult evacuations can be,” Niigata assembly member Ryugo Tsuchida said in an interview. He argues nuclear power has no place in such a seismically-active country. Niigata Governor Hideyo Hanazumi and other local leaders have called on Tokyo to pay for road upgrades in case evacuations are needed. Even with new safety measures in place, residents in Niigata don’t have much to gain from restarting KK. Electricity for the prefecture is generated by a different utility company, Tohoku Electric Power Co. If KK resumes, the energy it produces would benefit customers in Tokyo, more than 125 miles away, while local residents would bear the risks. Before Fukushima, many rural municipalities in Japan were persuaded to accept nuclear plants because of subsidies from the national government. Those payments offered a financial buffer against the depopulation trend plaguing rural Japan as the country ages and younger people flock to bigger cities. Many local leaders are now rethinking that tradeoff. Sitting in his office in Kashiwazaki City with a view of the snow-capped mountains, Mayor Masahiro Sakurai – who will have to decide whether to formally endorse a restart – offers some backing for the proposal. “I’ve never been in the camp of actively promoting the use of nuclear power, but I’m of the stance that we should accept its use” until alternatives, potentially including offshore wind, can play a bigger role, he said. Sakurai favors two of KK’s seven reactors resuming and has called on Tepco to consider decommissioning the rest, citing the risks of having so many in one location. Yet even if KK and all of Japan’s other shuttered nuclear facilities are restarted, that would only provide a temporary salve. The country needs all 10 reactors awaiting regulatory approval to come online just to meet its current 2030 target of having 20%-22% of its Takaaki Sasaguchi, then mayor of Maki, after casting his vote in the referendum over a nuclear power plant in August 1996. The Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power plant after a massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami in March 2011.

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 31 INSIGHT COVER STORY energy come from nuclear. And most of those reactors will have a limited lifespan. “Half the current fleet is set to reach the end of its operational license within the decade,’’ according to the report. “The government will have to do more than just accelerate its restart program if nuclear power is to play a role in Japan’s long-term, low-carbon energy future.” Legally, idled reactors need to meet new, post-Fukushima safety standards and win the nuclear regulator’s approval to restart. But politically, companies like Tepco typically seek out the consent of the prefecture’s governor and assembly, and citizen lawsuits or protests can slow that down. Takaaki Sasaguchi, whose 125-yearold sake brewery stands on the outskirts of Niigata’s biggest city, served as mayor of the small town of Maki, where Tohoku Electric had planned to build a nuclear power plant. Sasaguchi secured a public referendum which overwhelmingly rejected the proposal. Tohoku scrapped the project in 2003. Sasaguchi said Niigata’s residents should have the same right to vote on KK’s restart. If the plant goes back into operation, “it will impact the lives of all the Niigata residents,” the 76-year-old said. “A governor alone can’t make a decision on such an important issue, nor can the prefectural assembly.” But momentum seems to be building. Investors are already positioning for nuclear’s revival. Japan’s trade ministry – which oversees the country’s energy policy – dispatched a high-ranking official in March to speak with Niigata Governor Hanazumi about a restart. And Tepco has loaded nuclear fuel into unit 7 at KK. Analyzing previous reactor restarts in Japan, it would appear that Tepco could resume operations at KK’s No. 7 reactor in October. For now, there’s still no official target date. The saga with KK highlights the delicate balance many nations face, trying to juggle concerns about health and safety with national energy demands and climate change targets. Another dramatic incident like Fukushima could deal a devastating blow to efforts to get additional nuclear power online and set climate change targets back further. Back at his office in Kashiwazaki, Mayor Sakurai acknowledges the pros and cons of seeing at least some of KK’s reactors restart. “Of course there are concerns about radiation from potential accidents,” the 62-year-old said. “But there are real threats from climate change – from death by heatstroke and floods and wildfires. Nuclear is still necessary to combat this.” Collapsed houses in Nanao, Ishikawa prefecture, following a 7.6 tremor that hit the Noto Peninsula on New Year's Day. An idled nuclear plant, including its large steel towers, looms over nearby communities in Kashiwazaki, Japan. Kyushu Electric Power’s Genkai Nuclear Power plant.

