05/11/2023 ISSUE 19

Island residents who have been grumbling about the only 32963 gasoline station being temporarily closed will have to wait another 10 days before they can fill up their tanks close to home. The underground tank replacement project at the 7-Eleven convenience store and gasoline dispensary on North A1A in Indian River Shores, which started on April 10, is on schedule to be completed by the end of next week, a little over a month from when it began. The Shores town clerk, who said she has been getting quite a few calls from News 1-14 Arts 43-50 Books 38 Dining 66-70 Editorial 36 Games 39-41 Health 51-61 Insight 31-42 People 15-30 Pets 71 Real Estate 75-88 Style 62-65 May 11, 2023 Volume 16, Issue 19 Newsstand Price $2.00 TO ADVERTISE CALL 772-559-4187 FOR CIRCULATION CALL 772-226-7925 3 years late, work starts on bridge at south end of island. P14 Vero artist meets the ‘Moment’. P46 Complaints about rail crossings fall on deaf ears. P13 Super support for ‘Answer to Cancer.’ P19 © 2023 Vero Beach 32963 Media LLC. All rights reserved. For breaking news visit The federal COVID Public Health Emergency which was first declared on Jan. 21, 2020, and renewed 13 times was set to end today, but for most island residents the transition back to a more normal time should be pretty seamless – except for COVID-19 testing. The free supplies of at-home test kits through Medicare Part B are a now a thing of the past, and Medicare recipients may have copays on COVID tests administered by a lab or pharmacy, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keeps a database of vendors offering free COVID testing on its website. The emergency permitted the federal government to preorder and purchase millions of doses of vaccine and medication with taxpayer funds, and to require insurance compaThornton starts sheriff race with record war chest Few issues here as Vero adjusts to post-Covid world Political newcomer Milo Thornton has established himself as the early frontrunner in the 2024 race for sheriff, having raised more than $160,000 in the first 30 days of his campaign. Never in the county’s 98-year history has a candidate for any local office collected more in contributions in the first month of candidacy. In addition to the $163,175 raised by Thornton’s campaign through May 5, supporters have donated more than $50,000 in monetary ($37,000) and in-kind (14,700) contributions to the “Friends of Milo Thornton” political action committee. That gives him a war chest in excess of $200,000. “The message is clear: I have the support of our community, and that support continues to BY RAY MCNULTY Staff Writer BY LISA ZAHNER Staff Writer CONTINUED ON PAGE 11 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 BY PIETER VANBENNEKOM Staff Writer Emeritus Commercial real estate: Flailing elsewhere, but ‘pretty good’ here Reopening of sole island gas station a week away Despite scary headlines in the national press about the dire state of the commercial real estate market, sales prices and lease rates for commercial property here are mostly stable and even rising in some sectors, according to three top commercial real estate brokers. Rising interest rates, increasing e-commerce and remote work don’t seem to be having the negative impact here that is causing consternation elsewhere. “Things are pretty good,” said CONTINUED ON PAGE 8 PHOTOS BY JOSHUA KODIS St. Edward’s has hired a new athletic director with an impressive track record at an elite Fort Lauderdale college preparatory school to create winning BY CASEY STAVENHAGEN Staff Writer New athletic director brings impressive BY STEVEN M. THOMAS credentials, winning attitude to St. Ed’s Staff Writer teams here, while teaching essential life skills to student athletes. Eileen Pliske, associate athletic director and girls lacrosse coach at Pine Crest School, quickly rose to the top of 21 apCONTINUED ON PAGE 12

2 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ nies to cover certain testing, vaccines and treatments. For now, the CDC says, COVID-19 vaccines will remain free to adults and children, but the provider who administers the vaccine may charge for an office visit to get the vaccine, and there may be a copay associated with that visit. If a patient tests positive for COVID, there is still a limited number of doses of the Paxlovid drug that the federal government has already purchased, so the CDC says that drug “will remain free while supplies last.” After that, unless that program is extended, Paxlovid will be like any other drug for any other condition – subject to the terms of the patient’s health insurance prescription plan. The biggest change upon expiration of the Public Health Emergency will be how and when data about COVID is collected and reported. The emergency declaration gave the CDC the NEWS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Post-Covid world

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 3 throughout the summer, and there are people telling me they’ve been waiting on this for years,” he added. “So I’m deeply grateful, honored and humbled by the support and affection I’ve received, and I’m committed to giving our community the responsive, professionally run Sheriff’s Office it deserves, one it can be proud of. “What we’ve done so far with our fundraising speaks volumes – it’s never been done before – but we’re just getting started.” Thornton’s six-figure haul far exceeded the first-month fundraising totals of the winners of the last two sheriff’s races: Deryl Loar ($15,200 in 2016) and Eric Flowers ($33,800 in 2020). It also dwarfs the $11,645 raised by Fellsmere Police Chief Keith Touchberry in November, the first month of his campaign. According to the county Supervisor of Elections’ website, Touchberry – the runner-up to Flowers in the 2020 Republican primary – had collected a total of $50,419 as of Monday. Flowers, who hasn’t yet filed to run but said last year he will seek re-election, spent $234,445 during his COVNEWS CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 power to demand timely data directly from state and local public health departments and laboratories. Going forward, data on COVID will be reported similarly to the way influenza is tracked. Certain county-level data will no longer be available, and the CDC says it will gather what it can from various agencies which collect data on reportable diseases, but that already, some states have been failing to report or reporting old or spotty data. There have been multiple weeks when the CDC Data Tracker shows no reported data from Florida on new infections and hospitalizations. As we go to press, the Florida Department of Health last reported on COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths on April 28, nearly two weeks ago. COVID hospitalizations will still be tracked and reported, but not in the streamlined way the CDC has been collecting the data during the Public Health Emergency, and likely not on a county-by-county basis. The CDC will now acquire this information from other agencies that collect vast amounts of statistical data on hospitalizations for treatment of various illnesses. In the final days of the emergency, Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital – which has been exceptionally responsive and transparent in providing weekly, real-time hospitalization numbers – had an encouragingly low number of COVID-positive patients in its care. “This Monday morning, we have two patients in-house with COVID. One of the two patients is in the ICU,” Cleveland Clinic spokesperson Arlene Allen-Fletcher said. COVID deaths will now be reported as a percentage of the total deaths by all causes like Influenza and Coronary Artery Disease. The data relevant to Indian River County and our island readers will likely be dated, obscured, unreliable or unavailable. Based upon that reality, this will be the final Vero Beach 32963 weekly COVID situation report that we will publish. However, we will continue to monitor whatever data is still compiled and reported by state and federal agencies, and should an uptick or trend warrant reporting, we will share it with readers. When new COVID-19 vaccine booster formulations are approved and available, our readers will be informed. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Thornton’s war chest grow,” Thornton said. “People are approaching me and asking if they can host events, because they want to hear what I have to say. “We have multiple events scheduled

4 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ ID-impacted, 2020 campaign. Also in the race is Deborah Cooney, a former bank executive who lost to Flowers in a landslide in the 2020 general election and again is running with no party affiliation. As of Monday, her campaign had raised only $5,400, and she already had spent more than $4,000 of that amount. Thornton’s campaign issued a news release this week, when he was scheduled to file his first financial report with the Supervisor of Elections Office, announcing that the 45-year-old sheriff’s captain raised $127,275 last month and $35,900 through the first five days of May. He filed to become a candidate on April 6. Loar, who steadily promoted Thornton through the ranks during his 12 years as sheriff, predicted the winning candidate would spend upwards of $250,000 on his primary and generalelection campaigns. He said sheriff’s races are usually more costly than other local campaigns because they’re held during presidential-election years, which forces candidates for the most powerful office in the county to compete for advertising and pay higher rates. So money matters. “If Milo puts up anything in the neighborhood of $50,000 or $60,000 in April, that’s impressive,” Loar said last week, NEWS 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 2022 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 3 WEST SEA COLONY DRIVE $1.950 Million Info:www.V267725.com Hendricks | Schwiering 772.234.5093 3150 60TH AVE $1.295 Million Info:www.V268050.com Brown | Talley 772.234.5148 2817 SAINT BARTS SQUARE $1.019 Million Info:www.V267628.com Lisa Pyden 772.234.5056 745 LAGOON ROAD $4.399 Million Info:www.V266550.com Bob Niederpruem 772.257.7456 618 LANTANA LANE $3.995 Million Info:www.V266562.com Brown | Talley 772.234.5148 1025 ANDARELLA WAY $2.799 Million Info:www.V250160.com Brown | Talley 772.234.5148 Explore More Of Our Exceptional Vero Beach Collection PremierEstateProperties.com 1010 Easter Lily Lane, Residence 201 $2.895 Million Info: www.V268321.com Lange Sykes 772.234.5034 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3 Thornton’s war chest

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 5 before Thornton filed his campaign finance report. “If he puts up $100,000? He’s a force to be reckoned with.” Thornton, though, said he’s taking nothing for granted. He said he appreciates every contribution, large or small, because he was “raised on food stamps” and “knows the value of a dollar,” adding, “When somebody donates their hard-earned money to me, they’re making a statement, telling me they believe in me and my vision for moving the Sheriff’s Office forward.” Running to unseat his boss, Thornton said he and Flowers have not discussed the race and he doesn’t know when the first-term incumbent will file the required paperwork to seek re-election. Thornton said he has received “a lot of encouragement” from deputies, but he will not accept political contributions from any of them – because he didn’t want to be subject to retaliation. He also vowed to run a “positive campaign” and not respond to the mudslinging that often targets early frontrunners. “I can’t predict how someone else is going to react to what my team and I have done, but my team and I are taking this campaign very seriously and I don’t want my supporters and friends to respond to foolishness,” Thornton said. “I’m not going to respond to it. “When I was 12 years old, my mother told me: If you see two people arguing from a distance, you can’t tell who’s the fool.” Thornton has spent most of the NEWS 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 2022 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 3 WEST SEA COLONY DRIVE $1.950 Million Info:www.V267725.com Hendricks | Schwiering 772.234.5093 3150 60TH AVE $1.295 Million Info:www.V268050.com Brown | Talley 772.234.5148 2817 SAINT BARTS SQUARE $1.019 Million Info:www.V267628.com Lisa Pyden 772.234.5056 745 LAGOON ROAD $4.399 Million Info:www.V266550.com Bob Niederpruem 772.257.7456 618 LANTANA LANE $3.995 Million Info:www.V266562.com Brown | Talley 772.234.5148 1025 ANDARELLA WAY $2.799 Million Info:www.V250160.com Brown | Talley 772.234.5148 Explore More Of Our Exceptional Vero Beach Collection PremierEstateProperties.com 1010 Easter Lily Lane, Residence 201 $2.895 Million Info: www.V268321.com Lange Sykes 772.234.5034 CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

