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Published by Vero Beach 32963 Media, 2016-06-30 15:48:46

VB32963_ISSUE26_063016_OPT

VB32963_ISSUE26_063016_OPT

Shores faces long odds at
PSC hearing. P10
Brewery opens
near airport. P10

My Vero: Sources say
Coach Joe ‘too outspoken.’ P4

For breaking news visit

Courtroom drama School District
in trial over Vero’s is $7M in hole on
diesel power plant health insurance

BY MICHELLE GENZ Little done to promote our ecotourism mecca BY KATHLEEN SLOAN
Staff Writer Staff Writer
BY ALAN SNEL Boating on the ecologically di- County. An outdoor paradise.
In the 90-year history of Ve- Staff Writer verse Indian River Lagoon. One You would think with this For the last three years, the
ro’s historic diesel power plant, of the world’s top osprey breed- Indian River County School
a decade is a short time. But in World-class sea turtle watch- ing sites at Blue Cypress Lake. type of natural resource in- District has charged a monthly
Courtroom One of the coun- ing. The country’s first national Wilderness areas filled with al- ventory, the county would be premium for employee health
ty’s courthouse this week, that wildlife refuge. Two ocean in- ligators and exotic birds. a top ecotourism mecca over- insurance that doesn’t cover
brief period has filled enough lets offering superb fishing. run with hotel- and restau- the cost of claims, putting the
files to crash a computer. It’s all here in Indian River School District – which self-in-
CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 sures – $7 million in the hole.
Trial got underway last Fri-
day in the $1.5 million civil Assistant Superintendent
suit and countersuit between Carter Morrison, the district’s
two longtime Vero develop- chief financial officer, told
ers and the City of Vero Beach. school board members that
While the facts in the case the health insurance premi-
may be less than scintillating, ums need to go up 31 percent
the allegations arise from a – which would bring in nearly
confluence of emotional is- $6 million more each year – to
sues: the crushing economic achieve equilibrium – but that
downtown turn, the environ- would not remedy the $7 mil-
mental sins of the past, and lion deficit.
the sentimentality of a land-
mark from another era. The district does not have
enough cash to pay the whole
That landmark was also an $7 million in one year with-
environmentally contaminat-
CONTINUED ON PAGE 6
CONTINUED ON PAGE 11

New home development in full swing License plate cameras
on southern half of our barrier island going live in Shores

BY STEVEN M. THOMAS close to commencement on BY LISA ZAHNER
Staff Writer North Hutchinson Island. Staff Writer

A boom in new home de- With prices ranging from Lt. Mark Shaw and Chief Richard Rosell with license plate camera. PHOTO BY LEAH DUBOIS Two camera units cap-
velopment on the southern $475,000 to $4.5 million, the turing footage from two
half of our barrier island that developments when complete angles each were set to be
was projected by Vero Beach will add more than 130 luxury installed Tuesday morn-
32963 two years ago is now in homes with a total value of ing and to go live Tuesday
full swing, with half a dozen over $120 million to the island
developments underway or real estate market. CONTINUED ON PAGE 7

CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

June 30, 2016 Volume 9, Issue 26 Newsstand Price $1.00 All eyes on skies
as Vero Air Show
News 1-12 Faith 68 Pets 52 TO ADVERTISE CALL dazzles. Page 14
Arts 25-30 Games 53-55 Real Estate 71-80 772-559-4187
Books 48-49 Health 31-36 Style 57-61
Dining 62 Insight 37-56 Travel 50 FOR CIRCULATION
Editorial 46 People 13-24 Wine 63 CALL 772-226-7925

© 2016 Vero Beach 32963 Media LLC. All rights reserved.

2 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

NEWS

Ecotourism mecca Pelican Island, founded by none the Indian River County Chamber of Pelican Island Refuge in their eco-
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 other than Teddy Roosevelt himself Commerce, which handles tourism tourism sections.
and one of the great birding spots on promotion for the county, does not
rant-filling tourists flocking into Vero the East Coast, drew a scant 110,000 sufficiently promote the area as an “It’s needed,” Beck said of a new
to bird-watch at Pelican Island Na- visitors in fiscal 2014-15 – a feeble eco-destination. ecotourism organization.
tional Wildlife Refuge, or kayak among number compared to the 880,000
bottlenose dolphins and manatees visitors who traveled to Florida’s west She is calling for a new ecotour- Beck said the chamber has fo-
along the Intracoastal Waterway. coast last year to visit the J.N. “Ding” ism development board to publicize cused too many tourism resources on
Darling National Wildlife Refuge on the county’s rich array of ecological niches such as attracting visitors for
But for some reason the area re- Sanibel Island. locations and activities, arguing the destination weddings instead of pro-
mains little known in the ecotourism chamber fails to effectively spread moting the county’s natural jewels,
world. Why doesn’t Vero Beach get more the word about the county’s natural which could generate big business
attention as a top-flight ecotourism resources to other parts of the state for restaurants, hotels, retailers and
Google ecotourism in the U.S. or destination? and the country. tour operators.
the Southeastern United States, or
even ecotourism in Florida, and Vero Longtime kayak guide and veter- It’s hard to dispute that point when The county’s ecological wonders
Beach is nowhere to be found. an outdoorswoman Kristen Beck of sites like Visitflorida.org and Flori- range from the Indian River Lagoon,
Sebastian says it is, in part, because dasee.org do not mention Vero or the long considered North America’s
most ecologically diverse estuary,
to Blue Cypress Lake, a top osprey
breeding area set in the rural west-
ern part of county. The mangrove
swamps, maritime hammocks and
pine flatwoods on conservation lands
west of I-95 offer scenic and inspiring
glimpses into Florida’s pre-develop-
ment past.

In North County, the 6,500-acre
freshwater Stick Marsh near Fells-
mere is a fisherman’s paradise, while
Pelican Island National Wildlife Ref-
uge traces its legacy to 1903, when
it was the nation’s inaugural wildlife
refuge created to prevent the de-
struction of bird species by plume
hunters.

Meanwhile, the island is one of
the top sea turtle nesting sites in the
world, a fact celebrated at Archie Carr
National Wildlife Refuge, which on its
own does manage to attract interna-
tional visitors from Europe, Australia,
Brazil, Mexico and New Zealand to
see the prehistoric creatures lumber
ashore by the thousands to lay their
eggs before vanishing back into the
waves.