32 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ INSIGHT EDITORIAL By David Ignatius For several decades, military reformers have pleaded with the Pentagon to stop buying wildly expensive but vulnerable aircraft carriers and fighter jets and instead focus on getting vast numbers of cheap drones. Nobody seemed to listen. “Buy Fords, Not Ferraris” was the title of Navy Capt. Jerry Hendrix’s iconoclastic 2009 polemic for inexpensive survivable systems. Aircraft carriers, he wrote, “have become too expensive to operate, and too vulnerable to be risked in anything other than an unhostile environment.” Similar arguments applied to exquisite systems beloved by all the services. Hendrix became so eager for change that he argued the Navy needed a skunk works to reinvent itself for the 21st century. He proposed using Lake Michigan, away from prying Chinese eyes, to create an “Area 52” experimentation site for autonomous naval systems. He imagined it as a Navy version of the Air Force and CIA’s famous Area 51 test site in Nevada. But an addiction is hard to quit. So the military sailed on, spending ever more money on vulnerable platforms that would probably survive only for minutes in a war with China. But for reformers, there’s finally a flicker of good news. Change advocates, including Hendrix, told me that the iron triangle that supports legacy systems – which Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) described as the “defense-industrial-congressional complex” – might finally be giving way to common sense. Every military service, in nearly every combatant command, is experimenting with uncrewed, autonomous systems for land, air, sea and undersea combat. A new consensus is emerging that we must make major changes. What’s finally driving change is the brutal lesson of the war in Ukraine. This is a drone and satellite war: Russian and Ukrainian tanks are almost defenseless against attacks from drones overhead; Russia’s huge Navy has lost control of the Black Sea because of Ukrainian naval drones; satellites can feed precise targeting information to kill anything that algorithms designate as a weapon. But there’s a catch: The Ukraine battlefield is a blizzard of electronic warfare. So systems must be truly autonomous, able to operate without GPS or other external guidance, as I described in a recent account from Kyiv of technology developed by the software company Palantir. In makeshift weapons factories in Kyiv, and in defense labs around the United States, designers are creating systems with artificial intelligence at “the edge,” embedded in the weapons themselves, so they don’t have to depend on jammable signals from space. Leading the campaign for Pentagon reform is Kathleen Hicks, deputy secretary of defense. In August, she announced the “Replicator Initiative,” which aimed to transfer the tech lessons of Ukraine for the potential battle areas of the Indo-Pacific. She wanted cheap drones for use in land, sea and air – and quickly. The goal, Hicks said, was to field “autonomous systems at [a] scale of multiple thousands, in multiple domains, within the next 18 to 24 months.” That was unimaginably fast for the Pentagon. But Hicks said in a January speech that in its first five months, Replicator had achieved what normally takes the Pentagon two to three years. “If you’re not sure what is more mind-blowing – how fast we did it, or how long it normally takes – I don’t blame you,” Hicks said. “Honestly, the length of our normal process should blow your mind.” Hicks told me last week that the key to Replicator was “transforming internal processes.” One big goal was to leap over what a generation of reformers have called the “valley of death” – the long gap between development of prototype weapons and procurement and deployment at scale. “Bureaucracies need to be shown that new ways of doing things are possible. That’s what we’re doing,” she messaged me. The first Replicator drone systems were delivered to warfighters last month. Replicator is a striking example of Pentagon reform, but there are others. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall announced in March 2023 an innovative plan called “Collaborative Combat Aircraft” to team uncrewed jets with ones piloted by humans. The Air Force plans to buy at least 1,000 of these uncrewed jets and have them in the air by the end of the decade. In mock dogfights between human pilots and AI computers, the machines nearly always win, Kendall told me several years ago. Now, the Navy, too, is finally embracing change. Task forces are deploying uncrewed vessels in the Persian Gulf, Mediterranean and Caribbean. The Navy last month announced a new squadron of what it hopes will be hundreds of unmanned surface vessels, known as Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft. The squadron’s informal name is “Hell Hounds.” Four big uncrewed Navy vessels completed in January a five-month deployment to Hawaii, Guam, Micronesia, Australia and other destinations. Because the Pacific is such a complex and hostile environment, a robust naval drone program will need its own “robotic systems command,” with an authorities like those that created the nuclear navy, retired Vice Adm. Dave Lewis told me. As senior vice president for maritime activities at Leidos, he helped support the uncrewed four-ship flotilla that sailed the Pacific. The Pentagon has managed for half a century to keep radical change from breaching its five walls. Carriers, bombers, tanks and fighter jets were built to last forever, and in a cozy world without peer competitors, it seemed that they could. But now, Hicks said, we’re in an era in which the Pentagon needs “deliberate discomfort” and “collaborative disruption.” It’s a revolution that’s long overdue. A version of this column first appeared in The Washington Post. It does not necessarily reflect the views of Vero Beach 32963. At present, our Pelican Plaza office is closed to visitors without appointments. We appreciate your understanding. The Pentagon is learning how to change at the speed of war

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 33 INSIGHT OP-ED Why didn't Jessica Radosevic get her $444 refund from the online travel agency Traveluro? Could it have something to do with the credit card dispute she filed? QUESTION: Last year, I booked a trip to Las Vegas through a site called Traveluro. My airline canceled the flight, and I could not get another flight, so I had to cancel my hotel reservation. I contacted Traveluro, and a representative agreed to cancel my reservation and give me a full refund. The refund showed up in my account as "pending" but then it completely dropped off. It was never fully processed. I filed a credit card dispute with my bank, but my bank denied my request. Traveluro is ex-tremely hard to get in touch with. I call, and it rings once and then hangs up on me. I’ve been try-ing for months! The one time I got through – other than my first call – a representative said they would escalate the situation and somebody would call within 24 to 48 hrs. That never happened. Please help me get my $444 back! ANSWER: If Traveluro promised you a refund, it should have delivered one. First of all, you might be wondering what Traveluro is. It's an online travel agency operated by Holisto, a company based in the U.S. and Israel. So why didn't Traveluro refund your hotel? First, online agencies don't control refunds on non-refundable rooms. They would have to ask the hotel in Las Vegas for a waiver, which would take some time. BY CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT The mystery of the missing hotel refund. (Hint: check your credit card) It looks as if Traveluro tried to get your money back – hence the "pending" refund. But it ran out of time when you decided to file a credit card dispute. A credit card dispute means you are asking your bank to reverse a transaction because it's fraudulent or you didn't receive the product or service you ordered. It turns out the company was able to secure a full refund for your hotel, according to Elad Shmilovich, Holisto's chief operating officer. "However, in parallel, the customer submitted a chargeback, which prevented the refund from being fully processed," he says. "That's why the customer saw a pending notification, which disappeared." Not to worry, Shmilovich added. "I've asked my ops team to issue a new refund, which should already be in her account." But there's an important lesson here for the rest of us. When a company promises a refund, give it time. Sometimes, a refund to your credit card can take up to two billing cycles. If you lose pa-tience and file a credit card dispute, it doesn't just stop the refund process. It can actually reverse it, ensuring that you never get your money. Christopher Elliott is the founder of Elliott Advocacy (https://elliottadvocacy.org), a nonprofit organization that helps consumers solve their problems. Email him at [email protected] or get help by contacting him at https://elliottadvocacy.org/help/