6 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Longtime County Commissioner Joe Flescher said last week he still doesn’t believe any of the current candidates for sheriff – including incumbent Eric Flowers, who hasn’t yet filed to run but has said he will seek re-election – possess the attributes needed to successfully lead the 500-member agency. But he will not enter the race. “After much contemplation, I will not be a candidate for sheriff in 2024,” Flescher said Saturday in a phone interview. “It was a very tough call for me because of my deep concerns about the leadership, management and direction of Sheriff’s Office, as well as the men and women who serve in the agency and the community they work to keep safe. “I believe I have the tools required to do the job,” he added. “However, given the great challenges confronting the county, I feel the citizens of this community are best-served by me continuing on my current path and working for them in the office they’ve entrusted to me. “My place is here.” Flescher, who was elected to a fifth term as commissioner last year, made the decision to not run for sheriff last weekend, after wrestling with the possibility for more than a month. In fact, the 64-year-old former New York City cop and local sheriff’s deputy drove to the county’s Supervisor of Elections Office weeks ago to pick up the required paperwork, which he carried around in his briefcase and never filed. But after waking up in the wee hours of Saturday morning – his mind racing as the mental tug-o-war he had endured for weeks disrupted another night’s sleep – Flescher knew he needed to put an end to the exhausting inner turmoil and decide, if only for his own well-being. So he did. “I struggled with this decision because so many people have been so overwhelmingly supportive, encouraging me to step into that arena,” Flescher said. “And because of my past involvement with the Sheriff’s Office, I have a passion for the agency, which plays such an important role in our community. “I know how effective and efficient our Sheriff’s Office can be with a competent and trustworthy person at the top,” he added, “then I see where the agency is now and what our options are, and I don’t believe we have a viable candidate. “Just because you’re a good cop doesn’t mean you possess the tools necessary to manage an agency.” Three candidates have already filed: Fellsmere Police Chief Keith Touchberry and Sheriff’s Captain Milo Thornton, both Republicans, and former bank executive Deborah Cooney, who is running with no party affiliation. Touchberry was the runner-up to Flowers in the COVID-impacted 2020 Republican primary, and Cooney lost the general election in a landslide. This is Thornton’s first venture into politics. Flowers, meanwhile, has given no indication publicly as to when he will file to run. Retired federal agent Jim Eisenhut, a Vero Beach High School graduate and former sheriff’s deputy who went on to spend 20 years with the U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, told this newspaper last month that he was seriously considering a run NEWS The Finest PreOwned Rolex Watches Le Classique Jewelers and Watchmakers Every Rolex Watch comes backed with our 1 year Warranty. All Rolex Service and repairs are done on premises. Prices Upon Request 3001 Ocean Drive # 105, Vero Beach, FL 32963 772-231-2060 CONTINUED ON PAGE 8 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5 Thornton’s war chest past 25 years at the Sheriff’s Office, rising through the ranks while serving or overseeing deputies in every area of the agency – from corrections to community affairs, from road patrol to investigations, from SWAT to special ops. In fact, Thornton was the first Black deputy in the Sheriff’s Office to be promoted to captain, then major and then deputy chief, which made him the No. 3-ranking member of the agency. More noteworthy, though, was that he became the highest-ranking Black law enforcement in county history. He has earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Indian River State College, served as an instructor at the Florida Law Enforcement Training Academy in Fort Pierce for the past 19 years, and was the Sheriff’s Office’s “Law Enforcement Officer of the Year” in 2012. Appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2021, Thornton sits on IRSC’s board of trustees – one of several local boards on which he has served. He also has coached football at Vero Beach High School. His current assignment puts him in charge of the Sheriff’s Office’s school security division. BY RAY MCNULTY Staff Writer Flescher not high on sheriff’s field, but won’t join race CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

8 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ NEWS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6 Thornton’s war chest for sheriff next year. A week later, however – after saying several recently retired members of Flowers’ command staff and other current deputies had “reached out” to him and offered to support his campaign – Eisenhut decided to pursue a business opportunity instead. Flescher said he was “surprised and disappointed” when Eisenhut told him he wouldn’t run. “I was very hopeful when Jim announced he was going to run, because I felt he was a viable option,” Flescher said, adding that he worked with Eisenhut when both were deputies here. “When he told me he had reconsidered, I felt it was a loss, because I knew what he would’ve brought to the agency,” he added. “But I respect his decision.” Flescher said he remains optimistic that another candidate – “someone who wants the job because they have the credentials and experience to address the problems plaguing the Sheriff’s Office and work in the community’s best interests, not for self-serving reasons” – will get into the race. “It’s not too late,” he added. Deryl Loar, who served three terms as sheriff before winning a County Commission seat last year, disagreed. He said he doesn’t expect to see anyone else other than Flowers filing to run, mostly because the costs of running a campaign can be prohibitive. “It’s probably going to remain a three-man race,” Loar said, referring to the Republican primary that almost certainly will decide who becomes the county’s next sheriff. Loar agreed with Flescher that the county is facing daunting challenges, particularly those associated with growth, the environment and the economy – issues that will require commissioners to make difficult and pivotal decisions. “I have some concerns about the “We are stronger when we come together,” Thonrton said in his campaign’s news release. “My promise to the people is to run an outstanding Sheriff’s Office with highly professional leadership and to keep the safety of our residents and businesses as top priority. “We won’t tolerate the violence and unrest we see in other parts of this country,” he added. “Our quality of life here is second to none, and I know we can make it even better.” CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6 Flescher won’t run for sheriff CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Commercial real estate economy, which could look a lot different by the end of the year,” Loar said. “With some of the budget requests we’re getting, and the county’s expenses increasing, we’ve got a lot of work to do as a commission. “So I can understand why Joe made that decision.” Flescher said he’ll rely on the experience he gained over the past 17 years as a commissioner to guide him. “Institutional knowledge is valuable,” he said. “If I had decided to run for sheriff, the commission would lose that institutional knowledge. That’s what’s disappearing at the Sheriff’s Office.” Derek Arden, who owns a commercial property management company on the barrier island and is a broker with Landmark Commercial Realty Advisors, noting that, as of now, problems reported in the national press have not impacted the Vero market to any significant degree. “I don’t have any vacancies on Ocean, Cardinal or Beachland,” Arden said. “For the most part, lease rates on the island are rising,” with retail properties leading the way while office lags somewhat. “Commercial real estate in Vero Beach is doing OK,” agreed Mike Yurocko, vice president and broker, SLC Commercial, Inc. “Rental rates are holding their own." “We are writing leases and selling properties,” said Billy Moss, a broker with Lambert Commercial Real Estate. “It’s pretty much business as usual. Prices and lease rates in the warehouse segment are strong and the restaurant business is picking up. It was a tough time for restaurants during the pandemic, but that sector is recovering.” Worries about commercial real estate nationwide are not unfounded. REITs, funds that invest in commercial real estate, had a terrible year in 2022, losing a quarter of their value. Some offices still sit empty due to pandemic-inspired remote workers, who now perform their New York City and Chicago jobs from bungalows in Central Beach and similar locales. E-commerce was already taking a bite out of brick-and-mortar retail before the pandemic came along and accelerated that trend. And both inflation and high interest rates pose a direct threat to commercial property values because of the CAP – or capital appreciation – rate, the benchmark for many real estate investors. Most investors value property by comparing rental income to purchase price. If a property costs $1 million and it has a net rental income of $100,000, then the CAP rate is 10,

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 9 which is very attractive. But if rising expenses and interest rates push profit down to $50,000, the CAP rate is cut in half and investors will pay less for the property in order to get a better return on investment. As Yurocko explains it, “With inflation and rising mortgage rates, operation expenses are going up, along with insurance and taxes, at a much higher percentage than we have seen in recent years. And rents are not going up to a commensurate level – which means less profit. For buyers looking for a worthwhile CAP rate, the property is worth less.” On top of that, the turmoil among regional banks has sent tremors through the commercial real estate industry since regional banks make the majority of commercial real estate loans. And yet, despite all that, commercial property in Indian River County is doing just fine. Moss said factors supporting the market include the intrinsic desirability of the community that made it a magnet for pandemic NEWS CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

10 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ migrants who swelled the population and brought new wealth to the city. “A commercial real estate boom usually follows a housing boom because more people with more money need more commercial space and services,” Moss said. “Retirement isn’t what it used to be. Many people coming here these days need space for their existing business or want to start a new business like they had up north or down in Miami. We also have many national restaurant brands looking for space here since Vero has become more well known.” Meanwhile, the area is not overbuilt. “There is a finite supply of industrial property here, warehouses and so forth, and that is the strongest segment of the mainland market, with values and lease rates going up,” said Yurocko. “Retail properties are holding their own, though it’s harder to get rent increases. Office is the most challenging of all, but even there, I am not seeing higher vacancy rates, so far. The good thing is there is not tons of office space in Vero, so we don’t get impacted like Manhattan. We are not playing on that scale.” The shortage of office and other commercial space is most acute on the barrier island, especially in Central Beach, where, not coincidentally, lease rates are the highest in the county. On Monday morning, top online commercial property site LoopNet listed just nine office spaces for rent in all of 32963, most between 1,000 and 2,000 square feet, with lease rates ranging from $23 to $36 a square foot. There is even less for sale. According to LoopNet and other online listing sites, there is only one office or retail building available on the island – a 9,198-squarefoot office building at 505 Beachland Blvd., at the northeast corner of Beachland and Mockingbird Drive, that’s offered for $3,890,000 by Kevin Lambert, Lambert Commercial Real Estate. It is hard to tell what is happening with commercial property sales prices on the island because there are so few transactions. None has been recorded by the county property appraiser so far in 2023 and there were only three sales each year in 2022 and 2021. Only one of those properties had a prior sale recent enough to provide a useful comparison. The sale of that boutique mixed-use building zoned for office, retail or restaurant at 3096 Cardinal Dr. bodes well for values. Sold Dec. 1, 2021, for $1.825 million, it resold in July for $2.65 milNEWS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9 Commercial real estate

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 11 NEWS local residents about the project, has been providing periodic updates on the 7-Eleven closure in the town’s electronic newsletter, based on information received from the contractor, Wilson’s Petroleum Equipment, Inc. The convenience store next to the CVS drug store at the south entrance to the town has also been closed during construction, but the business is scheduled to reopen in about 10 days when the Mobil gas pumps are again ready to go. This week, crews were pouring concrete on both sides of the grounds around the gasoline pumps, and after that, only last-minute details remain, such as mounting the canopy over the island where the pumps are located to protect customers from rain and sun while fueling. Calvin, the 7-Eleven site supervisor for Wilson’s Petroleum Equipment, said the project came off smoothly without any major glitches. “We had to tear the old tanks out along with the dispensers, and put the new ones in. It all went pretty much on schedule.” He said there was no evidence of any leakage of hazardous materials into the ground from the old tanks. Calvin said he did not know the exact reason why 7-Eleven decided to undertake the tank replacement projlion, a 45 percent bump in less than eight months. “There is a need for more retail space on the beach,” said Moss of the supply and demand equation. “People from Boca and Delray and other parts of South Florida want to open shops on Ocean or Cardinal but there’s not much there. Very little is happening” in terms of people selling property or moving out of leased retail spaces. Even with lease rates topping out in the high $30s, twice what they were 10 years ago, Vero’s island is much more affordable for entrepreneurs and businesspeople than Palm Beach. Lease rates on that island range from $60 to $100 per square foot. Lease rates in Indian River County fall off as you go west, trending down into the $20s or high teens along Miracle Mile and in busy commercial plazas further west along route 60. Rates are in that same range along the 37th Street medical corridor and the Sebastian waterfront. Further south and west of town, space is available for $8 to $12 per square foot. In all locations, mainland or island, the quality of the building has a big impact on what tenants are willing to pay. ect at this time, but he added that it’s common sense to conclude that “if it ain’t broke, you don’t fix it.” He went on to explain that there are new guidelines from the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on underground steel tanks, and that gasoline stations around the country have been gradually bringing their underground tanks up the new standards. “That’s usually what’s happening on these projects,” Calvin said. Hazardous materials leaks from old tanks are a major environmental problem and companies are anxious to avoid liability for past spills of oil and gasoline on their properties. As a result, Wawa, the Pennsylvania-based chain of convenience stores and gas stations which has been expanding like wildfire throughout Florida, has made a corporate decision to avoid any former gas station sites for its planned new stores. The 7-Eleven gas station on the island had been selling gasoline at prices usually a little higher than the higher-volume stations on the mainland, but many island residents don’t seem to mind paying somewhat more for the convenience of not having to cross one of the bridges just to get gas. “I’d probably spend more driving over to the mainland to get gas,” said one resident who was anxious for the island 7-Eleven to reopen. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 7-Eleven to reopen