And for a state with a reputation of
not being friendly to bicyclists (Flor-
ida typically has the nation’s highest
per-capita bicyclist fatality rate), A1A
both north and south of Vero Beach
is a road-cycling haven, while the La-
goon Greenway Trail off Indian River
Boulevard serves as an easily-accessi-
ble mountain biking attraction.

Few Florida counties can boast so
many diverse ecotourism settings.
But Beck said they’re not getting the
publicity and outreach they deserve.

County Commissioner Tim Zorc
understands Beck’s concerns and
suggested the county stage a half-
day workshop on how to increase the
county’s ecotourism profile outside
the local market.

Zorc said such an event could help
generate answers to questions such
as, “Where should we try and reach
out to?”

Indian River County budgeted
$733,990 for tourism development in
the 2015-16 fiscal year, with $454,394
going to the Indian River County
Chamber of Commerce and the Se-

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 3

NEWS

bastian Chamber. In the current fis- on tourism spending requests by or- tourism development panel is need- vate the next generation of nature lov-
cal year, the chambers are slated to ganizations. ed. ers. He further suggested Indian Riv-
receive $500,153 to promote tourism er County pool resources with Martin
of all kinds, with most of the money But only one of the nine members But he did recommend Indian River and St. Lucie counties so there is
going to the IRC Chamber. has a traditional ecotourism back- County commit more bed tax reve- more money to spend on bigger ads
ground – Steve Hayes, who used to nues to promote ecotourism through to draw ecotourists to the Treasure
IRC Chamber President Penny own an airboat business but has live Internet streaming of natural Coast region. Other states or regions,
Chandler did not respond to inqui- since retired. Most of the members scenes around the county. he noted, spend lavishly on TV spots
ries about how much of that money are elected government officials or targeted at specific markets and de-
goes to promote ecotourism, but it connected to hotels. Hayes also recommended it funnel mographic groups. 
appears to be a very small amount. more money to the Environmental
Hayes doesn’t think a separate eco- Learning Center in Wabasso to culti-
The chamber did recently update
and extend its website to include in- NEW CONSTRUCTION
formation and a sub-site focused on
ecotourism (www.comediscoverna- Exclusively John’s Island
ture.com), but the only ad spending
it documents is a half-page ad and Located on a quiet cul-de-sac, this well-conceived 4BR/4.5BA home takes complete
half-page advertorial in a single issue advantage of its superb setting with multiple fairway and water views. Designed by
of National Geographic. Harry Howle and built by Croom Construction, folding Mahogany French doors open
from the living room with fireplace and coffered ceiling to the sunlit lanai. Features
The Sebastian River Area Cham- include 4,893± GSF, gourmet island kitchen adjoining the beamed ceiling family
ber of Commerce, on the other hand, room, luxurious master suite, office, pool, fire pit and 1-year professional Whitehall
devotes a healthy chunk of its re- property management services. 260 Sabal Palm Lane : $3,250,000
sources to selling ecotourism. Sebas-
tian Chamber President Beth Mitch- three championship golf courses : 17 har-tru courts : beach club : squash
ell said the No. 1 question from the health & fitness center : pickleball : croquet : vertical equity membership
6,000 annual visitors the chamber
sees is, “Where is the Pelican Island 772.231.0900 : Vero Beach, FL : JohnsIslandRealEstate.com
National Wildlife Refuge?”

To accommodate the increased de-
mand for information about area nat-
ural resources, the Sebastian cham-
ber recently completed a $225,000
addition to its riverside Pelican Porch
Visitors Center. It’s an impressive ex-
pansion, complete with large mount-
ed screens showing live streaming
scenes from the Sebastian Inlet and
the Pelican Island refuge.

But the Pelican Island refuge
doesn’t “reach out as well as it could”
to market its serene 5,445-acre na-
ture haven located along A1A about
three miles north of the Wabasso
bridge, said Anibal Vasquez, assis-
tant refuge manager of the neigh-
boring Archie Carr National Wildlife
Refuge.

Darling National Wildlife Refuge
has a free visitors and education cen-
ter that helps it draw tourists from
Sanibel and Captiva, two popular va-
cation destinations, said Birgie Mill-
er, executive director of the “Ding”
Darling Wildlife Society, which sup-
ports the west coast refuge.

The Pelican Island refuge does not
have an education center or a staffed
visitors facility. Instead, it relies main-
ly on social media such as its Face-
book page and “word of mouth” to
inform people, Vasquez said.

On a recent Saturday morning, two
runners enjoying a jog on the Jungle
Trail – a unique and charming old
shell road that borders the lagoon for
miles and passes through the Pelican
Island refuge – said they heard about
the national wildlife refuge only
through a friend, not through cham-
ber promotion efforts.

A nine-member county commit-
tee, the Tourism Development Coun-
cil (TDC), makes recommendations