34 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ INSIGHT BOOKS There’s no Greek muse of consumerism, but shopping has provided writers with a wealth of material. Emile Zola rhapsodized on the Parisian department store in “The Ladies’ Paradise.” Edith Wharton’s heroines, from May Welland to Undine Spragg, believed that a new dress for the opera was their ticket to a new level of society. In “The Group,” the moods and successes of Mary McCarthy’s second-wave women are measured by their groceries, their new clothes, their fresh furnishings (or lack thereof). These days, the most popular form of women’s writing online has evolved from the confessional essay to the shopping newsletter, in which a writer offers guidance on how to navigate the miasma of online goods. This is not to say shopping is an act of artistic expression – though some might argue that it is – but it has merits. The hunt is a form of narrativizing: To shop is to imagine yourself as someone else, or you but better. On the page, shopping is leisure, pleasure, refuge and, as the saying goes, therapy. It also used to be a more luxurious, perhaps even respected act. The latest example of great shopping writing is nonfiction: Julie Satow’s charming “When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion,” which traces the stories of three influential women in the history of 20th-century department stores: Hortense Odlum’s leadership of Bonwit Teller during the Depression and into the 1940s; Dorothy Shaver’s reinvention of Lord & Taylor between the 1930s and late ’50s; and, in the decades following, the creation of the specialty boutique under Geraldine Stutz. Compelling as their stories are, the book is just as appealing for the details of the bygone wonder that was the mid-century department store. Reading about these too-good-to-be-true spaces feels a bit like reading about the Titanic – freighted as it was with thousands of pounds of bread, a lounge modeled on Versailles and a gym with an electric “camel,” it’s no wonder the thing sank. In the mid-1920s, Lord & Taylor had its own couture salon, a sunroom, a breakfast room and a library. The roof of one now-defunct San Francisco department store had a 70-foot reproduction of the Eiffel Tower. Bonwit Teller piped out air conditioning. A suburban Philadelphia Lord & Taylor had a shop for women under 5-foot-4 (called 54 Shop), one of the first maternity-wear departments and its own Hermes store. Bendel’s sold a houndstooth-covered crossword dictionary, stationery paper embellished with pressed flowers and a $22,000 belt (in the 1960s!) made from a crushed-emerald horse bridle that a Bendel’s employee discovered when a maharajah paddled up to her while canoeing in Kashmir. Joseph Pilates opened his first branch location there, where he taught every morning before heading to his own business. “Important people go into that store,” he said – and he was right: Princess Grace, Lee Radziwill, the Duchess of Windsor. Convinced that top-notch service was key to their success, department stores offered their employees handsome salaries and often provided their staff with in-house health care and even resorts. They could take free courses in interior design and merchandising at New York University. The stores were, Satow posits in several compelling ways, a way for women to get ahead when few professional avenues were available to them. The most marvelous feature of all: Any item from Marshall Field’s could be returned at any time for a full refund. Anyone who’s disillusioned by the way efficiency has displaced true luxury – not to mention quality, service and choice – will swoon. Who cares if I can get my new hair dryer delivered tomorrow? Wouldn’t you rather have windows featuring a mannequin having a nervous breakdown in the latest Jean Muir designs?! Satow could have focused on the stores alone, with their array of delightful bygone details. But by following Odlum, Shaver and Stutz, she posits that women, in shaping retail, invented the American fashion industry. While couture can be traced to Marie Antoinette’s days – and fashion as a commercialized art form insisting on its own importance is a French export – it was Odlum, Shaver and Stutz, navigating commerce leading up to and following World War II, who cultivated American fashion as its own special animal. In Satow’s reckoning, they invented a lot: The makeover. Personal shopping. American art deco. Something called “the American Look,” which is clearly the genesis of preppy clothes. The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show! The Met Gala! While some of these claims seem less persuasive than others, her most significant assertions are powerful: When European clothes became less available or compelling to knock off, her protagonists rallied the American Garment District to up its standards and discovered names like Claire McCardell, who created distinctly American alternatives to then-rampant fussy French knockoffs that made the utilitarian beautiful; Donald Brooks, known for designs that were somehow simple and flashy; and Stephen Burrows, whose lettuce hem pieces were practically a uniform at Studio 54. Much as it can be when one is ensorcelled by the seductive spell of a “Mad Men” episode, it is easy to ignore the brutality amid the mid-century gloss. (Such a great manicure! you might think, as Betty smokes her way through lung cancer.) The department store was a refuge, even escape, for many American women, not least Satow’s three retail ingénues. Odlum was coerced into taking over Bonwit Teller when her husband bought it, possibly to distract her from his affair with the woman who became his second wife. (The mistress began scheming in, of all places, a department store salon.) Odlum later disavowed her professional success: “The most beautiful career in the world is a home,” she said. For the others, it wasn’t: Stutz was diagnosed with cancer in her early 20s and was unable to have children. Shaver never married. Even as they ascended to the top of major corporations and made record salaries – Shaver was the highest-paid woman in American history in 1945, making $110,000 a year – they often could not escape scrutiny, even their own. And the worlds they built were largely forgotten, until Satow revived their legacies. What eventually toppled these Shoppingra-las? In short, the post-World War II optimism that drove a need for goods gave way to a 1960s suburban sprawl and a glut of stuff that sapped the metropolitan temple of its power. In swooped the discount retailers – Walmart, Kmart – that made department stores look stuffy, expensive. What Satow doesn’t explore, though her writing is haunted by the topic like a well-dressed ghost, is the decline in American fashion. It’s not just American shopping that has lost some of its character, but clothing itself – and through the work these women did, it’s easy to see that the two are more entwined than we might have thought. If shopping were better, maybe clothing would be better, too. That’s not to berate us all for shopping without literary mystique. Rather, what made these stores special is that the women designed these spaces for women. “Let’s be feminine and follow our hunches,” one Bonwit ad during Odlum’s tenure declared. “I listen constantly to what women want,” Shaver said. “Fashion says, ‘Me, too,’” Stutz said, “while style says, ‘Only me.’” Doubleday. 294 pp. $32.50 Review by Rachel Tashjian | Washington Post Julie Satow