12 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ for excellence and recognizing that may not always equate to wins. “In my coaching career, I start with the relationships,” Pliske said. “You get the buy-in from your players and they know you care about them … I always say, ‘Praise the effort, not the results.’ If we focus on the effort, you can get the most out of whoever you coach. It lends itself to breeding success through the long term.” One of the teams seeing the pay off of such a philosophy is the boys basketball team. In the 2022-23 season, the Pirates put together their best winning percentage since 2013-14 at 73 percent culminating in a district championship. But the 2022-23 school year was a mix of victory and tough defeat for St. Ed’s teams. The baseball season was the Pirate’s worst since 2005-06, yet this year’s boys lacrosse season continued a trend of strong seasons ending in state tournaments. “I think it gets back to numbers,” Hirstein said. “You need depth, you really need 15 to 17 baseball players. We had 13 or 14. In a small school, it tends to run in cycles where some sports really take off for a couple of years because there is a group that’s really good and then they graduate. We’re in the early phases of the pickup of baseball. “Every year is a little different – we had a number of boys try out for football last year, 45 or so,” Hirstein said. “For our size, that’s a pretty good number. In some of our younger grades, we have a lot of interest in baseball. We have a lot of boys playing Little League here in Vero Beach, so there is hope there.” Pliske’s lacrosse background – including being selected to the South Florida Chapter of the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame as a Truly Great Coach in 2011 – could well be a boon to St. Edward’s current most popular sport. The 2023 boys lacrosse team finished its season at 13-6 with a loss in the region semifinals of the state tournament, while the girls lacrosse team posted a record of 9-6 capped by a loss in the semifinals of the district tournament. “You always like to have an athletic director that has coached because they understand what their coaches are going through,” Hirstein said. “I think it adds legitimacy to the position. Lacrosse, it just so happened that she played in college and has coached for a long time.” Investing in Hirstein’s stated commitment to excellence, St. Edward’s has laid plans for new locker rooms, a new press box and new athletic offices. Hirstein said St. Edward’s weight rooms were just refinished and a new pool will be complete around December or January. “I think we’re on the right path,’ Hirstein said. “Looking through the lens of excellence and that includes everything we do, even our facilities. It’s continuing to look at our coaches – we have a number of part-time coaches who aren’t on staff. It’s continuing to mentor those coaches so they buy in to our philosophy of the whole child.” “I’ve been a mentor for coaches throughout my career at Pine Crest. So, I just plan on continuing that,” Pliske said. “Not everybody has the same approach to coaching and I think that’s OK. We can learn from each other’s strengths and weaknesses to build successful programs. I think finding out what makes everybody tick is going to be the most important thing.” plicants for the post at St. Ed’s, according to head of school Dr. Stuart Hirstein. “I know the president of Pine Crest very well, and Eileen was highly recommended. She’s got the emotional IQ and I think she’s going to do very well here,” Hirstein said. “Our mission is really about the whole child. It’s the academic piece, of course; it’s the athletic, the arts. I think we have around 70 percent of our kids participate in athletics and you learn as much on the playing fields as you do in a classroom.” Pliske will take over for Greg Zugrave, who served in the role for the previous two years. Current associate athletic director/athletic trainer Jeremy Gillan will retain his role with the school as it transitions into new leadership. “Over the next couple of years, it’s allowing Eileen to take control of the department and allow her to come in and make it her own. And just to give our student athletes a great experience. Ultimately, that’s what it’s all about,” Hirstein said. Despite the success teams in several sports had over the school year, a basis of the personality match between Pliske and St. Edward’s lies in striving NEWS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 St. Ed’s new athletic director St. Edward’s new athletic director Eileen Pliske.

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 13 The calls keep coming in – to the county offices, Vero Beach City Hall and even local law enforcement agencies – from residents frustrated by what has been happening at our community’s railroad crossings the past few months. Motorists are fed up with the recurring delays as work crews have closed crossings throughout the county to make the structural and safety improvements necessary to accommodate the Brightline passenger trains that soon will zip through our community 32 times each day at 100-plus mph. And they should be. But they’re complaining to the wrong people. Some among the thousands of newcomers who’ve flocked to the Vero Beach area the past few years might not know this, but: Our local governments have no say in what the Florida East Coast Railway does with its tracks on property it has owned since the late 1800s. Not only does the railroad grant us permission to cross their tracks, but the county and city pay annual licensing fees of more than $5,000 for the privilege to do so. Our local governments also cover the crossings’ annual maintenance costs, which, depending on size and equipment, can range from $2,600 to $9,800. And every seven years or so, when crossings need to undergo a significant overhaul or complete rebuild, we pay for that, too – at costs ranging from $80,000 to $120,000. Those projects, however, are staggered. In return, we get to drive across their tracks at the 31 crossings in our county, which includes seven in Vero Beach and three in Sebastian. “The railroad was here first,” County Administrator John Titkanich said. “That’s the bottom line.” So it doesn’t matter that the Brightline-related work has resulted in some mind-boggling scenarios, at least a couple of which go well-beyond the daily late-afternoon freight trains that park north of Aviation Boulevard and block a seemingly endless stretch of crossings through the county’s midsection for up to 30 minutes. That’s been a problem for years. The Brightline project, though, created workday traffic backups along major roadways, including U.S. 1 alongside downtown Vero, as well as on busy eastwest corridors from Oslo to Gifford. Especially annoying were the crossings, such as the one at 53rd Street, where the gates would open and close every few minutes when there wasn’t a train in sight. This would go on for hours. Worse, however, were the crossings where the gates remained upright while a freight train rolled through – incidents that occurred at two locations and were documented via video on local community Facebook pages, where local posters vented their anger, expressed shock and concern, and mocked the way the project was handled. Can you imagine if the gates fail to come down with a Brightline train hurtling down the tracks? Longtime County Commissioner Joe Flescher can. “A passenger train traveling at those speeds? It would be catastrophic,” Flescher said. “Our emergency services would be strained beyond their limits. We can only hope it doesn’t happen, but we’ve seen such incidents in other jurisdictions.” The county spent more than $4 million opposing the Brightline project, only to succumb and settle for the company agreeing to cover the costs of the needed safety improvements at the crossings. All things considered – particularly the railroad’s far-reaching clout and long history – it was a tremendous victory. “You have to remember the importance of expanding rail service 100 years ago,” Flescher said. “The railroads opened up the country, and the people who developed them were afforded great latitude by the federal government, which wanted to encourage them to expand. “The tracks here might not be in the most convenient place right now, given the growth in our community and the needs of our citizens, but it was the best place then.” Or as Vero Beach City Manager MonNEWS BY RAY MCNULTY Staff Writer Complaints about rail work grow louder, but fall on deaf ears MY VERO CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

14 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ BY GEORGE ANDREASSI Staff Writer Work starts (3 years late) on bridge at south end of island CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13 My Vero te Falls put it: “When the tracks were built, there was nobody here.” It remains a concern, however, that Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital is located east of the railroad tracks and most of the county’s population resides west of the tracks. So either we find a way for emergency services vehicles to circumnavigate the tracks – building a flyover at the intersection of Aviation Boulevard and U.S. 1 has been proposed – or we need to build another hospital out west. Whatever we do, it’s up to us to overcome the obstacles posed by the railroad, which doesn’t seem to care how its trains impact our community and quality of life. Nor does it need to. Unfortunately, there’s nobody we can call about that. After nearly three years of delays and $50 million in cost overruns, construction started May 1 on a Bridge Replacement Project at the southern tip of our barrier island which will upgrade access for residents seeking to cross over to the mainland in Fort Pierce. Florida Department of Transportation anticipates completing the $111.5 million project in late 2027, replacing a drawbridge built in 1963 with a new high-rise bridge, said Samantha Kayser, a spokeswoman for the project. An average of 10,940 vehicles per day traverse A1A at the southern end of the island, according to a Fall 2022 St. Lucie County traffic report. Among them are hundreds of homeowners who live on the island both in St. Lucie County and a dozen miles to the north in unincorporated Indian River County, Vero Beach, and Indian River Shores. The new bridge will have an 85-foot vertical clearance and a 125-foot-wide channel, Kayser said. The old drawbridge has a 25-foot clearance when closed and a 90-foot-wide channel. The new bridge will be 64-feet, 3-inches wide with a 12-foot travel lane and an 8-foot shoulder and bike lane in each direction, Kayser said. The old drawbridge has an 11-foot travel lane and a 4-foot-wide shoulder in each direction and a five-foot-wide sidewalk on the north side. FDOT had announced plans in January 2017 to start construction in August 2020 at an estimated cost of $61 million, but had difficulty acquiring property, designing access roads to nearby businesses and obtaining permits. FDOT contractor Vecillio & Grogan Inc., of Beckley, West Virginia, has stationed two large construction cranes just north of the eastern landing of the 60-year-old bridge. “We’ll be constructing portions of the new bridge next to the old bridge,” Kayser told St. Lucie County commissioners last Tuesday. “The existing bridge will be demolished in Phase 4 after the completion of the new bridge.” Motorists will be warned in advance when FDOT plans to close the southern end of A1A for the installation of beams on the new bridge, Kayser said. Motorists will be detoured to the 17th Street Causeway in Vero Beach to travel to and from the island. A1A will also be closed east of U.S. 1 during Phase 3 of the project, while the new bridge is being built over Old Dixie Highway and the Florida East Coast Railway crossing, Kayser said. In addition, motorists traveling on A1A may be delayed by night-time lane closures between 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., as needed for construction, Kayser said. Otherwise, FDOT intends to keep all lanes open on the drawbridge until the new 1.2-mile-long bridge is completed, Kayser said. The contract time is 1,357 days, not including holidays and weather-related delays. “Marine traffic will be maintained and emergency vehicle access will be maintained at all times,” Kayser said. “Access to properties will be maintained at all times. The project team will coordinate with businesses if temporary driveway closures are needed.” A 12-foot-wide segment of the East Coast Greenway will be built on the north side of the new bridge and an 8-foot sidewalk on the south side, Kayser said.