4 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

NEWS

MY Coach Joe saga: Removed because he was ‘too outspoken’?
VERO

BY RAY MCNULTY black educator who was generally the district is "run through fear and ball coaches as the "BBC" – Big Black
Staff Writer considered to be among the most re- intimidation." He was among those Coaches club.
spected and admired members of Se- who believe frustrated administrators
As far back as February, when I first bastian River's faculty? want to make an example of a popular His complaint sparked a two-month
wrote about the School District's over- teacher who won't back down. investigation by the district, which,
the-top reaction to a teacher-versus- None of it made sense. after interviewing more than a dozen
student altercation at Sebastian River Until now. "Joe was giving other people people, refused to identify the guilty
High School, I was already suspicious Several sources came forward last strength, and not just to black teach- parties and concluded that BBC was
of the administration's motives. week and said opportunistic district ad- ers but to teachers in general," he said. used as a "term of endearment."
ministrators are using Nathaniel's class- "Joe was starting to give them a voice,
Why did Schools Superintendent room tussle with 18-year-old Isaiah Spei- and the district couldn't allow it." Nathaniel wasn't satisfied and
Mark Rendell engage in an unneces- ghts in November to remove a teacher took his concerns to the news media,
sary rush to judgment, relying too they fear – because he's "too outspoken" Jorge Lugo, a former Sebastian River prompting three other black assis-
heavily on an incomplete, student- and they "can't control him." teacher and wrestling coach who served tant coaches to corroborate his claim.
recorded video – and ignoring the These sources said the administra- on the executive committee of the lo- He also threatened legal action if the
findings of a law-enforcement investi- tors, along with some members of the cal teachers union for four years, said district didn't punish or correct those
gation – to recommend that criminal School Board, have seized upon this the district is punishing Nathaniel, af- who used the term.
justice teacher Joe Nathaniel be fired? incident to retaliate against Nathaniel, fectionately known as "Coach Joe" on
who embarrassed the district by going campus, for his unwillingness to cower. The district, humiliated by the nega-
Why did Rendell, despite Nathan- public with his 2013 complaint about tive publicity, then claimed it had new
iel's previously unblemished record a racial moniker that was commonly Lugo, now a teacher with the Florida information and reopened its investi-
and plenty of evidence to suggest the used on campus. Virtual School, said: "This has been a gation. Ultimately, Racine wrote a let-
teacher used only the force necessary The sources said Nathaniel, whose witch hunt from the very beginning. ter to the Sebastian River staff, warn-
to subdue an angry and out-of-control case has been sent to the state Divi- This whole thing goes back to the BBC ing it that using racially derogative
student, bypass the district's progres- sion of Administrative Hearings, has issue. Coach Joe didn't accept the out- language was prohibited.
sive discipline policy and go directly to remained in the crosshairs of Sebas- come of the district's investigation. He
termination? tian River and district administrators called it a sham, and he was right.” The damage, though, had been
since that controversy. done – and, apparently, the district
Why was the district, which is still One of them, Tony Brown, president For those who don't remember: suits haven't forgotten.
trying to fend off NAACP complaints of the county's NAACP chapter, said Nathaniel complained to Sebastian
about a lack of minority teachers, so River principal Todd Racine about Not long after the Nov. 17 incident,
eager to get rid of an award-winning staff members on campus referring which resulted in criminal charges be-
to the school's black assistant foot- ing filed against Speights, Brown joined
former Sebastian River parent Calvin

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 5

NEWS

Moment in trying to "heal" the situa- told them at the meeting that Assistant after the run-in with Nathaniel, but Moment said. "She said Fritz told her
tion by bringing together the student's Schools Superintendent William Fritz only if she and her son cooperated with he knows people in law enforcement
mother, Olaundra Pryor, and Nathaniel offered to intervene in the legal pro- the district's case against Nathaniel. and could help and that they wouldn't
to discuss what had happened. cess and forgive the cost of replacing a have to pay for the water fountain."
water fountain Speights kicked off the "She said Fritz told her . . . they were
Both Moment and Brown, who also wall on the way to the principal's office going after Joe's teaching certificate "They were trying to manipulate Isa-
attended the mall gathering, said Pryor and they wanted her cooperation,"
CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

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6 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

NEWS

My Vero of escalating the incident by taunting trict requested – and was granted – a School employee insurance
Speights, continuing to move toward second continuance that pushed the CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5 the teen in an aggressive manner, and hearing back to Oct. 17, which means
physically abusing and yelling at him. Nathaniel's suspension-with-pay will out eating into its state-mandated
iah's mom," Brown said, adding that carry into the new school year. minimum 3-percent cash reserve, but
Rendell "met personally with Isaiah at But classroom teacher Cathy Brad- Morrison said he has permission from
the Alternative Center" where Speights shaw and teacher's assistant Chris Jef- In the meantime, Rendell's charging the state to catch up on the insurance
attended school after the incident. ferson both told investigators Speights letter has been sent to the state Depart- deficit over three years.
provoked the confrontation and initi- ment of Education, which has the pow-
According to Brown and Moment, Pry- ated physical contact, and that Na- er to suspend or permanently revoke The school district has self-insured
or also said Fritz told her it was Nathaniel thaniel did only what was necessary to Nathaniel's teaching certification. for many years instead of offering its
who filed the criminal charges against control a hostile situation. 2,000 employees health insurance
Speights – something that wasn't true. "This is very stressful," Nathaniel through a private company. School
Sheriff's Office reports supported Na- said. "I miss my students and Sebas- board member Shawn Frost contends
Fritz denied the allegations in an thaniel's version of the incident. Assis- tian River. I miss teaching criminal this is a mistake.
email statement. tant State Attorney Nikki Robinson ex- justice. I believe I make a difference in
amined those reports and, in a powerful my students' lives. I'm also very con- “The district is managing an en-
"The district never agreed or of- letter to detectives, wrote that Nathaniel cerned about my teaching certificate." tire business we are unequipped to
fered to intervene in the criminal case should be praised for taking control of [manage],” Frost said. “We don’t have
involving the water fountain in ex- a potentially dangerous situation and According to the district's request people who can predict risks. The
change for Ms. Pryor or Isaiah coop- that it would have been "negligent" for for a second continuance, more time risk-management department hired
erating with the district's case against him to have left the classroom. was needed to prepare for the hearing. an expert actuary whose job it was to
Joe Nathaniel." determine the premium price [that
Despite that letter, Rendell recom- But if Rendell had enough evidence should be paid by employees]. Staff is
Rendell has steadfastly refused to mended Nathaniel's employment be to go to the School Board and publicly complicit in not challenging it, and so
comment on the case, and repeatedly terminated, a position supported by recommend Nathaniel's termination in is the board for not challenging staff.”
referred any questions to the Dec. 18 chairman Dale Simchick and board January, why did the district need to re-
charging letter in which he presented member Claudia Jimenez at the School quest a second continuance six months The district has hired a new actu-
his reasons for his recommendation Board's Jan. 12 meeting, where the panel later? ary, and Frost has pushed to sue the
that Nathaniel be fired. gutlessly punted the case to the DOAH. former actuary, but he said that idea
While much is unclear in this mat- “got no traction with my fellow board
Pryor did not respond to an inter- The DOAH hearing was originally ter, one thing is certain: If Rendell's members or staff.”
view request made through Moment, set for March 1, but, given the need for recommendation to fire Nathaniel
who said, "I haven't talked to her in a extensive discovery, attorneys for both was based on anything other than the Any decision the board makes about
while, so I don't know if she's cooper- sides agreed on a continuance until facts of the case and a genuine desire fixing the health insurance premium
ating or not." June 27. to protect students, then we need to problem in upcoming budget talks will
take a hard look at the people running
In his charging letter, Rendell ac- Earlier this month, however, the dis- our schools. 
cused the 6-foot-4, 300-pound teacher