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 35 Most declarers love to elope By Phillip Alder - Bridge Columnist If an opponent holds the last outstanding trump and it is a winner, usually it is right not to lead the suit. Instead, it may be best to try to score your remaining trumps with ruffs. Against four spades, West led the heart jack: queen, ace, two. Back came the heart six: seven, eight, king. South seemed to have at least 10 certain tricks: six spades, one heart, two diamonds and one club. However, he had been well trained in his formative years. He always hunted for potential snags. Here, only a 4-0 spade break, which will happen almost 10% of the time, would present difficulties. Just in case, declarer made the far-sighted and necessary play at trick three of ruffing dummy’s heart four. Next, South cashed the spade ace, getting the bad news. Undeterred, declarer led a low club to dummy’s queen, East winning with the ace and returning the spade jack. (If East ducks, dummy’s last heart is led.) South won, played a club to the king, ruffed a club in his hand, cashed his remaining top trump and banked the diamond ace. Finally, he played a diamond to the king and, at trick 12, led dummy’s last heart. What could East do? If he ruffed, declarer would have sluffed his diamond loser. If East discarded, South would have ruffed, leaving West’s good diamond jack and East’s trump 10 to fall together on the last trick. This technique of scoring low trumps by ruffing when an opponent has a winning trump is called elopement. The coup en passant that South used to score his last trump in this deal is the simplest form of elopement. Dealer: North; Vulnerable: East-West NORTH 9 4 3 K Q 5 4 K 5 2 K Q 8 WEST — J 10 9 8 J 9 7 6 J 9 7 6 3 SOUTH A K Q 6 5 2 7 2 A 4 3 5 4 EAST J 10 8 7 A 6 3 Q 10 8 A 10 2 The Bidding: OPENING LEAD: J Hearts SOUTH WEST NORTH EAST 1 Clubs Pass 1 Spades Pass 1 NT Pass 4 Spades Pass Pass Pass INSIGHT BRIDGE 1855 14th Avenue • Downtown Vero Beach • (772) 257-6036 3512 South Dixie Hwy • West Palm Beach, FL 33405 • (561) 833-3535 DRAPERIES • FURNITURE • ACCESSORIES • LIGHTING • WALLPAPER

38 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ The Telegraph How to do Sudoku: Fill in the grid so the numbers one through nine appear just once in every column, row and three-by-three square. The Telegraph SOLUTIONS TO PREVIOUS ISSUE (JUNE 6th) ON PAGE 62 ACROSS 1 Dance (4) 3 Squad (4) 6 Wonder (3) 9 Antiquated (7) 10 Prize (5) 11 Elegance (5) 12 Hobby (7) 13 Extreme (6) 15 Underpants (6) 18 Farewell (7) 20 Alcove (5) 23 Retinue (5) 24 Endurance (7) 25 Owed (3) 26 Only (4) 27 Quick (4) DOWN 1 Impudence (5) 2 Fortunate (5) 4 Flee (6) 5 Wherewithal (5) 6 Greed (7) 7 Eternal (7) 8 Profession (6) 13 Spotted (7) 14 Contravene (7) 16 Catwalk (6) 17 Container (6) 19 Premium (5) 21 Porcelain (5) 22 Precise (5) INSIGHT GAMES Established 32 Years in Indian River County (772) 562-2288 | www.kitchensvero.com 3920 US Hwy 1, Vero Beach FL 32960

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 39 ACROSS 1 City in a sandwich 8 Like some tales 12 ___ of the Worlds 18 Down too much 19 Common cookie 20 Greek god of poisonous things? 22 What each theme answer in this puzzle has to be to make sense 24 Greek goddess of mail? 25 Wrath 26 Melodies 27 “Mashed Potato Time” singer Sharp 29 Actress Arthur 30 Purse feature 33 Courage 35 Part of a circle formula 36 Staggers 38 Depardieu film, My Father, ___ 41 Sushi option 42 Short time 43 God of crawly things? 46 Goddess of gabbing? 50 ___ whim 51 Small version of “small” 52 Snockered 54 Pulitzer-winning James 55 Where H. Keller was born 57 Pygmy antelope 59 ___ grass 63 God of new beginnings? 65 God of trash control? 67 Song gimmick 69 Science show 70 Japanese volcano 71 God of electricity? 73 Reporter Helen Thomas’s former org. 75 Practice-fight 78 Price of chili in Chile? 80 God of freshness? 85 Goddess of learning? 87 Tolerates 89 Florida city 90 Little one 91 “Get away!” 93 Hush-hush org. 94 Enzyme ending 96 Sex finish 97 God of good hair days? 100 God of passageways? 104 DDE foe 105 Dr. Seuss film, The 5,000 Fingers of ___ 106 He’s coming in 107 Longtime Volvo rivals 110 Mono kin 111 Concerning 112 Slow one 116 Cherbourg chum 117 Smoothed (out) 119 Ointments 122 Show sign 123 God of tangy drinks? 126 God of salad? 130 God of equal opportunity? 131 Algerian port 132 Imperiled girl of old movies 133 Recipients 134 Holding the highest deli number, perhaps 135 Gone With the Wind composer DOWN 1 A Bullwinkle chaser 2 Obvious 3 Ostracized one 4 Hockey legend 5 Part of GBS: abbr. 6 Zola novel 7 Yours, in Tours 8 Monk’s hairdo 9 ___ lamp 10 West Yorkshire city 11 Mother of mine? 12 Jazzman McCoy 13 Possess 14 Compass pt. 15 Shriner or Wheaton 16 Sun-dried brick 17 3 Down, backwards (strangely enough) 20 Mark added to a C in French words 21 Splashy septet 23 Exhorted 28 Sword type 31 CNN’s home: abbr. 32 Glass and Roth 34 Go ___ (doze) 36 Do a dress job 37 Nature prefix 39 Gram prefix 40 Andrew Wyeth subject 41 Chanteuse James 42 Project, in a way 43 Othello, for one 44 Concerning 45 Secular 47 Waffle brand 48 Defense org. 49 Ht. 53 Bugs 56 Al Jolson, really 58 Trimming target 60 Some TVs 61 St. ___ fire 62 Storage area 64 Early computer 66 “Can you ___?” (boaster’s words) 68 Sonja Henie’s birthplace, today 72 Rescues anew 74 Small flycatchers 75 Ready 76 College VIP 77 Opening to suggestion 79 Clarence Thomas’s org., 1982-90 81 Declaim 82 Finger feature 83 “Or ___!” 84 Shepard and Walton 86 Atolls 88 Part of MIT: abbr. 92 Age 95 Ma’am counterpart 98 Testing site 99 Actress Moran 101 Contest player 102 Pub order 103 Spigoted server 107 Room, to Ruiz 108 “___ is a terrible thing ...” 109 “We ___ please” 110 Iris holders 111 Love 113 John who played an Addams 114 Ryan who played a Clampett 115 Hapless one 117 Actress McClurg 118 British school 120 Hits on the head 121 “Get away!” 124 A, in German 125 1860s nickname 127 With 135 Across, Gone With the Wind composer 128 Regret 129 “Pretty” fighter The Telegraph The Washington Post ...And more syllables The Lesser Known Greek Gods By Merl Reagle INSIGHT GAMES