PATTI CARLSON, BARBARA PETRILLO, ELKE FETTEROLF, BRENDA LLOYD AND JEAN CRAVENS BOOGIE + BINGO A WINNING COMBO AT SENIOR RESOURCE BENEFIT

16 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Guests got into the groove at a tuneful Boogie Wonderland-themed Bingo Luncheon at the Vero Beach Country Club to benefit the Senior Resource Association. To set the tone, guests were greeted outside by a disco-dancing roller skater while a Diana Ross impersonator entertained indoors. Fully embracing the theme, folks outdid themselves wearing flared pants, sequins and platform shoes – everything was groovy. Before sitting down to lunch, people vied for various silent-auction items, and purchased raffle tickets for a lovely necklace donated by John Michael Matthews Fine Jewelry. “This music takes me back. It’s so fun, jamming to great sounds of disco,” said Karen Deigl, SRA president/CEO, who was dubbed the afternoon’s ‘Dancing Queen.’ “It’s wonderful to see this overflowing room with so many people that have been with us for so many years. Thank you for being with us again. I’m again humbled by the outpouring of support for our seniors,” said Deigl, thanking everyBY STEPHANIE LaBAFF Staff Writer Boogie + Bingo A winning combo at Senior RRessource bbenefit Laurie Wykoff, Linda Triolo and JoAnn Crosby. PHOTOS BY JOSHUA KODIS Stephanie MacWilliam and Susan Perry. Karen Deigl and Jamir Howard.

PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 17 one present for their support. “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. The SRA is committed to improving quality of life for seniors and their families in Indian River County by creating meaningful social connections for seniors, actively providing hands-on support for their everyday needs, engaging the community, advocating for seniors and empowering older adults through independence.” Among the many SRA programs and services are Meals on Wheels, GoLine public transportation, Day Away, Public Guardianship, InHome services, emergency alert services, energy bill assistance, community coach transportation, and durable medical equipment. “None of this would be possible without your help. Hundreds of devoted volunteers give their time, talent and compassion to Senior Resource Association,” said Deigl. CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

18 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ The dynamic husband-and-wife team of Jeffrey Petersen and Maria Segura emceed the games, with Maria challenging guests to locate disco-themed items in their handbags during the Purse game and Jeffrey calling out the bingo game as Maria pulled the balls. Instead of dancing the night away, guests dabbed furiously at their cards, first during traditional bingo, and later with music bingo, when songs such as “Boogie Fever,” “Last Dance” and “Funky Town” took everyone back to the era of disco balls glittering in classy urban nightlife places, such as Studio 54. After the last B-I-N-G-O! was called out, Liz Bruner, vice president of philanthropy, stressed that the volunteers making meal deliveries are often the seniors’ only point of contact. “Meals on Wheels shines a light into some very lonely lives. We take for granted being able to shop for our own food, make our own beds or stay home alone. A lot of these things our older neighbors no longer have the ability to do. When they count on SRA, they’re really counting on you,” said Bruner. For more information, visit Senior ResourceAssociation.org. Jeffrey Petersen and Maria Segura. April Dooley, Carmen Stork, Maggie Foreman and Maureen Campeau. Este Brashears, Kjestine Bijur and Leslie Bergstrom. Susan Clay and Sharon Newbold. Sharon Baumgardt, Karen Schievelbein and Eva Gurley. Kay Brown and Brenda Lloyd. Deborah Wood, Barb Ellison, Ginette Rustin and Barb Gohl. Nicki Maslin and Tiffany Sweeney. Shay Wallace, Shasta Woolfork, Caitlin Kennedy and Sherrie Smith. Carla and John Michael Matthews. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17

PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 19 More than 250 people answered the call to raise funds to improve the lives of individuals affected by cancer at the Answer to Cancer Golf Tournament and Fundraising Dinner at the Grand Harbor Golf Club. Additional activities were added this year, including a 2K Walk/Run along the back of the newly reopened River Course. There was also a pregolf Carnival, complete with a dunk tank, a wine pull and the sale of oyster ornaments made by committee members. “Just seeing the outpouring of support from the members of Grand Harbor was really, really heartwarming,” said event chair Jeanine Nestor, thanking the committee, volunteers and sponsors, who helped make the event successful. Answer to Cancer was co-founded 15 years ago by Carole Plante and the late Don Casey. His wife, Carole Casey, chaired many years until passing the torch to Nestor this year. “All of the money goes directly to the Scully Welsh Cancer Center,” said Nestor, explaining the committee meets with Dr. Eleni Anastasia Tousimis, Cancer Center medical director, and her team to determine which specific programs and projects they wish to support. “We’ve raised more than $1 million to date, and we are going to continue doing so,” said Nestor, pointing out Unquestionable commitment to ‘Answer to Cancer’ mission BY MARY SCHENKEL Staff Writer Jeanine Nestor, Dr. Andrew Salzberg and Roxanne Hall. PHOTOS BY MARY SCHENKEL Bette Nielsen, Carole Casey and Sharon Kramer. CONTINUED ON PAGE 20 Jan and David Evans. Ani Kruger and Kim Strom. Gail and Scott Alexander.

20 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ 710 15th Pl., Vero Beach, FL 32960 I 772.999.3292 VBAutoSports.net Hours: Mon-Fri: 9:30 am - 5:30 pm Saturday: 10am - 4pm I Closed Sunday Buy I Sell I Trade I Consignment I Financing 2003 Chev. Corv. 50th Anniv. Ed. Conv., 19K Mi. 1997 BMW Z3, 40K Mi. 2016 Porsche Boxster PDK, 36K Mi. 2012 Mercedes-Benz E350 Cabriolet, 47K Mi. 2014 911 Carrera PDK, 58K Mi. 2013 Mercedes-Benz SL550, 56K Mi. $14K $24K $36K $34K $49K $64K Family Owned & Operated NOW OFFERING Vero’s Exclusive Destination for Exciting Automobiles Specializing in Exotic, Luxury & Collectible Automobiles RECONDITIONING | DETAILING she didn’t imagine there was anyone in the room who hadn’t been affected by cancer in one way or another. “We’re here for the patients and their families.” She said this year’s fundraising would go toward a few projects. “One of them is a food cart. When people go in for infusions, there is no food at the Cancer Center,” said Nestor, noting that this will give them much-needed access to nutritious foods. Handheld ultrasound devices are also being funded, enabling doctors to do an ultrasound and get results then and there, without the patient having to wait to go elsewhere. They will also fund the Integrative Medicine program, which combines alternative and conventional medicines. The guest speaker was Dr. Andrew Salzberg, a plastic surgeon at the Cancer Center, who previously was chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery at the Mount Sinai Hospital System. Michael Gibson and Tom Kruger. Celia Montgomery and Maryann Braden. Sue Post and June Bercaw. David and Sherry Brown. Bob Garrison and Mary Potter. Nick Halchak, Sherry Henderson and Carol Halchak. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19

PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 21 In 2001, Salzberg pioneered the Direct to Implant or “one-step” breast reconstruction which replaced the traditional tissue expander method, and he has since reconstructed more than 1,500 breasts. “The projects that you heard about are near and dear to our hearts,” said Salzberg, noting that he utilizes the project funded last year, a 3-dimensional camera that can simulate how a patient will look after surgery. “I truly appreciate everything you’re doing here. It’s an amazing event,” said Salzberg. Other projects funded over the years include DigniCaps, which cool hair follicles to help chemo patients keep their hair; the Oncology Nurse Navigation Program, which assists patients and families to better interface with physicians throughout the complicated cancer process; AccuVein technology, to enable accurate venipuncture for chemotherapy patients; and computers for mobile units.

22 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Representatives from 37 local charities whose programs support children and education were given a boost as they gathered at Quail Valley at the Pointe to receive grants as the latest Nonprofit Partners of Quail Valley Charities. This year, $725,000 was granted to programs impacting children’s lives, bringing its 21-year total to more than $11 million. “Quail Valley thanks each and every one of you for your dedication to the work you do with your organizations. Because you are the ones that are in the trenches with these kids every day to make their lives better,” said Kathy Mulvey, Quail Valley Club CEO/owner. “Some days you might think that you’re not making a difference, but you really are, so thank you. Keep up the good work. We, as a community, are making enormous strides to help so many young people, in molding them to become great additions to our community in years to come.” Martha Redner, Quail Valley Charities executive director, recognized all those involved in the fundraising efforts, from the committees and members to Quail’s department heads and staff. “As you know, Quail Valley Charities’ mission is supporting children’s programs with nonprofits within Indian River County for their education and well-being. At Quail Valley Charities, we all volunteer to raise all this money for you all. So today is a great day,” said Redner. “How many of you know what day this is? To those of us who work on this, it is the best day of the year. We work hard, we also play hard as we try to raise the money,” said Wanda Lincoln, longtime chair of Quail Valley Charities. “I can’t tell you how much it means to live in a community that values their children. We’re very, very fortunate to live here. We’re very, very fortunate to have all of you who do so much for the children,” added Lincoln. Quail Valley Charities contributes funds for specific programs, which this year were: A Caring Center for Women, Crib Club Shopping Boutique; Ballet Vero Beach, Salary Underwriting for the Student Matinee Series; Big Brothers Big Sisters, Passport to Literacy; Boys and Girls Clubs of Indian River County, Project Learn; Childcare Resources, High Quality Early Childhood Educational Programming; Children’s Home Society, Teen Life Choices; Crossover Mission, 2023 Summer Program; Economic Opportunities Council, Giving Kids a Head Start with Social and Emotional Learning Enrichment Activities; Education Foundation of Indian River County, High Impact Grants; Environmental Learning Center, Environmental Quail Valley ‘checks’ all the charitable boxes with $725K BY MARY SCHENKEL Staff Writer Wanda Lincoln, Jay Robinson and Connie Cotherman. PHOTOS BY JOSHUA KODIS

PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 23 STEAM Career Mentorship: Inspiring Achievement for At-Risk Youth; Feed the Lambs Enrichment Program, After School Tutoring and Summer Camp; Gifford Youth Achievement Center, After School Educational Program; Hibiscus Children’s Center, Career Pathways to Independence; Indian River County Healthy Start Coalition, Babies and Beyond; Indian River Golf Foundation, Player & Leadership Development; Junior Achievement of the Palm Beaches & Treasure Coast, Junior Achievement K-12th; Laura (Riding) Jackson Foundation, Literary Garden and Teen Programs; LifeBuilders of the TC, LifeBuilders Young Futures of Indian River County; McKee Botanical Garden, Children’s Fun Pack Activity Guide and Wabasso Day; Mental Health Assoc., Youth Skill Building; Ocean Research & Conservation Association, A Day in the Life of the InMartha Redner, Claudia Owen, Gail Shepherd and Shotsi LaJoie. Kathy Mulvey, Freddie Woolfork and Kristin Touchberry. CONTINUED ON PAGE 24 Jonathan Sternberg, Bill Motta, Robyn Orzel and Sara Klein. Connie Dominianni, Anne Lanier, Sandi Creyaufmiller and Amy Wagner. Amy Gallo and Gerri Rorick. April Willis and Casey Lunceford.