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 7

NEWS

mean nothing unless unions represent- according to Assistant Superintendent to be posted near the intersection of activities as a result of an alert from
ing district employees agree to it.“It may William Fritz. Jungle Trail and Old Winter Beach Road, the camera must do so in a constitu-
all be for naught, because everything so Jungle Trail does not become a back tionally compliant manner,” Rosell
depends on the unions,” Frost said. Frost said Fritz has not explained route for those trying to circumvent de- said.
how he arrived at the figure. tection by the A1A camera system.
The Communications Workers of The Town Council approved the
America represents teaching assis- The school district will publish a ten- The cameras will read each vehicle $70,000 for the project back in Novem-
tants, clerical works, custodians, main- tative budget on July 23. A public hear- tag number and run those numbers ber, based upon research and justifi-
tenance staff, cafeteria workers and ing on the budget will be held July 26, through a police interface. Any tag cation Rosell provided showing how
bus drivers. The Indian River County according to Morrison. A final budget numbers that trip the system, based the cameras have been used in other
Education Association represents hearing will be held Sept. 8 and the upon how the sensitivity levels are set, communities, and could be used in
teachers. Both unions negotiate health budget is due to the state on Sept. 11.  will pop up on the on-board computer the unique enclave of the Shores to
benefits yearly, and the CWA also is in of patrol officers and at central sta- ensure it remains one of the safest
the midst of a contentious overall con- License plate cameras tions in the Public Safety Department. places in Florida, despite its affluent
tract negotiation. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 residents and their property present-
“If an officer on patrol receives an ing tempting targets for criminals.
Frost said those negotiations have afternoon, monitoring every vehicle alert regarding the presence of a ve-
“been in limbo” for more than a year. license plate that goes in or out of the hicle which may be in violation of any All images filmed by the cameras
Town of Indian River Shores on A1A. statute or law, the officer, if operation- and tag search results will become
When he became a school board ally feasible, shall endeavor to locate public record as prescribed by Flori-
member in 2015, Frost said, he point- Public Safety Chief Rich Rosell said vehicle,” the policy states. But da’s broad public records or Sunshine
ed out the financial danger of high pushed to have the cameras installed, a hit from the camera system alone, laws, and any photographic evidence
health care expenses to Superinten- citing their importance as a law en- say for an outstanding warrant or a used in the prosecution of a crime will
dent Mark Rendell. forcement and crime-solving tool. revoked driver license, is not justifica- also be subject to the laws of evidence.
tion to pull a driver over.
“He told me we’ll have fewer claims, Rosell completed a four-page draft One of the final items in the policy is
the health clinic savings will kick in policy, which was being reviewed on “If an officer locates a suspect vehi- intended to prevent any sort of abuse
and the Communications Workers of Monday, for the use of the cameras cle as a result of an alert from the Traf- of the camera by officers or Town offi-
America will settle,” Frost said. “None and the information they glean. It says fic Camera system, the officer shall cials. “At no time shall the Traffic Cam-
of that happened.” the system is intended to help police confirm the nature of the alert prior to era systems be utilized for any politi-
“quickly develop suspects in crimes taking any police action. Officers will cally-based or personal surveillance.
The district opened its own health occurring in our town and identify vi- not automatically stop a vehicle based Misuse of the camera systems shall
clinic about a year and a half ago, con- olators of the law as soon as they cross on an alert from the camera. They result in termination,” the policy reads.
tending that treating employees in- into the town.” must corroborate the alert by running
house would save money. The clinic the plate themselves.” The system, scan results and the
costs about $1.4 million a year to oper- Rosell has plans for another camera policy itself will be audited once a
ate, Frost said, and is supposedly sav- “Officers involved in enforcement month, Rosell said. 
ing the district over $500,000 a year,

8 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

NEWS

New home development Kimberly and Michael Thorpe Lauderdale, Palm Beach or Vero.”
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 at the Aquavista subdivision. “Buyers from South Florida are