40 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ INSIGHT BACK PAGE Dear Carolyn: I’ve realized I can be selfish and try to relate to others by relating their experiences to my own. How can I do better? – Recentering Recentering: Try just listening. When there’s a pause in the conversation that beckons to you to take part, ask a thoughtful question about the person’s experience. Maybe it can be informed by your own, but you needn’t say that part out loud. It can also be a good exercise to notice the difference between being quiet because you’re listening, and being quiet because you’re composing the next thing you want to say. The latter is something a lot of people do when they’re socially uncomfortable (for all kinds of reasons). If you’re doing that, then work to recognize it and turn your attention back to the speaker. A reader suggests asking yourself: “Am I listening, or am I just waiting to talk?” You’re allowed to have thoughts, too, and related experiences can be part of good conversation. But the hijacking risk is high, so any mention of a similar experience is best kept to nugget size, followed by turning the attention back to the original speaker and their experience. Be brief and close the loop. You can also ask first, when you have an experience you think would be relevant. Something like: “I went through something similar. I won’t step on your toes, but feel free to ask me about it later.” Also try imagining, deliberately, how they might see your example. If you’re susceptible to hijacking conversations, though, then stick to asking questions for a while and not raising your own stuff till you feel more able to keep the focus on the storyteller. And if you hear yourself messing up, it’s also OK to stop in the middle and say: “Ugh, I hijacked your story, I’m sorry. Please go on.” Dear Carolyn: When a person is in a mental health crisis, they are advised to visit their ER if things are serious. Other than keep that person safe from self-harm or harm to others, what can an ER do to help this person? I would like to share this info with a friend who is suffering a round of severe depression. – Anonymous Anonymous: This is tricky, because there are, in too many places, dire shortages of such care, leading to horrific wait times – but the ER is the first stop for many toward longer-term therapeutic placement. Depending on where you are, the ER referral can be the way to get admitted to inpatient treatment. And to be clear: The safety from harm to self or others stands alone as justification. Because you (and possibly your friend) are thinking about this now as a hypothetical, and the need for care is not emergent, I suggest using this time to find out which hospitals’ ERs are equipped to handle psych referrals, and whether there are facilities in your friend’s area that serve this purpose better. It varies so much from one area to the next that it’s hard to make a blanket recommendation (thus the default advice to visit an ER). The Crisis Text Line – text HOME to 741741 (crisistextline.org) – is a 24/7 source of support and can help people figure out where to go for help. The Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, 988, is also available 24 hours. A reader’s thought: I’ve been in this position with a family member; no one would even talk with us until we were referred by a hospital. Another option is the person’s psychiatrist or therapist; they often have resources that can get you in the door. BY CAROLYN HAX Washington Post Thoughts on how to relate to others without making it about you

‘SWAN LAKE’ GLISTENS Vero Classical Ballet steps up with Tchaikovsky classic

ARTS & THEATRE 42 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Aspiring young dancers are practicing to perfect their finest ballet movements as they prepare for their roles as elegant swans in the upcoming performance of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake.” Produced by Vero Classical Ballet, the performance takes place Saturday, June 29, at the Vero Beach High School Performing Arts Center. In the ballet, the Princess Odette, cursed by the evil sorcerer Baron von Rothbart, is fated to live as a swan during the day, only taking human form after midnight, which is when Prince Siegfried sees her, falls in love and pledges to marry her. But alas, von Rothbart is intent on having his own daughter, Odile, marry the prince. He magically transforms her to resemble Odette and brings her to the birthday party where Siegfried is to choose his bride, ultimately setting in motion the tragic ending. Rylee Green, a VCB alumna, will be reviving her lead in the challenging roles as both the White Swan Odette and the Black Swan Odile. The role is renowned for its technical difficulty and for the challenge of showcasing the swans’ contrasts of innocence and seduction. Green, who recently turned 20, has danced with Vero Classical Ballet for 14 years and is currently enrolled in the Ballet Palm Beach Academy, an intensive training program. Her goal of becoming a professional dancer will soon be realized when she joins Ballet Palm Beach for their upcoming 2024-25 season. “I’m thrilled to be returning to the stage with Vero Classical Ballet,” Green says to Vero Beach 32963 in a telephone interview. “It’s been three years since I was the lead in a production of ‘Swan Lake,’ and I can’t wait to perform again with some of the new skills I’ve learned.” Green shares that ballet kept her grounded and focused during her teenaged years. “It definitely helped me work through a lot of growing-up issues. It helps to give a good mindset of working hard and that not everything is easy,” says Green. “The discipline of dance taught me to work hard to achieve my goals in everyday life as well as on the dance floor. But it’s so much fun as well. It’s so nice to feel like you are floating around on stage. Even though you are working hard, ballet gives you the freedom to move and take up space in a room and feel yourself becoming a ballerina as you mature,” she adds. “We are really excited about having Rylee come back to dance with our troupe,” says Trammel. “The role of the Odette is one of the most difficult in the repertory of classical ballet. She pulled it off at 17 and I know with her additional training she is going to be spectacular. It’s heartwarming to see a small-town girl get to a level Vero Classical Ballet steps up with Tchaikovsky classic BY KERRY FIRTH AND MARY SCHENKEL Correspondent and Staff Writer Barry Trammell. PHOTOS BY JOSHUA KODIS