24 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ dian River Lagoon Education Program and Data Jam; Quail Valley Employee Education Fund, Scholarships; Redlands Christian Migrant Association, Early Childhood Specialist; Safe Families for Children, Volunteer Mobilization and Authorization; Sally Wilkey Foundation, SWF Core Support Project; Scholarship Foundation of Indian River County, QVC Scholarship Award; Special Equestrians, Teaching Social Skills Using Equine Adaptive Activities Riding Program; Substance Awareness Center, Re-Direct; Gifford Youth Orchestra, Staging for our Future; Hope for Families Center, Reading Resource Center Support; The Learning Alliance, Literacy Leader Credential Program Phase 2; Young Journalist, Afterschool Academic Enrichment; Vero Beach Museum of Art, A+ Art; Vero Beach Rowing, Youth Rowing; Victory Kids, Mind-Body-Soul Performance Camps; Willis Sports Association, Fun at Bat; Youth Guidance, Mentoring Academy; Youth Sailing Foundation, 2023 Summer Sailing Scholarships. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23

26 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Members of Head, Heart & Hands of Indian River Club were pleased to present grant checks to 21 local nonprofits totaling $200,000 during its ninth annual Grant Award Ceremony. Recipients gathered poolside near the community clubhouse to accept grants ranging from $5,000 to $15,000 for programs that support health, education, youth activities, homelessness, environmental change, cultural programs and scientific research. This philanthropic arm of the Indian River Club has contributed more than $1 million to local charities since 2013, when they formed Head, Heart and Hands to pursue their shared mission of improving the quality of life for all residents of the county, said Steve Corrick, grant committee co-chair with Peter Lubell. Corrick explained that head represents educational outreach, heart signifies funding, and hands their volunteer efforts, which he said they have plans to expand upon this year. “You are the real heroes to us,” said Corrick to the nonprofit representatives. “Our purpose here today is to introduce 21 outstanding nonprofit organizations and to learn a bit about the programs and projects that Head, Heart and Hands have chosen to fund this year. Each of these organizations does tremendous work in our county,” said Corrick. “I don’t have to tell you how much Head, Heart & Hands philanthropy helps nonprofit ‘heroes’ BY STEPHANIE LaBAFF Staff Writer Amy Banov, Diane Driscoll, Peggy McCord and Shannon Maitland. PHOTOS BY JOSHUA KODIS AND STEPHANIE LaBAFF

PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 27 need there is in our community. You’ll hear from the grant recipients about that need and about the people they help. Children, teens, young adults, parents, teachers, caregivers, seniors, and people who have encountered violence in their lives or who cannot read, who have health issues, who have nowhere to go, or who may need to get away from trouble in the neighborhood,” said Corrick. He invited members of the grant 2018 PORSCHE MACAN • 33,386 Mi. 2016 MERCEDES-BENZ SL 400 • 38,427 Mi. 2009 PORSCHE 911 CARRERA 4S • 26,202 Mi. 2019 BMW M850i XDRIVE CONV • 6,759 MI. 2020 PORSCHE PANAMERA • 4,212 Mi. 2010 FERRARI CALIFORNIA • 32,526 Mi. 2023 LAND ROVER DEFENDER X • 2,787 Mi. 2018 BENTLEY BENTAYGA W12 • 44,164 Mi. 2022 MERCEDES-BENZ AMG® SL 55 • 1,003 Mi. $94,730 $112,750 $138,838 $41,840 $44,750 $69,750 $77,740 $84,847 $93,750 SELL US YOUR CAR. WE PAY TOP DOLLAR. IMMEDIATE PAYMENT. STATE OF THE ART SERVICE FACILITY • WE SERVICE ALL MAKES AND MODELS • FINANCING AVAILABLE WINTER HOURS Monday - Friday: 9:00AM - 5:00PM • Saturday: 9:00AM - 4:00PM • Sunday: Closed Service Hours: Monday - Friday: 9:00AM - 5:00PM ROSNER MOTORSPORTS Contact Us Sales: (772) 469-4600 rosnermotorsports.com 2813 Flight Safety Dr., Vero Beach, FL 32960 TREASURE COAST’S LUXURY DESTINATION SHOP 24/7 AT ROSNERMOTORSPORTS.COM 52 Years In Business! Ed Perry, Steve Corrick, Liz Bahl and Barbara Hammond. CONTINUED ON PAGE 28

28 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ proposal committee to introduce representatives from each of the nonprofits so they could share details of the programs being funded. This year, grants were provided to Bike Walk IRC, Boys & Girls Clubs, Childcare Resources, Children’s Home Society, Crossover Mission, Feed the Lambs, Gifford Youth Orchestra, Hibiscus Children’s Center, Hope for Families Center, LifeBuilders of the Treasure Coast, Literacy Services, Pelican Island Audubon Society, SafeSpace, Senior Resource Association, Special Equestrians of the Treasure Coast, Sunshine Physical Therapy Clinic, The Learning Alliance, The Source, United Against Poverty, Veterans Council of Indian River County and Youth Guidance. Sabrina Barnes, Laurie Rankin, Kristi Walsh and Jonathan Orozco. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 27 Karen Johnson and Sandi Creyaufmiller. Shanen Cox, Becky Stiles, Cynthia Ryan and Jane McNulty Snead. Peggy McCord, Eric Kohrhamer and Diamond Litty.

PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 29 Supporters of the arts made their way to McKee Botanical Garden for the latest Cultural Connection event, a lovely Sip and Stroll evening hosted by the Cultural Council of Indian River County, Salvador Deli and McKee. It was a gorgeous night for the gathering, where guests wandered about the lush landscape, stopping at stations along the way to enjoy Salvador Deli’s “Artfully elevated pub food,” paired with a selection of wines. The goal of Cultural Connections’ series of events is to acquaint individuals from local organizations with our cultural arts venues, so that they might share knowledge of them with their clients and others in the community. “This is one of four social networking events. One of our initiatives at the Cultural Council is to bring people together in cool locations to celebrate the arts,” said Cultural Council board member Adam Conard. “We invite people from the community to highlight how the Cultural Council is bringing people together. We’re handing out free Cultural Arts Guides and answering questions. A lot of people want to learn more about the Cultural Council and that’s why we’re here.” The first event took place at the Environmental Learning Center and the next one is scheduled for June 14 at the Vero Beach Museum of Art. Alicia Quinn, Cultural Council operations manager, said that event will include mini docent-led tours of the juried exhibition Treasure Coast Creates: A TribCultural community converges on McKee for ‘Sip and Stroll’ BY MARY SCHENKEL Staff Writer Adam Conard, Sheila McAvoy and Christine Hobart. PHOTOS BY MARY SCHENKEL Courtney Cotherman, Yvonne Steere and Deborah Swan. Rick Norry and Linda Moore. CONTINUED ON PAGE 30

30 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ ute to Local Artists. The exhibit, on display at the VBMA May 20 to Sept. 3, features recent works by contemporary artists living in and around Vero Beach, and some of those artists will be in attendance. The fourth in the series will take place at Riverside Theatre this summer, but the date is not yet finalized. “They’re all people who are coming looking to make connections to network in the arts,” said Conard. “Outside of the arts, we also have sponsors who are part of the event. Our sponsors change every event, so there’s always some new groups here.” For more information, visit culturalAlicia Quinn and Kiki Rohr. council.org. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 29

32 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ INSIGHT COVER STORY What can go in my blue bin? The answer – and even the bin color – can be different from one neighborhood to the next, so we’ll try to help curb the confusion. Most U.S. residents who have recycling at home can toss items such as cans, bottles, cardboard and old editions of their newspaper together into one container. That’s called single-stream recycling, and while it is convenient for us, it means all those different materials have to be trucked away and sorted before they can go to a paper mill, a plastics recycler and so on. So far, so good. This is the basic sorting process at a materials recovery facility. The types of equipment and the arrangement of the machines may be different in other places. The puzzling geographical differences between what can and can’t go into a bin arise because not all sorting technology is identical, and not all local markets for recycling materials are the same. The result is that a lot of people mean well but recycle wrong. Fortunately, if you know some key information, you can improve your recycling no matter where you live. By Bonnie Berkowitz, Artur Galocha, Adrian Blanco and Samantha Baita Do recyclables have to be totally clean and dry, or more like my-dog-licked-out-all-thepeanut-butter clean and dry? A. Squeekly clean and completely dry. B. Rinsed – even Spotcleaned – is usually good enough. C. Doesn’t matter. Gunk will boil off in the process. Plastic caps and bottles seem like different things, so should I leave the caps off? A. Yes. That will help in the sorting. B. Only if the cap is a different color than the bottle. C. No, the caps are too small by themselves. Plastic bags are recyclable, so they just go in the bin, right? A. Yes, anything that is recyclable can go in the bin. B. No, take plastic bags to the grocery store. Okay, no bags in the bin. Can all other plastics go in? A. Sure. Why not? B. Doesn’t matter. Plastics never get recycled anyway. C. No, but bottles and jugs are accepted most places. RECYCLING QUIZ CONTINUED ON PAGE 34

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 33 INSIGHT COVER STORY Cans and bottles get crushed anyway, so can I just do that myself to save space in my bin? A. Yes, that’s a fun party activity. B. Only if you can get them to be very small and flat. C. No, the sorting machines may not recognize them. Which handy slogan helps consumers know whether something should go in their recycling bin? A. If in doubt, throw it out. B. Want to win? Chuck it in! C. Never stress, just take a guess. Do I need to remove tape from boxes, staples from catalogues and windows from envelopes? A. No, no, and no. B. Yes, yes, and yes. What’s the worst thing I can put in my bin? A. A bicycle. B. A battery. C. A car bumper. Now go to the Answers, and we will tell you whether you are right according to what is accepted in Indian River County.

34 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 33 INSIGHT COVER STORY Not everything that is technically recyclable can go into your household bin because of how the sorting system works. A conveyor belt carries the jumble of items through several machines that separate out typical household items into various bunkers: cardboard, paper, plastic, aluminum, steel and, in some places, glass. There’s a lot of tumbling, spinning, whirling and flinging. Because of plastic bags and other rogue machine-snaggers, such as wire hangers, hoses and holiday light strings, there’s also a lot of tangling. At the materials recovery facility where a large portion of the singlestream recycling is sorted, plastic bags are a perpetual problem. They wrap around machinery and are especially menacing to star screens, which use rotating rubber star-shaped disks to move cardboard to its bunker. The line at the plant frequently has to shut down for people to disentangle bags from the machines. This is also why you shouldn’t bag your recycling in plastic. Many grocery stores have collection containers at their entrances for bags, which then bypass the sorting plant and go directly to a mill. The cleaner the better, but items don’t have to be immaculate to be recyclable. If you rinse well, shake out the water, and leave less than a teaspoon of residual goo – roughly a bottle cap full – it’s fine. If you can’t get a container that clean, it’s better to throw it in the trash. That extra peanut butter in the jar or soda in the can can attract bugs or rodents to the sorting facility, and it can ooze all over other materials and cause problems for the mills. That’s why pizza boxes – even a basically clean pizza box with just a splotch or two of grease – should not go into recycling. Waterlogged paper and cardboard THE CORRECT ANSWERS ARE... Answer B: No, take plastic bags to the grocery store. Answer C: No, but bottles and jugs are accepted most places. Answer B: Rinsed – even Spot cleaned – is usually good enough. should go into the trash as well because wet paper falls apart too easily and clings to other items. Paper mills will reject bales that contain too much moisture. But don’t panic if your bin gets sprinkled on right before the truck comes. Plants often slow down the line on rainy days and tumble the loads around more to give damp items a chance to air-dry. There are many thorny reasons a lot of plastic is not recycled, and the issues are much too large for a quick quiz. But two types of plastic bottles and jugs have the best chance of being recycled. You can recognize them by the little 1 or 2 inside the recycling symbols that are stamped onto containers. Nos. 1 and 2 products are recyclable, while No. 5 products are also recyclable in Indian River County. Clear water and soda bottles are the best examples of No. 1s. Some No. 1 products that aren’t bottles, such as clear produce containers, are made differently and are accepted in more than half of communities. Jugs that contain milk or laundry detergent are common examples of No. 2s. Examples of No. 5 products include yogurt containers and margarine tubs. Very few places accept other types of plastics. Recycle plastic caps on plastic bottles, even if they’re made of different plastics. The bottles are fine without caps, but the caps shouldn’t go in alone. Anything smaller than a credit card may end up someplace it shouldn’t be Answer C: No, the caps are too small by themselves.