Vero realtors, builders and buyers other regions, the distinction between PHOTO BY DENISE RITCHIE amazed at the prices here. There is no
are in the thick of the action. Vero and North Hutchinson is much comparison,” says Linda Gonzalez,
less of an issue when it exists at all. to live by the ocean in Florida find co-owner of Coldwell Banker Paradise,
“It’s on fire down there,” says bro- North Hutchinson ideal, straight out which has an office on North Hutchin-
ker Michael Thorpe, whose company People from South Florida, the of central casting, a place with wide son and handles more home sales
Treasure Coast Sotheby’s International northeast and California who want accreting beaches, little traffic and there than any other company.
Realty represents the lion’s share of the huge pieces of parkland that will nev-
new developments. “It is unbelievable er be developed. The boom got going when George
what is going on. There is more devel- Heaton, developer of the Vero Beach
opment in that little stretch of beach “That is one of the things I love Hotel and Spa and Old Oak Lane sub-
than in all of Vero.” about this stretch of coastline – all the division in Riomar, launched Tarpon
park and preserve land,” says Stephen Flats in 2015. The 38-home riverfront
The boom is being driven by a short- Brinley, a Sotheby’s agent who repre- community has been a phenomenal
age of waterfront lots and escalating sents Ocean Palms, a luxury ocean- success, with 25 homes sold in 18
prices in 32963 and by the quality of front condo project that has a sales months and only 13 remaining.
the environment and relatively inex- trailer onsite and one presale, so far.
pensive land along the 5-mile stretch Gonzalez, whose company has sold
of sand, palm trees and mature con- “There are thousands of acres that a number of the homes in Tarpon Flats,
dominium communities that extends will never be developed in Avalon bought a house there herself, one of
from the Indian River County line to State Park, Queens Island Preserve six buyers from Vero so far. “I abso-
the Fort Pierce inlet. and other parks, which makes the lutely love it,” she says of the North
land that can be developed that much Hutchinson lifestyle. “You can jump in
Until recently, development was more valuable. Another plus is they a kayak whenever you want and go out
held back by the address – Fort Pierce recently repaved that entire stretch of on the river or walk across the road to
for many lacks the cachet of a Vero A1A, and put in bike lanes and side- the ocean. The beach is gorgeous and
mailing address – but people are start- walks and new pedestrian crossings. I see a new turtle nest over there every
ing to appreciate the value offered on They spent a ton of money on land- day.”
the southern end of the island, where scaping and it looks really nice.”
stylish new single-family oceanfront “What’s happening at Tarpon Flats
homes are being offered for around $2 “This is the last great place left to is helping push prices higher,” says
million, the cost of an oceanfront lot be developed, coming north from Bob Lowe, owner of Lowe’s Interna-
in 32963. Dade County and Palm Beach,” says tional Realty Plus, a brokerage on
Thorpe. “People from South Florida North Hutchinson Island. “Prices keep
At the same time, for buyers from look at North Hutchinson Island as a creeping up, but there is still great val-
paradise. The beaches are wide and ue here.”
O’HAIRE, QUINN, CASALINO, CHARTERED, unspoiled, and the residences are
NAMED A FUND PRESIDENT’S CIRCLE 2015 FIRM a fraction of what they would be in Tarpon Flats’ success has inspired
developers from around the state to
BY ATTORNEYS’ TITLE FUND SERVICES, LLC join Vero real estate leaders in launch-
ing projects on the island.
Orlando (May, 2016) –Attorneys’ Title Fund Services, LLC (The Fund)
announced O’Haire, Quinn, Casalino, Chartered has been named a Member of Starting from the north, the first
The Fund President’s Circle. project in play is Round Island Plan-
tation, a 31-home subdivision that
The Fund President’s Circle is comprised of an elite group of leaders within was entitled in 2007 but which later
the legal profession. These top-tier law firms have received this statewide failed in the real estate downturn. Six
recognition because of the commitment they have shown to their clients and of the lots are in Indian River County,
to The Fund. Only 100 of The Fund’s top Member firms in 2015 received this the others just over the line in St. Lu-
distinction. cie County. A dilapidated wall runs
along the A1A in front of the develop-
“With The Fund President’s Circle award, O’Haire, Quinn, Casalino, Chartered, ment.
ranks among an elite group of legal professionals within the real estate industry,”
said Jimmy R. Jones, President and CEO of Attorneys’ Title Fund Services, LLC. Reese Stigliano, a senior vice presi-
dent with Brenner Real Estate Group
President’s Circle Members are determined by the level of business they have in Fort Lauderdale, says $6 million
conducted with The Fund the prior year. O’Haire, Quinn, Casalino, Chartered worth of infrastructure, including a
has previously received the President’s Circle recognition from The Fund in tunnel under A1A connecting the river
2005 and 2008, and further a Top 100 Member in the years of 1999, 2000, 2001 side and oceanfront portions of the
and 2002. property, is in place.

About O’Haire, Quinn, Casalino, Chartered: “We are renewing the expired per-
A boutique law firm providing representation and counsel for select estate, mits and actively looking for a buyer,”
business, landowner, homeowner, contractor and developer clientele. We are he says.
counsel offering personal attention, communication and service. We are not a
legal mill transferring clients around a chain of case workers. If you require A short distance south, Orlando de-
counsel, not just a claim number or a case worker, contact O’Haire, Quinn, veloper Jeff Gelman is 60 days away
Casalino, Chartered; the generational law firm providing exceptional legal from beginning construction on the
service to those requiring individual attention on the Treasure Coast. first of 29 new homes in the Avalon
Beach development, according to
Thorpe, who along with his partner
Kimberly Hardin Thorpe is the listing
agent for the project. Single-family
luxury homes will start at $699,000.

Next comes Ocean Palms, the
condos listed by Brinley. Priced
from $1,175,000 to $1,450,000, the
2,400-square-foot units with 9-foot
ceilings are exceptionally wide, with

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 9

NEWS

50 feet of Atlantic Ocean frontage. “We are putting in very high qual- amenities include a pool and South submitted and approved before a proj-
They will be the first new condos on ity materials and finishes,” she says. Seas style pavilion, a kayak launch ect can get underway, but the county
North Hutchinson since 2007. “The house sits on 57 pilings, has oak area and deed beach access. strongly supports the idea of a resort
floors, 12 foot ceilings and an oversize at the south end of the island and the
A mile or so further south, a South 38-foot by 16-foot swimming pool Meanwhile, at the south end of the zoning will allow a 400-room hotel.
Florida developer has two elegant island, two game-changing commer-
oceanfront homes nearly complete with spa. There is an oversize elevator, cial real estate projects appear to be “How cool would that be?” says
in a 10-home subdivision called Ac- four-car garage and it is a smart home near commencement. Thorpe of a resort on the north side
quavista. Mark Rothenberg of Allen- throughout – lights, shades, security, of the Fort Pierce Inlet. “If you get
berg Development, a major player in sound system, heating and cooling Bob Lowe says he just put an 11.8- the right product and the right hotel
the Delray Beach/Boca Raton luxury can be controlled from anywhere,” via acre hotel site under contact to a de- brand, that would be rocket fuel for
home market, is bullish enough on smart phone or computer. veloper who plans to proceed with a North Hutchinson.”
North Hutchinson that he bought all hotel/condo project that will include
10 lots and is building the first two The couple owns two other lots in two restaurants and other public Besides giving locals a place to
homes on spec. One will be a ready- the subdivision and plan to begin an- amenities. dine out, the hotel would be a prime
delivery house, the other a model other house when the current project source of potential homebuyers. As
home. sells. “We have been getting calls and The property sold at the height of in Vero, visitors who fall in love with
we are optimistic,” Szymanska says. the boom for $17.9 million, but lost the island lifestyle while on vacation
The 4,000-square-foot, 4-bedroom, value in the downturn. Las Vegas often end up as residents somewhere
6-bath houses are offered with a The next major project is Heaton’s casino owner Phil Ruffin bought it down the line.
choice of facades, modern or beachy, homerun subdivision, Tarpon Flats. for $6 million in 2013 and employed
and will sell for $2.25 million to $2.5 Single-story luxury homes with 2,400 The second project is a 9.5-acre
million. Thorpe, who has the listings, square feet under roof now start at Lowe to get it rezoned for a resort. commercial site called Grande Beach,
says the first house will be complete in $475,000, while larger two-story mod- The process took two years, but St. across A1A from the hotel property.
September. els with 3,400 square feet under roof Lucie County Senior Planner Diana Lowe says he has two offers on his
start around $600,000. Community Waite says it is now complete. desk waiting approval from the bank
Right next door, husband-and- that owns the property. It is zoned
wife development team Eduardo Leal A development plan will have to be for mixed use, which would include
and Aggie Szymanska are building a 17,000 square feet of retail along with
6,850-square-foot modernist estate new housing.
on a lot with 100 lineal feet of ocean
frontage. Vero Beach general contrac- “I understand a lot of people are
tor Della Porta Construction began the after that property,” Thorpe said. “It
house in December and Leal says it will would be perfect for a restaurant,
be ready to occupy by next March. bank, cleaners, maybe a little post of-
fice, and then you also have residential
Szymanska, an agent with Dale So- land with access to water. It is pretty
rensen Real Estate, has the listing. hot. That will get developed.” 