ARTS & THEATRE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 43 where she can do ‘Swan Lake’ and then train with Ballet Palm Beach. I’m so proud of her,” he adds. He explains that it is helpful for children to start young with ballet, noting that Green started at VCB at age 6. “They are intrigued and interested in learning as well as establishing friendships with other dancers. Performing increases a child’s self-esteem and confidence that they use in every part of their lives,” Trammell adds. “The exercise is amazing, and studies have shown that dancing and singing are the two best things for your psychological health. Plus, it’s an enormous educational opportunity. You learn about music, history, your own physicality and how to work together as a team.” While he has had students as young as age 3, the majority are currently between the ages of 11 and 13. “We’ll have about 40 children in the upcoming ‘Swan Lake’ production. You never know what might inspire a child to become a professional dancer,” he says. Kayalyn Nascimento, another of his former students, began studying at VCB at age 9. Now 19, she returns to the production to dance as a swan and also in the famed Pas de Trios, which is known for its complicated steps. The role of Prince Siegfried will be danced by Israel Zavaleta Escobedo, who is now in his fifth season with the Orlando Ballet. Born in Mexico, Escobedo first performed as a child with his family’s dance company there. He later trained at Academy de la Danza Mexicana, and in the summer programs of the Joffrey Ballet and Idyllwild’s Arts Academy. At age 15 he began training where he currently teaches – the Orlando Ballet School – instructing the men’s ballet classes for OBII, Trainee and Academy company programs. Trammel himself will play the role of the evil sorcerer. He says he began taking ballet classes at age 16, and started dancing professionally at 21, dancing with companies in various parts of the country, including Ballet Florida, the Oregon Ballet Theatre, City Ballet of Houston and the Memphis Ballet. Established in 2005, Vero Classical Ballet shares the art form with aspiring dancers of all ages, with classes that take place at the Leisure Square Recreation facility. Trammell says his program is based on the method devised by Russian dancer, choreographer and teacher Agrippina Vaganova, which stresses clean, skillful techniques. His students perform in two theatrical productions each year. The June performance, which this year is “Swan Lake,” has in the past featured productions of “Sleeping Beauty” and “Cinderella,” and “The Nutcracker” is performed annually at Christmastime. Students also perform occasionally at schools and festivals, and some have even performed with touring ballet companies. Swan Lake will be performed at 7 p.m. Saturday, June 29, at the Vero Beach High School Performing Arts Center. Tickets can be purchased at vero classicalballet.com or at the door.

ARTS & THEATRE 44 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ The Space Coast Symphony Orchestra kicks off its 16th season with Broadway Classics this weekend. The concert takes a journey through the best of Broadway musicals with show stopping tunes from “Mary Poppins,” “South Pacific,” “Evita,” “The King and I,” “Carousel,” “Grease,” “An American in Paris,” “Miss Saigon” and more. Conductor Aaron T. Collins says this is the kind of concert that kicks off a new season with audience pleasing favorites. Tickets purchased on the orchestra’s website cost $35. Tickets at the door are $40 with free admission to those 18 years and younger or with a college ID. The Broadway Classics concert begins at 3 p.m. Sunday, June 16, at the Emerson Center, 1590 27th Ave., Vero Beach. Call 855-252-7276 for more information or visit SpaceCoastSymphony.org. Riverside Theatre has a couple of great offerings for children this weekend. presents “Shrek, the Musical, Jr.” this weekend. This is a 60-minute version of the crowdpleasing musical. It is performed by students ages 11 to 18 years. The story centers on everyone’s favorite ogre, a donkey, and unexpected love. It is based on the Oscar-winning hit film. Tickets are $10. “Shrek the Musical, Jr.” performs 7 p.m. Friday, June 14, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday, June 15, and 2 p.m. Sunday, June 16. The theater also presents another in its popular “Playtime in the Park” dance events this Saturday. Children and their parents will be invited to dance along with the company’s award-winning Young Children’s Curriculum. That runs up to 30 minutes and begins at 11 a.m. on Saturday, June 15. Admission to Playtime in the Park is free. Both presentations are held at Riverside Theatre, 3250 Riverside Park Dr., Vero Beach. Call 772-231-6990 or visit RiversideTheatre.com. Riverside also keeps the adults in mind with its Comedy Zone presentations of standup comedy. This weekend, it features headliner Greg Hall and feature act Kojo Prince along with emcee P-mac. The standup performances begin at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. Friday, June 14, and Saturday, June 15. All seats are $25. Free concerts at “Live in the Loop” will be held in the evenings Thursday through Saturday: “Hot Sauce Moon” performs a wide variety of music from classic rock and folk rock to country and blues from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, June 13. You might want to get up offa your seat when “The Mighty Flea Circus” performs swing, rockabilly and Jump Blues from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, June 14. “GenX” performs hits from the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, June 15. Admission to the Live in the Loop concerts is free. You can reserve a cabana if you like. Bring lawn chairs if you like. Bar & Grill service starts at 5:30 p.m. so do not bring coolers, tumblers, water bottles or food. Riverside Theatre is at 3250 Riverside Park Drive, Vero Beach. Call 772-231-6990 or visit RiversideTheatre.com. One more important Riverside Theatre item: If you want your child to participate in “Guys and Dolls, Jr.” be sure to submit the Kids Audition Video by Friday, July 14. This program is designed for children ages 6 and older and runs from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays Aug. 13 to Oct. 10 and carries a $300 tuition fee. The expectation is that the full cast will travel to the Junior Theatre Festival in Atlanta. From Jan. 16-20 in 2025. Additional travel fees are $100. Riverside Theatre Education’s Tuition Assistance Program provides financial assistance to qualifying students. Call 772-231-6990 or visit RiversideTheatre.com. SPACE COAST SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA BRINGS BROADWAY HITS Coming Up! BY PAM HARBAUGH Correspondent 3 4 1 2