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 35 INSIGHT COVER STORY during the sorting process, and usually those little bits end up in the glass. That’s “contamination” in recycling terms, when one material accidentally ends up in another. A little bit of contamination is expected. It can account for about 2 to 3 percent of every two-ton bale of metal, plastic, paper or cardboard that leaves the recycling facility. But contamination is a huge problem for the glass because of the way the sorting process works. In part because of this problem, some communities no longer allow glass to go in curbside recycling. Not quite. You should empty and break down cardboard boxes, which will save space in the truck and will make the cardboard easier to sort. If you can, pull off the tape and throw it away, but you don’t have to get it all. Mills process paper and cardboard in pulping tanks with water and chemicals that break it down into fibers. Tape, staples, plastic windows, glue and any other non-fibery things are filtered out before the fibers are dried and pressed into something new. Indian River County does not recycle pizza boxes (dirty or clean), milk cartons, soup boxes or other aseptic containers. Even though everything will eventually be compressed into bales, presmashing won’t help and may keep those items from getting recycled. But even not-that-flat items such as cans that were squashed top-tobottom could literally fall through the cracks — or rather through the holes of a ballistic separator. That machine Answer A: No, no and no. Answer C: No, the sorting machines may not recognize them. functions like a very bumpy sieve, tossing the plastic and metal on perforated paddles to shake out small debris. Bottles or cans that have been crushed too small can fall out of the system before they get to the optical sorters that look for plastics or the magnets that pull out the metals. Plenty of other potentially recyclable items shouldn’t go in your bin, because they are too large, too sharp, too weirdly shaped or too dangerous for sorting machines to handle. Batteries are the supervillains, and lithium-ion ones are a particularly big problem in Indian River County. They can explode when damaged and have caused fires that burned down entire plants. Batteries and the gadgets they power, such as cellphones, laptops and toys, should be taken to e-waste collection centers for recycling. As for the bike and the bumper, all large items and most metals besides food and beverage cans need to be taken to a scrap metal facility, transfer station or landfill for special recycling or disposal. The Environmental Protection Agency recommends checking Earth911 and RecycleNation to find places you can take those kinds of things in your area. Sometimes, some truly odd nonrecyclables come into sorting centers – including animal pelts and occasionally entire animals, guns, ammunition, knives, propane cylinders and even a bear spray canister, all of which endanger workers and some of which require police intervention. Do not be the person who puts live ammo or a dead raccoon in a recycling bin. Can the no-longer-wanted thingamabob you’re holding in your hand be recycled? Hmm, hard to say. So you drop it in just in case. Don’t do that. One mistake won’t doom your bin contents to the landfill. But regularly putting items in the bin because you hope they might be recyclable is called wishcycling, and it is the cause of a lot of contamination that makes recycling more costly and less efficient. About 17 percent of what arrives at sorting facilities is contamination and has to go to the landfill as trash. It is much better to throw out something you’re not sure about than to risk adding more contamination to the mix. When done correctly, recycling can be an important tool to preserve natural resources, reduce pollution and even fight climate change. “Some people don’t realize that natural resource extraction – basically the production of materials and products – accounts for almost 50 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions,” said Nicole Villamizar, deputy director of the EPA’s resource conservation and sustainability division. “Recycling is worth it. It’s important. But it really only works if you recycle right.” Answer B: A battery. Answer A: If in doubt, throw it out!

36 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ INSIGHT EDITORIAL During the coronavirus crisis, our Pelican Plaza office is closed to visitors. We appreciate your understanding. BY CHRIS BRYANT There is mixed news for those looking to book a rental car for their summer vacation: While you may end up paying less than last year, the cost will still feel painful compared to the low levels consumers were accustomed to prior to the pandemic. The vehicle shortages that upended this industry in 2021 and 2022 – dubbed the “rental car apocalypse” – have eased somewhat. Strong international leisure travel and rebounding corporate bookings mean rental firms are set to enjoy another strong summer and they are determined not to wreck their new pricing power by expanding their fleets too much. That’s sensible in view of lingering recession risks, plus the need to invest in electrification and technology to reduce those annoying counter waiting times. But it’s an ominous development for consumers who are also forking out much more for flights and hotels. The rental car oligopoly is finally behaving like one. Matching last year’s knock-out performance was always going to be hard, yet Avis Budget Group Inc. and Hertz Global Holdings Inc. sounded cautiously optimistic when updating investors in recent days: The pricing environment is “healthy,” “stable” and “robust,” their executives said. Hertz’s revenue per day – a measure of pricing – was largely flat year-on-year in the first quarter, but 44 percent higher compared with the same period in 2019, while Avis’ RPD was 28 percent higher over the same four-year period. (Enterprise Holdings Inc., the largest U.S. car rental firm, is closely-held and doesn’t disclose these figures. Overall the three companies control more than 90 percent of the U.S. market.) Having offloaded vehicles to protect their balance sheets at the start of the pandemic, hire firms struggled to rebuild their fleets when demand rebounded. Automakers coped with semiconductor shortages by prioritizing higher-margin sales to retail customers and dealers. As auto production recovers, the rental groups are starting to receive more cars but they still have a lot of catching up to do. Last year, automakers sold twothirds fewer new vehicles to rental fleets compared to 2019, according to media and data company Bobit. Rental firms were forced to retain vehicles for longer – Hertz’s U.S. arm now keeps them for more than two years, compared to around 18 months before the pandemic. Hence new vehicles are often being used to rejuvenate rather than expand fleets. (Customers prefer new cars and high mileage vehicles are more costly to maintain.) Smaller cars popular with holidaymakers remain in particularly short supply because car manufacturers have lately focused on producing larger premium vehicles, says Andreas Schiffelholz, managing director of rental cars at price comparison firm CHECK24. Overall, the supply of vehicles to the rental firms remains quite constrained, which limits the ability of rivals to be aggressive on price, Hertz told analysts last week. It expects these helpful supply conditions to persist into next year. Hire firms make no apologies for charging more. Price-sapping competition eroded margins in the years prior to the pandemic such that the industry derived little benefit from consolidation. Hertz and Europcar Mobility Group ended up filing for creditor protection in 2020, and the latter was subsequently taken private by a Volkswagen AG-led consortium. The industry claims to have learned its lesson. Hertz vows not to “chase unprofitable volume” while Avis says it would rather risk running out of cars than have vehicles sitting around unused. “We do not anticipate a return to the low price levels of previous years,” Germany’s Sixt SE wrote in its latest annual report, insisting industry price increases were “primarily due to catch-up effects”, rather than cyclical. Their costs have also gone up. Used car prices have been more resilient than expected in recent months but the windfall gains rental firms enjoyed from selling older vehicles above their depreciated values are set to fade. Forced to pay top dollar for new cars and with interest rates rising, Hertz and Avis face higher depreciation and vehicle financing expenses – analysts expect their net income to fall by more than half this year. These higher fleet expenses should, however, act as a further brake on the industry’s self-destructive overordering habit, and thereby support pricing. Avis Budget shares have quintupled since 2019 on evidence of stronger pricing power but are now well below the 2021 peak The stock traders who bid up Avis and Hertz’s shares in 2021 amid excitement about their nascent electric vehicle purchases have moved on; both companies trade on an unchallenging 6 times estimated earnings In the short term, this discount may be hard for the companies to rectify: Stagflation could yet bring the travel boom to a juddering halt and investors haven’t forgotten the industry’s poor record of balancing supply and demand. Rental firm valuations may look cheap but their vehicles aren’t. The experts’ advice to customers hasn’t changed: Book early, check car rental prices before purchasing flights, and be prepared for sticker shock. A version of this column first appeared on Bloomberg. It does not necessarily reflect the views of Vero Beach 32963.

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 37 INSIGHT OP-ED Michelle Sprekelmeyer is chasing down a missing $1,632 Hotels.com refund from the early days of the pandemic. What's taking so long? QUESTION: We booked a room at the Oasis at Grace Bay Hotel & Lofts in Turks & Caicos through Hotels.com in January 2020 for accommodations in early April 2020. When we booked the reservation, we could not reserve the same room for our entire stay, so we made two separate reservations. We had to cancel because of the pandemic. I emailed the hotel numerous times to resolve this, and the company finally issued a refund for one of the reservations but not the other. I asked why, and they could not give me a straight answer. I reached out to Hotels.com, and they responded that they would issue a voucher for the same hotel for the reservation I was not refunded. I just wanted a refund. I went back and forth with them for a while on this and have not received my refund. Hotels.com now says my voucher has expired, and they can't do anything else for me regarding this. Can you please get my $1,632 back? ANSWER: Hotels.com should have refunded your stay three years ago. I think you've just broken the record for the longest wait for a refund. Pandemic refunds were confusing. But the confusion started before the outbreak. It looks like you split your stay into two reservations -- one from April 5 to April 8 and the other for April 8 to April 10. Splitting a reservation means more paperwork and more of a chance that something can go wrong. If that ever happens to you again – and I hope it doesn't – it's better to find a way to make a single reservation. Hotels.com should have helped you from the start. Asking the Oasis for a refund would have been your backup plan, not step one. Hotels.com is your online agent, and it should have taken care of you. If the regular customer service channels don't work, you could have reached out to an executive. I publish the names, numbers and emails of the Hotels. com customer service managers on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org. So why did the hotel refund just one of your stays? I think in the chaos of the pandemic, the second refund got overlooked. Hotels.com tried to fix the problem with a voucher, but it expired. I contacted Hotels.com on your behalf. "When a customer has a concern regarding their lodging, we advocate to find the best and quickest solution possible," a representative told me. "We regret that it took longer than usual to resolve the problem with the property." Hotels.com issued a full refund. Get help with any consumer problem by contacting Christopher Elliott at http://www.elliott.org/help BY CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT

38 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Against the tanned hordes of Hollywood grifters, cads, creeps, prima donnas, egomaniacs and nepo babies, Tom Hanks stands like a warrior clad in decency and girded in goodness. A two-time Academy Award winner whose films have grossed $10 billion, Hanks is the living embodiment of our hopes that nice guys finish first. For more than 40 years – on stage, TV and big screen – Hanks has worked as an actor and producer. He can remember what it’s like to sweat for attention, and he knows what it’s like to run from the paparazzi. He’s partnered with the industry’s biggest movers and shakers, and he’s been attended to by the army of dressers, caterers and personal assistants who toil away in the shadows to keep the stars shining. How easily Hanks could have published a memoir detailing those decades of experience: Just imagine the riotous anecdotes about Ron Howard, Sally Field, Meg Ryan, Denzel Washington, Julia Roberts, Steven Spielberg, the Coen brothers and anybody else who is or was anybody in contemporary entertainment. Perhaps someday we’ll get that memoir, but it’s unlikely to be as charming or as spiritually revealing as his debut novel, which has the selfmocking title, “The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece.” As you might expect from such an amiable author, this is not a story set in Harvey Weinstein’s toxic Hollywood. So far as I can tell, Hanks’ book is not a roman à clef or a camouflaged tell-all or a sly act of disguised payback. Instead, it’s a novel shot in pastel tones, as though the movie trade were based in Lake Wobegon. Except for a few nods to entrenched sexism, the industry’s welldocumented abuses are elided in favor of concentrating on the better angels of its nature. With any luck, Hanks’ next novel will be about Washington, D.C. “The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece” starts gently, even slowly, in the voice of Joe Shaw, a film professor in Bozeman, Mont. Through a series of unlikely turns – which is the trajectory of almost everything in this story – Shaw has attracted the attention of Bill Johnson, one of the country’s most successful writer-directors. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Johnson invites Shaw to observe the filming of his next project to write “a book to explain the making of movies.” Hanks knows a lot about the behavior of actors, but fortunately he knows very little about the writing of academics, so his novel is mercifully unlike anything a professor of film studies would compose. Shaw delivers the rest of this story as an omniscient narrator, deftly moving from scene to scene and, along the way, helpfully explaining production jargon for a lay audience. But before we get anywhere near the INSIGHT BOOKS movie set – or the present day – Shaw presents what is essentially a 70-page novella set in 1947. We’re introduced to Robby Andersen, a sweet little boy living in the sweet little town of Lone Butte, Calif. Robby idolizes his errant uncle, who was traumatized by serving as a firefighter in World War II. When Robby eventually becomes a successful comic book creator, one of his stories is about his uncle’s horrific experience in the Pacific. Decades later, Robby’s comic book – cleverly excerpted in the pages of this novel – serves as the inspiration for a character in Bill Johnson’s new superhero movie, “Knightshade: The Lathe of Firefall.” That lengthy opening section, titled “Source Material,” asks for a lot of emotional investment in people we will not see again for a very long time. One wonders if a less famous debut novelist would have been afforded so much runway. But like Hanks, I digress. The important thing to know is that “The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece” does eventually get around to making another major motion picture masterpiece. And it’s a thoroughly engaging tale, tightly tied to a propulsive 53-day schedule that must not be altered. “A halt in the shooting day is a disaster,” as everyone knows. “An unholy sin.” The movie that Johnson and his team are creating – part of a billion-dollar franchise – never really comes into focus, except for a few isolated scenes. No matter. This is a story about what happens behind the cameras. Hanks is at pains to impress upon us that moviemaking is a circuitous process involving a vast network of people – some famous, most not – showing up and doing their best. This is most definitely not a novel about the magic of filmmaking; it’s a novel about the hard work of filmmaking. Indeed, any belief in magic – along with genius and destiny – is pretty well shredded by the end. Only three qualities matter: talent, determination and, especially, punctuality. The marquee will blaze with one name, but in these chapters, there is no hierarchy: “At some point, and there’s no telling when that moment is, someone is responsible for the whole movie,” we’re told. “Everyone has the most important job on the movie.” Johnson, Hanks’s star-making director, is well drawn, but he gets less attention here than the staff members who do everything from casting actors to schlepping sandwiches. Allicia Mac-Teer, an African-American producer known in the industry as Al, is the real power and planner behind the throne. But years ago, she was just a front desk manager at a Garden Suite Inn near the Richmond airport. There she impressed Johnson by making sure his favorite frozen yogurt was available late at night. That’s the kind of indispensable initiative that a great director notices. Somehow, Al knew in her bones that Hollywood isn’t about being the most beautiful or even the most talented. “Making movies,” she announces, “is about solving more problems than you cause.” A star is born. That lesson is so important to this novel – and presumably to Hanks – that it’s essentially repeated in the success story of Ynez Gonzalez-Cruz. She’s struggling to make ends meet as a taxi driver when she happens to pick up Al for a ride to the location for “Knightshade.” Recognizing Ynez’s attentive, problem-solving spirit, Al hires her as her permanent driver, then as her personal assistant. If you’ve been paying attention, you know where this is going, but that doesn’t make it any less gratifying.

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 39 The points point the way By Phillip Alder - Bridge Columnist Edward Hodnett, who wrote “The Art of Problem Solving: How to Improve Your Methods,” pointed out that “if you don’t ask the right questions, you don’t get the right answers. A question asked in the right way often points to its own answer. Asking questions is the ABC of diagnosis. Only the inquiring mind solves problems.” That applies in spades for a bridge player! This deal highlights one of the key questions to be asked if you wish to declare or defend well. How should South play in four spades? West leads the club king and immediately switches to the diamond king. After West opened one no-trump, showing 15-17 points, and East made a transfer bid, South’s four-spade bid was not for the faint of heart. It could easily have cost 500 or 800. But South bought an excellent dummy. South had two club losers, so she had to restrict her major-suit losers to one. But how should she have attempted to do that? The key was to track the high-card points. West had already advertised 12: the club ace-king and diamond king-queen. So, he had to have one of the major-suit kings, but not both. Declarer won the second trick with the diamond ace and immediately ran the heart queen. When it lost to the king, East was marked with the spade king, and it had to be a singleton or a doubleton because of West’s opening bid. South won West’s heart return on the board and led the spade five to her queen. Plus 420 was a cold top. Dealer: West; Vulnerable: Neither NORTH J 5 Q J A 10 5 3 2 Q J 10 3 WEST 6 3 K 3 K Q J 8 A K 7 6 2 SOUTH A Q 9 8 7 4 2 A 9 4 4 5 4 EAST K 10 10 8 7 6 5 2 9 7 6 9 8 The Bidding: OPENING LEAD: K Clubs SOUTH WEST NORTH EAST 1NT Pass 2 Diamonds 4 Spades Pass Pass Pass INSIGHT BRIDGE

40 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 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 (MAY 4) ON PAGE 74 ACROSS 1. Praise (4) 3. Snout (4) 9. Long bar (5) 10. Stew (9) 11. Chomp (5) 12. Excessive rush (9) 15. Unexpected (6) 17. Canadian capital (6) 19. Advantage (4,5) 21. Greek philosopher (5) 23. Miser (9) 24. Heraldic blue (5) 25. Obligation (4) 26. Smile (4) DOWN 1. Team sport (8) 2. Erratic (8) 4. Woodwind player (6) 5. Factor (7) 6. Cooker (4) 7. Leading (4) 8. Network (4) 13. Nautical (8) 14. Handyman (8) 16. Defenceless (7) 18. Attractively old-fashioned (6) 20. Pant (4) 21. Fruit (4) 22. Adjoin (4) INSIGHT GAMES

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 41 ACROSS 1 Reach its highest level 6 Women in uniform, once 10 “One planet, one people” adherent 15 Open a bit 19 Series that featured Arnie Becker 20 Pain 21 About-face of a sort 22 After the bell 23 Aviator Balbo 24 Stanch 25 Hawaiian veranda 26 Grass of the Andes 27 TV bounty hunter 29 Pfizer bestseller 31 Don’ts 33 Nurse’s remark, continuing at 61 Across 36 Table clearer 39 Makes the sound of 40 Virginia battle site, Fair ___ 41 “... wish upon ___” 42 Supply-cabinet items 43 People fall into them 46 The Audubon, e.g.: abbr. 49 Role for Olivier 50 Ans. ant. 51 Manly 52 Zip 53 Work unit 54 Diamond stats 55 Green fodder 56 Actress Berger 57 Name in Chinese history 59 Watcher over sailors 60 Actor Sutherland 61 See 33 Across 65 Canine’s coat? 66 Bireme crews 67 Montana or Rice, e.g. 68 Pitchers? 69 Fictional Emma 70 Flag flingers 71 World financial org. 74 Very, in 58 Down 75 Frankie and Johnny, e.g. 76 Old Italian dough 77 Autocrat 78 Man or sir preceder 79 Most ignoble 80 1909 S-VDB item 81 “It’s done” 82 The Green Hornet’s houseboy 83 Gen. McAuliffe’s legendary reply 84 Baby’s bed 85 Physician’s response to the nurse 92 Add up 93 Order mallets? 94 Holly’s Raising Arizona co-star 98 Niagara Falls feature 99 Combine 101 Often 103 Tricky rascal 104 Brit. queen 105 Greg Louganis, for example 106 Dimension 107 Spice (up) 108 Reject 109 Work hard 110 Short railroad track 111 Precise DOWN 1 Do a nail job 2 Pro ___ 3 Airline that doesn’t fly on the Sabbath 4 Buffet feature 5 Car type 6 ___ looking (missed it) 7 Get on the stick 8 V-shaped insignias 9 Arabs and Jews 10 Swelling 11 Electronic game name 12 Chinese province of spicy-food fame 13 Notre Dame first name 14 Start 15 Keys to freedom, sometimes 16 Dickens’s Marley 17 First name in South African theatre 18 Recycle 28 Uncordial 30 Satisfied sounds 32 Says “When ...” 34 Curved moldings 35 Curtain fabric 36 Farmer’s bundle 37 One who logs on 38 Some actors assume them 42 Add 43 Barack foe in 2008 44 Musketeer or cologne 45 One with slurred speech? 46 Preshrunk, in a way 47 Bone fragment? 48 Amulet 50 Small game bird 51 TV audience 52 Name on a tractor 54 Ram-turned-actor 55 Oscar-winner who flew missions over Germany in WWII 56 Indications 58 French city of denim fame 59 Pushes 60 Whittler’s need 61 Substantial 62 Cinema dinnermate 63 Treasure-___ 64 Beyond lazy 69 “Sleep in Abraham’s ___” (Richard III) 70 Soapless wash 72 Clay-sand mixture 73 Out of the joint 75 Leeway 76 Reveals accidentally 77 French skiing center 79 Way, in Wiesbaden 80 Curving sword 81 Slow flow 82 All thumbs 83 Walking dir. 84 Greek letter 85 Knocked the wild out of? 86 Author Zola 87 Tom Cruise-Shelley Long film, ___ It 88 “Uncle!” 89 Supply the food for 90 Turn away 91 Type in 95 Hot stuff 96 “___ plaisir” 97 Faxed 100 Cancel 102 Japanese director Yasujiro The Telegraph The Washington Post SIGHT GAG By Merl Reagle INSIGHT GAMES