Let Freedom Ring!

Award Winning Sales, Service and
Waterfront Ships Store For Almost 60 Years!

772.562.7922 : 12 Royal Palm Pointe • Vero Beach : www.veromarine.com
Vero Beach’s Boating Headquarters!

10 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

NEWS

Shores faces long odds in challenge before Florida PSC

BY LISA ZAHNER Monday in a statement released by the open Vero’s territory. Still, legal teams county residents have some things in
Staff Writer Shores legal team. are scheduled to represent both sides common – namely, the fact that they
on July 7 in Tallahassee before the subsidize Vero’s general fund through
Even as Indian River Shores residents Vero’s 30-year franchise agreement five-member panel of commission- the electric rates they pay, even
are running out of legal and regulatory with the Shores for electric service ex- ers charged with protecting the pub- though they cannot vote for the Vero
venues to plead their case about Vero’s pires in November. The Shores argues lic interest, as it relates to utilities in Beach City Council members who run
high electric rates, Vero, the Shores and it temporarily assigned to Vero the re- Florida. the utility.
Florida Power & Light officials have sponsibility to provide electric service
agreed to sit down and try to hammer and that, as a sovereign entity, it has the NEWS ANALYSIS But the Shores has long argued that
out some mutually acceptable terms right to reassign that municipal respon- the Town’s home-rule rights under the
for a sale of the Shores’ 3,000 electric sibility to another utility provider once The PSC has consistently sided with Florida Constitution are quite differ-
customers to FPL. there is no valid franchise in place. Vero Beach in a series of inter-munici- ent than the county’s rights – claiming
pal squabbles, and it’s easy to see why. the Town has more power over what
Last Thursday, in advance of a July The Shores says that the home-rule Vero’s claim that it enjoys a permanent Vero electric can do within the Town’s
meeting of the Florida Public Service powers granted to it by the state give it electric service territory awarded to municipal borders than the county
Commission, commission staff issued a degree of control over what happens it by the PSC bolsters the PSC’s argu- does in its territory.
its analysis of the Shores’ petition to inside the Town limits. Vero disagrees, ment of “exclusive and superior” au-
open up Vero’s electric territory for claiming its service territory as award- thority when it comes to divvying up Meanwhile, the Vero Beach City
review, recommending commission- ed by the PSC trumps any franchise the state of Florida. Council approved staff and legal time
ers dismiss the Shores’ claims of home agreement – or lack thereof – and su- to begin a dialogue with FPL decision-
rule power to decide which utilities are persedes any powers the Shores might City Manager Jim O’Connor said he makers and Shores officials that might
allowed to encroach across Town bor- think it has to kick Vero out. was not surprised that the staff pretty offer options for bridging the chasm
ders and do business in the Shores. much echoed Vero’s positions in its between the $13.6 million FPL has
One small victory lies in the PSC’s white paper to commissioners. “It is offered for the Shores’ 3,000 electric
“We are disappointed by the staff acknowledgement that the Town does what we expected and have said since customers and the $42.4 million fig-
recommendation. We fundamentally in fact have standing to file its petition this process started,” O’Connor said. ure Vero says it needs to make all of its
disagree with their interpretation of – something Vero’s attorneys claimed other customers whole.
the Florida Constitution, and look for- the Town did not have. Should the PSC agree with its staff
ward to discussing our positions with recommendation, the Shores could FPL External Affairs Director Amy
all of the Commissioners on July 7,” Other than on that one issue, the always appeal to the Florida Supreme Brunjes suggested her colleagues
Shores Mayor Brian Barefoot said on PSC would have to run afoul of its own Court, but so far Florida’s high court might have some innovative solutions
massive cache of attorneys and con- also has bolstered Vero’s position with in the works to provide incentives for
sultants to rule in favor of cracking a ruling on Indian River County’s ap- Vero to take a harder look at the deal.
peal of PSC rulings that did nothing to In the spirit of good faith and coop-
protect county residents from Vero’s eration, the Shores Town Council has
unregulated electric rates. agreed to end its Circuit Court battle
with Vero over breach of contract for
The Shores and unincorporated charging “unreasonable rates.” 

County’s first commercial-scale
brewery opens near Vero airport

Alan Dritenbas of Walking Tree Brewery.

BY MICHELLE GENZ Walking Tree Brewery, the answer is
Staff Writer two long years – almost to the day.

What does it take to get a cold beer Last Thursday at 3 p.m., the tap was
around here? pulled for the first beer sold in the
first commercial-scale brewery in the
If that’s what Alan Dritenbas and county. With a 20-barrel brewhouse
Mike Malone asked themselves when and five fermenters – two 20 barrel
they signed the lease for their new
CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 11

NEWS

Historic diesel plant trial the city’s faulty cleanup efforts.
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 He claimed the city failed to keep