ESOPHAGEAL CANCER Advancements in treatment give patients new hope

HEALTH 46 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Machinist Richard Bruzzese was up early getting ready to go in to work when he fell to the ground and couldn’t get up. His vision was so impaired that he couldn’t see much of anything, but he was able to crawl to the phone on his nightstand and speed dial his mother, who lived down street. She immediately called an ambulance. “When the paramedics showed up, I couldn’t see the person in front of me,” Bruzzese recalled. “I wasn’t feeling any pain, but I couldn’t get on my feet. My legs felt like Jell-O. When I got to the hospital they told me I was very low on blood and would need a transfusion. I didn’t have any lacerations, so where did the blood go? Once they took a stool sample, they determined I was bleeding from my esophagus. The blood was passing into my stomach and coming out in my waste.” After this alarming news Bruzzese had an endoscopy, which found a tumor in his esophagus. A positron emission tomography (PET) scan found that the cancer had spread, with two more tumors in his stomach. Radiation was administered to shrink the tumors so surgery could be performed to remove them. The prognosis wasn’t good – he was told that, even with surgery, he would be lucky to live two years. That was before Dr. Luis ArgoteGreene took over the case. “Esophageal cancer is a very rare disease in the United States with less than 200,000 cases a year, and it’s usually found in an older population,” said Dr. Argote-Greene. “It’s a cancer usually found at the junction between the esophagus [and the stomach]. Ninety percent of the esophagus goes through the chest. Then there’s the G-junction or the gastroesophageal junction that joins the food pipe with the stomach below the diaphragm in the belly. “The G-junction has a sphincter that dilates and opens up to let the food go by after it’s swallowed through the mouth, goes down into the esophagus through your chest and down into the stomach. This is where this type of cancer usually occurs. As the tumor grows it starts to block the esophagus’ opening and the patient has trouble swallowing.” Esophageal cancer typically grows very rapidly. The esophagus is very flexible and expands around the tumor as it grows, which is why people often don’t have symptoms until the cancer has spread. Difficulty swallowing is the first symptom people may notice. Other red flags are pains in your throat or back, behind your breastbone or between your shoulder blades, vomiting or coughing up blood, heartburn, hoarseness or chronic cough, and unintentional weight loss. While the exact cause of the cancer has yet to be defined, Cleveland Clinic identifies risk factors that increase the chances of esophageal cancer. Tobacco use, alcohol use and obesity are contributing factors, as are Barrett’s esophagus and chronic acid reflux. Barrett’s esophagus is a change in the cells at the lower end of the esophagus that occurs from chronic untreated acid reflux. People with the human papillomavirus (HPV) and those who’ve had cancer of the neck or head are also at greater risk for esophageal cancer. Advancements in esophageal cancer treatment bring new hope BY KERRY FIRTH Correspondent

HEALTH Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 47 “I have had trouble swallowing for years,” said Bruzzese. “I was overweight, and I wanted to get in shape, so I started eating a lot of raw carrots for snacks. Apparently, that’s what tore the wall of the tumor and caused the bleeding. If that hadn’t happened, I never would have known.” “There’s been a lot of advancements in the treatment of esophageal cancer,” Dr. Argote-Greene said. “If it’s a very early disease, surgery might be the best option. An endoscopic resection done with a scope might be all that’s needed. But when it’s more advanced like Richard’s, which usually the way we find it, then we treat with chemotherapy and radiation followed by surgery.” Dr. Argote-Greene used the robotic assisted minimally invasive esophagectomy (RAMIE) to remove the diseased portion of Bruzzese’s esophagus and create a new conduit from the stomach that was connected to the remaining esophagus. “He actually removed my esophagus and stretched my stomach up to where it connects to my throat,” Bruzzese said. “Now on an X-ray my stomach looks like a wine bottle instead of that weird shape. I was up and walking after three days. I’ve changed my eating habits because I can only fit so much in my stomach now, but I’m doing fine. I’m on immunotherapy and I have a PET scan every now and then, but I am very grateful to be alive. Dr. ArgoteGreene and his team saved my life.” Dr. Argote-Greene is optimistic about Bruzzese’s future. “He had a great response to the treatment, and we’ll continue to monitor him closely.” Luis M. Argote-Greene, MD, is a thoracic and esophageal surgeon who specializes in complex open and minimally invasive, robotic-assisted procedures to treat benign and malignant diseases in the thoracic area, including esophagus, mediastinum, chest wall, diaphragm, pleura, airways and lung tumors. He earned his medical degree at National Autonomous University of Mexico and completed his residency in General Surgery at the National Institute of Health Sciences and Nutrition Salvador Zubiran in Mexico City. He completed his Thoracic Surgery and Thoracic Oncology Clinical Fellowships at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. His office is in the Rosner Family Health and Wellness Center at Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital. Most patients are referred to surgery after being diagnosed by another doctor. You, or your doctor’s office, can call 772-563-4673 to request an appointment. Patient Richard Bruzzese with Dr. Luis Argote-Greene. PHOTOS BY JOSHUA KODIS

HEALTH 48 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ It’s not exactly a welcome development. You’re eating and exercising as you always have, yet you’re gaining weight, especially around your midsection. If you’re a woman in her 40s or 50s, chances are your body is transitioning to menopause. Those entering this natural stage of life not only gain weight and belly fat (sometimes called “menopause belly”), they also experience such troubling symptoms as sleepinterrupting night sweats, hot flashes, vaginal dryness that causes pain during sex, urinary tract infections, irregular periods, depression, thinning hair, mood swings and more. As if all that was not enough, it is increasingly recognized that women also have to deal with perimenopause, a sort of trial run of full-fledged menopause. Little discussed in the past, “perimenopause is having a millennial moment,” according to a recent headline in the health section of the Washington Post, as some millennials experience the first symptoms of the menopausal transition and want to talk about it. According to the Post, “Emily McDowell, founder of the stationery company Em & Friends, was flummoxed when she started having some of the premenopausal symptoms that comprise perimenopause at age 39. “‘I didn’t know what was happening,’ said McDowell, now 48 and a business consultant. When she finally figured it out, she posted about it on Instagram and got more than 10,000 likes. ‘I felt like, OK, clearly we need to talk about this more,’ she said.” Ann Quesada, a certified APN (Advanced Practice Nurse) who works at Health First’s Women’s Health, describes periNew strategies for dealing with menopause and perimenopause BY JACKIE HOLFELDER Correspondent