42 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ INSIGHT BACK PAGE Dear Carolyn: My husband recently acknowledged that he really needs someone to talk to about his mental health, which is a really important step, and I commend him on that. But now it feels as if he’s stuck and can’t seem to take that next step. I want to talk to him about it but can’t figure out how not to sound as if I’m nagging. I’ve casually asked whether he’s found someone, and his response is always that he’s super busy at work and doesn’t have the time. I know he’s busy, but he finds time for lots of other things. I absolutely don’t want it to seem like I’m criticizing him. – Anonymous Anonymous: There are three fairly tall obstacles between someone struggling with a mental health issue and getting into therapy: 1. Admitting you need help. Good for him, he cleared the tallest one. 2. Actually starting to look. This is a deceptively difficult process and can get overwhelming in the first few minutes. Where do you start? How can you tell whether someone is good? Will insurance cover it? Do I just make an appointment? Is there anyone I can ask without giving up my privacy? Doesn’t anyone answer a phone? 3. Finding someone who checks enough boxes. The main box lately is “taking new patients,” because demand has spiked, supply is relatively fixed and graduate programs don’t add a third shift so they can churn out more clinicians. No. 1 is entirely the work of the person feeling unwell. Nos. 2 and 3, though, have room for a helper to pitch in. You can offer to do the legwork of finding a therapist for him or producing a short list for him to choose from. Someone who isn’t in crisis can do this faster. There are therapy-finding suggestions on my resources page. This is not “nagging”; it’s a lifeline. “You’re busy. This isn’t pressure, it’s a solid offer: Let me take this off your to-do list. I’ll make calls. Good?” Also: If you can temporarily assume other tasks for him as he tames his stress, that would be an act of good faith. As in, “This is yours to solve, I understand, but I’ll clear your path to solve it.” You don’t want to stay in emergency mode – you risk your mental health if he never resumes carrying his share – but you can use it in bursts to alleviate pressure. I hope it works out soon, so you dodge the even harder questions that come next. Readers’ thoughts: I just want to express my sympathy. When my spouse first realized he needed to see a therapist, he took a long, long time to actually get down to finding someone. I did something similar to what Carolyn suggested, only I didn’t ask beforehand. I printed out a list of providers from our insurance website and gave it to him with a short note that I could help call people if needed. I also tried to take some household stuff off his plate while he struggled. I didn’t say I was doing this, just … did it. We are about six years past that point and he is doing well, but I have also learned to follow the adage of putting your own oxygen mask on first. Do you (spouse) have access to his benefits overview? It will (should) include information about the Employee Assistance Program and mental health benefits. Start there. It narrows the task. Good luck. BY CAROLYN HAX Washington Post Struggling spouse agrees to therapy, won’t follow through

46 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ ing from Boston University, she lived in New York’s Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill sections in the early 1980’s when she was a full-time mother to three children with her first husband. During a trip to Florida to visit her brother in 2005, she rekindled her Florida connection, and began visiting regularly, eventually meeting her second husband. He was a diving master, and they enjoyed visiting the Galapagos Islands and encountering nature such as she had never seen before. Beate says she threw herself into the world of art after her husband passed away. “It really is true. One door closes and another opens up. The 10 years with my husband was like a dream come true, but now art; a different way of life.” She began painting after she took a Bob Ross class and found that the introduction wasn’t at all intimidating, noting, “I took the class and came home with a painting.” Beate soon began taking other classes and workshops to better learn the craft and was then exposed to the Melbourne art scene. “That was really the beginning for me,” says Beate. “Bob Ross introduced me to the colors and mixing. My first art show was at an outdoor art festival in the Eau Gallie Arts District, a section of Melbourne,” she says. During that time, she had a chance meeting with Cathy Belcher, the mother of collage artist Derek Gores. “We met at ladies night out at the local pub. There was only one seat left and I took it, and Cathy was in the next seat,” Beate recalls. “We struck up what has become a beautiful friendship.” Recognizing Beate’s talent, Belcher offered to help guide her in the local art scene and took her to an opening of an exhibit for Gores when he was the featured artist at Gallery 14. “The energy and the light are wonderful in the space,” she says of Gallery BY DEBBIE TIMMERMANN Correspondent Iris Beate likes to capture “Moments in Time – Observations,” which, fittingly, is the name of her solo exhibition at Gallery 14, where she is the featured artist through May. Beate’s oil paintings showcase the people, pets and landscapes that catch her eye; whether in New York where she used to live, Satellite Beach where she currently resides, or on her travels, she will often quickly snap photos to later record in her paintings. Her works depict the endless moods and familiarity of human nature, mirroring day-today life in a fashion such as Norman Rockwell did years ago. Beate explains that through her writing and her paintings, she always tries to capture a moment in time that recounts the entire story. She shares that she enjoys observing “people just being people,” communicating with each other and the world around them. From the hustle and bustle of daily life in New York to the quiet beauty of Florida, she says people watching is the basis for her artwork. Born in Germany, where she spent her early years, Beate immigrated to the United States with her parents in 1975, landing in Miami. After graduatArtist Iris Beate at Gallery 14. PHOTOS BY JOSHUA KODIS

ARTS & THEATRE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 47 14. “I am so happy they took a chance on me, showing my oil paintings.” Beate has continued with her studies, taking three years of classes with Karen Leffel-Massengill, even after that artist had moved to Stuart. Happening on a portrait workshop offered by Chris Kling, Beate found that she was intrigued by portraiture, commenting that while faces were initially a challenge, they express what’s in the soul. “I look for the interaction between the lines in the entire vignette, of the moment. It’s the scenes that grab me that have something to say. So many instances pass us by in a day, and we may not be even aware of it,” she explains. “I think it’s what connects all of us under the surface; the innocence of children, the magical sounds of musicians and what the music embodies when they play. The music touches our spirit,” she explains. Beate admits though, that capturing the moment can be difficult. “Sometimes I have to put the painting aside for a day or a few days, and come back to it with fresh eyes, because there is something just not right with it.” One of her paintings is based on a photo she found in Turkey in which a boy lets his homing pigeon out to fly. The viewer sees the whole story – the bond of loyalty between boy and bird, the freedom, excitement and energy of the moment. Beate snapped a photo of children crouching at the edge of a bridge at Squid Lips in Cocoa Beach, intently watching the sea of koi beneath them in the water, and captured it in her painting “Which One?” “They really wanted to take one of them home!” she says. In “Sunday Outing,” a painting of a scene at Long Doggers Restaurant in Satellite Beach, it’s easy to relate to the older man, grandpa maybe, and the boy sitting next to him, leaning in closely as CONTINUED ON PAGE 48

ARTS & THEATRE 48 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ they take time to share a mid-day meal. In “Pink Lemonade,” a father sits at a luncheonette counter, taking a break by sipping a glass of cold lemonade in his right hand, while holding his child over his left shoulder. His desire for a rest is clearly not felt by the brighteyed baby who peers out, alert with excitement and, unlike the father, anything but tired. The concentration of players at a chess table on a city sidewalk in “Your Move,” shows the intensity of thought in a game that even draws in young children to watch closely. That particular painting won the Award of Excellence at the 2023 Melbourne Art Festival. A year earlier, her painting, “In Search of Flamingos 2022,” a colorful work depicting visitors walking through an art festival, was chosen as the cover artwork for that year’s Melbourne Art Festival. “Undivided Attention” depicts one of Brooklyn’s many resident dog walkers. Beate says she observed that the woman initially had just a few dogs but has since expanded to managing upwards of 16 dogs, many of which are captured in the painting. Beate says the woman exudes confidence and has complete control over all of the dogs, who get along beautifully. Beate clearly loves what she does, and it shows in her work. “It’s pure joy, depicting people in everyday life, often mundane things, and making that special. We may not realize how special the moment is. The reality is the moment is so fleeting. The photograph captures it and allows me to paint it.” CONTINUED FROM PAGE 47

ARTS & THEATRE 50 Vero Beach 32963 / May 11, 2023 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ side Park Dr., Vero Beach. There is free parking. For more information, visit Pottcevents.com. Riverside Theatre’s Comedy Zone is a good place to go for good laughs, easy eats and an all-around jolly time. This weekend’s standup acts feature headliner JJ Curry, feature act Sheena Reagan and emcee Josh Armenteros. A Georgia native, Curry is an Air Force vet and can be heard on “The Curry Chicken Podcast.” He was part of the 2021 North Carolina Comedy Festival and has appeared on Afro TV’s “Funny not Famous” show and on Roku TV’s “LMAO” show. Reagan is from Cape Coral, and was named Florida’s Funniest Female in 2018. She’s been seen at the Gotham Comedy Club in New York City and at the Comedy Bar Chicago. She’s opened for Jon Lovitz, Bryan Callen, Kevin Farley and Anthony Jesselnik. Armenteros likes to poke fun at his upbringing in a big Cuban family. All seats to the Comedy Zone are $25. The shows begin 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Friday, May 12, and Saturday, May 13. Be sure to arrive early to take advantage of the free music at Live in the Loop, which is adjacent to the Comedy Zone venue. You’ll be able to buy food, drinks and just get good and relaxed for the fun to come. Friday’s concert features Luna Pearl, who specializes in a wide array of styles with songs by Sade, KC and the Sunshine Band, David Bowie, Bon Jovi, Pat Benatar, the Doors and much more. Luna Pearl performs 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, May 12. Jerzi, which has an electric ukulele, will perform their own versions of popular tunes, from oldies to today’s hits. Jerzi performs 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, May 13. Admission to the Live in the Loop is free. Riverside Theatre is at 3250 Riverside Park Dr., Vero Beach. For more information, call 772-231-6990 or visit RiversideTheatre. com. The Kiwanis Club of Vero-Treasure Coast will host the annual “Take a Kid Fishing” event this weekend. The event is for children 5 to 12 years of age and requires adult supervision. So, no dropping your child off and picking them up later. The actual fishing will take place from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Saturday, May 13, at the Barber Bridge fishing catwalk. A lunch will follow the fishing. Rods and reels will be provided but because of limited quantities, organizers suggest you provide your own equipment. Bait will be donated by Vero Tackle & Marina. Trophies are donated by Trophies, Novelties & More, with prizes awarded for each age bracket and a special prize for the ugliest fish. Lunch and soft drinks will be provided by the Kiwanis Club. The event will be held rain or shine. It is free. Registration starts at 8:15 a.m. but pre-registration is suggested. For more information, visit VeroKiwanis. com or call Mark Sammartino at 772- 321-0924 or Al Sammartino at 772- 321-1412. The Vero Beach Seafood Festival has merged with the Pirate Festival to create a mountain of fun this weekend at Riverside Park in Vero Beach. There will be food, live entertainment, arts and crafts vendors, an interactive pirate encampment, mermaids and a kids zone. The food being served includes lobster, shrimp, oysters, crabs, fish, calamari, conch, ahi tuna and paella as well as non-seafood dishes. Saturday’s entertainment on the mainstage features Jason Montero from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Jeff Fereshetian from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., Bamboo from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Keith Anthony Barbrie from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday’s entertainment on the mainstage features Johnny Debt Prestage from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Scott Benge from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m., Keith Anthony Barbrie from 3 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. and Bamboo from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. The event is free, but organizers would greatly appreciate a $2 “Buck-N-Ear” contribution. Personal tents, large umbrellas, coolers, and outside food and beverages are not permitted. Organizers ask that you bring a canned good to donate to the Treasure Coast Food Bank and drop it off at the Vero Beach Chamber of Commerce booth near the entrance. The Vero Beach Seafood Festival runs 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, May 13, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, May 14, at Riverside Park, 3258 RiverBY PAM HARBAUGH Correspondent 2 3 CARPET ONE CREATIVE FLOORS & HOME Creative Floors & Home has more for your entire home from the floor up! With Flooring, Tile, Cabinets and even vacuum cleaners! 772.569.0240 1137 Old Dixie Hwy • Vero Beach creativefloorscarpet1verobeach.com Professional Cabinet Design Available