ed eyesore, inhabited by hundreds of the developers apprised of the status of
pigeons, a stream of homeless people those efforts and the problems popping
– and the hopes of an entire town. up at the site. Though the city main-
tained construction could go on during
At issue is a dense 45-year lease the clean-up, Barth testified his group
between the city and B-B Redevelop- didn’t want to be hampered by an es-
ment LLC, originally owned by archi- calating list of restrictions like having to
tect Charles Block and builder and de- test soil every time they dug at the site.
veloper Phil Barth. Another builder/
developer, David Croom, eventually Instead, Barth said, they wanted to
took over Block’s slice of the pie, along wait for certification that the cleanup
with Croom’s son Charles. job was completed and the site was
compliant with environmental guide-
Charles Croom eventually became lines. As the cleanup dragged on be-
project manager, as B-B undertook a yond predictions, Barth wanted rent
restoration at the peak of the real estate to be waived.
boom, certain that a thriving shopping,
dining and office complex in the old The city’s attorney, O’Neill, countered
plant would one day redefine downtown. in Barth’s cross-examination that the
rent was already being waived by the
In a grueling day of testimony Mon- city, not because of contamination but
day, questioned first by his own attor- because of the economic downturn.
ney Buck Vocelle, and then on cross-
examination by the city’s counsel, He went on to point out meetings,
Eugene O’Neill, Barth, born and raised documents and emails involving
in Vero, testified that he remembered Barth addressing the ramifications of
how residents once set their watches the cleanup.
to the noon whistle at the plant.
The city is asking for $70,000 in back
Starting in 1998, Barth began to en- rent.
vision the project. By then, though,
multiple sources of environmental Meanwhile, the plant’s new owner,
contamination had been found, from developer Michael Rechter, was to
the lead paint on the ceiling to the die- close on the property Wednesday. He
sel fuel spilled virtually all over the site. is turning it into a craft brewery, and
is assuming responsibility for any re-
In opening arguments before Sem- maining environmental issues.
inole County Judge John Galluzzo,
Croom and Barth’s attorney Vocelle The trial, despite its endless envi-
laid out a noble effort on the part of ronmental acronyms, construction
the developers that was thwarted by terms, ledger entries, and email trails
is drawing a steady trickle of visitors,
including senior Vero attorneys Ches-
ter Clem and Bob Jackson. 

School District anticipates cash-flow problem

BY KATHLEEN SLAON give the School Board an estimate,
Staff Writer although he was obviously working
backward from some number.
Indian River County School Dis-
trict’s chief financial officer Carter Tax Anticipation Notes are a short-
Morrison recently floated a trial bal- term borrowing instrument for lo-
loon, telling School Board members cal governments, such as the School
he is setting aside $100,000 to pay for Board, that lets them pledge property
the cost of a Tax Anticipation Note as tax dollars without voter approval.
part of the upcoming budget. (Tax dollars pledged for longer than a
year require voter approval under the
That’s like announcing, “We have no state constitution. Short-term bor-
financial cushion. We don’t have the rowing evades that regulation, even if
cash reserves to make it to November, the debt is rolled over each year.)
when tax revenue starts coming in.”
Since 2009, the school district has
Which makes one wonder: Consid- used this form of borrowing six times,
ering that the School District rakes in borrowing a total of $120 million and
well over $100 million a year in prop- paying about $782,000 in interest.
erty taxes, more than half of it paid by
island residents, why can’t it pay its Public records don’t make clear what
bills without taking out payday loans? the issuance, legal and bond counsel
costs were for the six notes, but if they
Morrison said about $63,000 is are commensurate with Morrison’s
needed to issue the note, $32,000 for current estimate, they would be about
interest payments and about $5,000 twice as much as interest costs or about
for “miscellaneous” costs. The prin- $1.6 million, pushing the total cost of
cipal amount of the loan would be borrowing to approximately $2.4 mil-
determined later, he said, refusing to lion since 2009. 

12 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

NEWS

Brewery opens near airport involves not only math but science, bas explained, after he headed back ment that food trucks can’t operate in
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10 Dritenbas says. While Malone focuses into the tasting room from the produc- the city except for special occasions.
on the beer, he is working on vari- tion zone. “That’s where you chill the “They said we can have them up to 18
and three 40 barrel – the facility can ous certifications on the tasting end, beer after it’s been boiled and send it times a year, but I feel we ought to be
start distributing to restaurants and including as a cicerone, what he de- into the fermenter. It’s the most dan- able to have them whenever we want.
bars within a month, and with luck, scribes as “beer’s equivalent to a wine gerous part of brewing – not for us, but We’re still working on that.”
could be canning within a year. sommelier.” for contamination. Everything has to
be perfect, so it’s a little stressful.” Worst case scenario, he says, they
The former Navy warehouse, which "It’s a rabbit hole,” says Dritenbas. may have to be licensed as a restaurant.
once stored airplane parts, has been “There’s so much to learn. But we’ve Not nearly as stressful, however, as
meticulously and creatively converted got a lifetime to learn it.” the many months of permitting that They have not yet signed with a dis-
into an industrial-chic tasting room preceded the project’s start and con- tributor, a requisite step to get their
and brewery. As guests ranging from curious neigh- tinues today regarding serving food at beers in other bars. And they’re wait-
bors to close family and friends streamed the brewery. ing for parts to be able to fill growlers,
Though the pair has been experi- through the bar’s two entry points, serv- the take-home glass jugs that craft beer
menting with small 10-gallon batches ers fended off queries as to just where to Malone and Dritenbas envisioned aficionados tote around like old-timey
for years, scaling it up to 600 gallons find the two men of the hour. having food trucks at the brewery, but luggage.
then heard from the health depart-
“We were doing a knockout,” Driten- One last detail, apparently over-
looked by the health department’s in-
spection until it was giving its final ap-
proval: The brewery has to screen all its
doors, no small effort considering the
huge openings.

“That’s OK. It’ll keep zika out,” jokes
Dritenbas, referring to the mosquito-
borne virus.“We had to special order the
doors – they weren’t cheap. We showed
the health department the receipts and
they were OK with that for now, but it’s
going to be another month or so.”

Walking Tree Brewery. PHOTO BY LEAH DUBOIS

While screens may stop mosquitos
and flies, they will also stop air flow.
Until the tasting room is fully enclosed,
it has no air conditioning.

“We call it the wind tunnel,” says
Dritenbas, referring to a battery of
fans placed around the interior.

Two rooms do have air conditioning,
though not everyone had discovered
them last week: a small space beyond
the bar games area, and the restrooms.
“We expect to find bar stools in there
some day,” Dritenbas says.

This summer, and probably through
fall, the baking afternoon heat is certain
to spike the thirst of customers and the
brewery plans to be open seven days a
week. Walking Tree Brewery is a block
south of Aviation Boulevard, off Piper
Drive, at 3209 Dodger Road. A grand
opening celebration is planned for Sat-
urday July 16 starting at 2 p.m. 



14 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

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All eyes on Vero skies as Air Show razzles, dazzles

PHOTOS: DENISE RITCHIE

Battalion Chief Corey Richter,
AMC(AW) Ron Girouard

and military liaison Brett Krause.

James Funk with pilots Jaime ‘Eeyore’ Moreno and John ‘Toby’ Keith, Jackie Carlon and Drew McEwen.