HEALTH Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 49 menopause as being like a flickering fluorescent light bulb – sometimes you have symptoms and sometimes not; sometimes your body is producing estrogen and sometimes not. Scientists divide perimenopause into two stages, notes the Mayo Clinic. Early-stage perimenopause is when your menstrual cycle, which was regular before, starts to become erratic. (If you have always been erratic, it can be difficult to tell when you have entered this phase.) You are in early-stage perimenopause when, over several months, your period comes a week or more later than usual. You enter late-stage perimenopause when there are at least 60 days between some periods. This can happen soon after the early stage begins or, more commonly, not for several years. The hormones in a woman’s system are in flux during this time, and the fluctuations may trigger symptoms such as hot flashes. When you look back at your calendar and see that you have gone one full year with absolutely no menstrual bleeding, then you are in menopause. You might go a long stretch of months without getting a period, but if one eventually comes before 12 months have passed, you are still perimenopausal. Quesada says there are things you can do to make your menopause journey more comfortable. “There’s even a new non-hormonal drug recently approved by the FDA to treat hot flashes,” she says. Veozah works by binding to and blocking the activities of the NK3 receptor, which plays a role in the brain’s regulation of body temperature. Since Johns Hopkins University states that 75 percent of women have these sudden, brief, periodic increases in their body temperature, that’s great news for a lot of people. The primary goal of Herstasis Health Foundation is to provide valuable science-based information to women experiencing severe symptoms of perimenopause. Its website describes several different therapies that can be used to treat symptoms, Including: Hormone therapy – the delivery of a specific hormone into the body to decrease the intensity of certain menopause transition symptoms. Movement therapy – overwhelming evidence shows that the state of health before menopause impacts the menopausal transition. That is why exercise therapy is important, regardless of what age you start. Nutritional therapy – eating a balanced and healthy diet is crucial for overall health. Naturopathic therapy – the naturopathic approach focuses on treating diseases and disorders (primarily without the use of drugs) by treating the whole person – mind, body and spirit. Mind body wellness therapy – experiencing symptoms of the menopausal transition can range from mildly annoying to debilitating. Managing symptoms is one aspect of perimenopause, as is managing adjustment to the changes in your body. “Actress Naomi Watts, 55, recently founded a wellness brand called Stripes that offers ‘menopause solutions from scalp to vag,’ and other big names, including the actress Halle Berry, 57, and former first lady Michelle Obama, 60, are sharing their menopause experiences publicly,” according to the Post. “Drew Barrymore, 49, interrupted a live TV segment last year to remove her striped suit jacket and fan herself, telling everyone that she was in the middle of a hot flash. “The time is right for these conversations. Millennials, who are known for talking about, well, everything, from periods to postpartum depression, are now talking about perimenopause, which can begin to affect women in their mid30s and 40s. (The oldest millennials are now in their early 40s.)” Perimenopause and menopause vary widely from woman to woman. “For some women, the mood swings can be as profound as those during puberty,” says Quesada. “Other people don’t have that experience at all. Some women suffer from overwhelming hot flashes, others feel them very minimally. Science simply can’t account for what causes the differences.” The National Institute on Aging confirms that the menopausal transition affects each woman uniquely and in various ways. The body begins to use energy differently, fat cells change, and women may gain weight more easily. You may experience changes in your bone or heart health, your body shape and composition, or your physical function. In the United States, women typically enter menopause between ages 40 and 58, with the average being 51, according to North American Menopause Society. Some are in their sixties. Typically, women reach menopause around the same age as their mothers or other women in their family. Menopause weight gain is caused by the decrease in estrogen and CONTINUED ON PAGE 50

HEALTH 50 Vero Beach 32963 / June 13, 2024 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ progesterone, along with aging in general, triggering metabolic changes in the body, says the University of Chicago Medical School website. One of the changes is a decrease in muscle mass, resulting in fewer calories being burned. If fewer calories are being burned, fat accumulates. Genetics, lack of sleep and a sedentary lifestyle play a role as well. It can be a vicious cycle: Women lose muscle tone and accumulate more fat as metabolism slows down, which then contributes to more weight gain. And that stubborn belly fat? Blame it on the muscle tone lost from reduced hormone production being replaced by fatty tissue deposits. The areas where muscle is usually lost are around the midsection, so that’s where the fatty tissue goes. Here too, genetics are a factor. If the people in your family carry more weight in the midsection, especially after menopause, there is a higher likelihood that you will, too, if nothing is being done to prevent it. Unfortunately, Quesada says, even though exercise is important, it’s not going to get rid of “menopause belly.” You need to cut your calories with a healthy, richin-protein diet. It’s important to be aware that changes in your periods are not always caused by menopause. “I never just assume it’s menopause if a woman is in her 40s or 50s,” says Quesada. “I always confirm my findings with blood work.” Changes to your period could be caused by other medical conditions, including endometriosis, cancer, fibroids, polyps or – of course – pregnancy. Ann Quesada is a certified APN. She received her Bachelor of Science from SUNY Utica/Rome in 1992 and her Master of Science degree in Nursing from Russell Sage College in 1994. She practices in Health First’s Women’s Health with a special focus on menopause and female infertility. Quesada is a member of the North American Menopause Society and the American Nurses Association. She is certified through the American Nurse’s Credentialing Center. Her office is located at 1223 Gateway Dr., Suite 1D, Melbourne. The phone number is 321-434-3131. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 49 Ann Quesada, APN. PHOTO BY JOSHUA KODIS