BY MARY SCHENKEL
Staff Writer

The Vero Beach Air Show, a fund- AIR SHOW PHOTOS CONTINUED ON PAGE 16
raiser for the Exchange Clubs of In-
dian River, Treasure Coast and Vero Mike Moon, Jan Binney and Wayne Boggs. spewed fire and filled the air with a thrill of seeing these performers.”
Beach as well as the Veterans Council very pronounced roar. The louder the “These guys were thrown so many
of Indian River County, took place last displayed their resolve, standing at at- engines on the ground or in the air, the
weekend at the Vero Beach Regional tention in the pouring rain during the more the crowd cheered, especially curves and had to make so many ad-
Airport without the highly anticipated American Anthem. Fans waited out the when the F-18 soared overhead, zip- justments. I am really impressed on
Blue Angels, but the show most defi- thunderstorm, taking shelter wherever ping by so quickly the photographers how they reacted to all the adversity
nitely went on, thrilling crowds and they could before the rains abated and in the crowd had difficulty shooting it and these guys put on one heck of an
filling the skies with color, aerobatics the planes took to the soaked runways. in complete focus. air show for Vero Beach,” said Anthony
and the exhilarating roar of screaming Samons.
engines. Excitement built as planes began to “There are hundreds of people in-
line the field, taking turns as they ca- volved in putting this event on, in- The Fehrenbach family from Hous-
The tragic death of Navy Captain reened through the sky above the air cluding all of our staff,” said Airport ton had timed their visit to Vero Beach
Jeff Kuss at a training exercise in Ten- field. As the aeronautics began, all eyes Director Eric Menger. “We thank ev- so that they could see their very first
nessee on June 4 forced a cancellation faced skyward to watch the great dis- eryone for being here and putting up air show. They all enjoyed it, especially
of the U. S. Navy Blue Angels squad- plays of talent and terror; among them with a little of the weather. But these 13-year-old Ashley, who was excited
ron. But show organizers understood wing walker Ashley Key, a 4-man Aero- performers really know what they are that the wing walker had the same first
the solemn duty of the Navy to take Shell Aerobatic Team, a SB2C Helldiver, doing and the people who came out re- name.
care of its pilots and the team follow- the Misty Blues All-Woman Skydiving ally had a great time.”
ing the devastating incident, and the Team, and the Super Hornet Tactical “It was pretty cool when Ashley Key
Navy introduced the crowd instead to Demonstration Team. “I think the show was fantas- was standing on the wings,” she said.
its F/A-18 Super Hornet Tactical Dem- tic and, in spite of everything, the “I also liked when the Misty Blue’s
onstration Team from Strike Fighter A particular thrill for all ages was the crowds are here,” said Piper Aircraft skydiving team came down with the
Squadron (VFA) 106. 375+ mph Shockwave Jet Truck, which President/CEO Simon Caldecott. American flag. They were great.”
“We want people to see the benefit
Saturday’s show began with a sur- of aviation as well as getting the She echoed the sentiments of many
prise deluge at the start of the show, youngsters there, adding, “I would like
as members of the Chapter 1038 Viet- to fly one day too.” 
nam Veterans of America Color Guard



16 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

PEOPLE

12 3
4
5

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 17

PEOPLE

67

AIR SHOW PHOTOS CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

89

AIR SHOW CAPTIONS

1. AeroShell Aerobatic planes wow the crowd.
2. Aerobatic planes fly in formation. 3. Wing
walker Ashley Key. 4. Emma Hollen watches the
Air Show. 5. Jacob Dempsey plays in a helicopter.
6. Shockwave Jet Truck races alongside the F/A-18
on the runway. 7. Air Show attendees brave the
elements. 8. A number of static military aircraft
were featured as well. 9. Excited families watch
the Air Show from the sidelines.

PHOTOS: LEAH DUBOIS

18 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

PEOPLE

2 3
1 6

45

7

AIR SHOW CAPTIONS

1. Greg Shelton pilots an FM-2 Wildcat. 2. Wing

walker Ashley Key waves to the crowd as Greg

Shelton pilots the biplane. 3. The AeroShell

Aerobatic Team performed in their North

American AT-6 Texans. 4. The A-10 Thunderbolt

II, affectionately called the “Warthog” for its

aggressive look. 5. Members of the Misty Blues

All-woman Skydiving Team performed. 6. Kyle

Franklin performed as Dracula in his vampired-

themed biplane. 7. Chris Darnell in his Shockwave

Jet Truck races Kyle Franklin in his biplane.

8. USN Lt. John “Toby” Keith flies the F/A-18

Super Hornet. PHOTOS: J PATRICK RICE

8

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 19

PEOPLE

What a story! Kids flock to fun Reading Tour event

Elijah, Alyssa and Mikhail Horton
with Geronimo Stilton

PHOTOS: DENISE RITCHIE

SCHOLASTIC PHOTOS CONTINUED ON PAGE 20

Front: Authors Sandra Markle and Walter Wick. Rear: Mike Maihack, Lisa McCourt,
Scholastic representative Milena Giunco and J.J Howard.

Inside there was even more excite- Mike Maihack, Lisa McCourt and
ment as children hugged fluffy book Sandra Markle – signed autographs
characters, Clifford the Big Red Dog and chatted with the young readers.
and Geronimo Stilton, an adventure-
loving mouse. Five children’s book “This is one of the best indepen-
authors – Walter Wick, J.J. Howard, dent book stores I have ever been to,”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 21

Abigail Kyle. Clifford the Dog with Caroline Clement.

BY CHRISTINA TASCON “We house all the schools’ books
Staff Writer on their summer reading list and en-
courage the kids to get them when
School may be out for the summer, they come,” said VBBC employee
but a free, fun-filled Scholastic Sum- Tiffanie McCurdy. “We have this
mer Reading Tour event last Mon- free event, do story hours on Friday
day at the Vero Beach Book Center mornings, and have lots of authors
drew plenty of excited children ea- and activities over the summer to
ger to hug their favorite story-book encourage literacy in general.”
characters and meet a few authors.
The event was one more tool in the The Book Center also recently held
arsenal to promote continued liter- a book drive to help stock the new
acy over the summer and avoid the Learning Alliance Moonshot Mo-
“summer slide” when children lose ment bookmobile, which will bring
progress made during the school books to children in underserved ar-
year. eas of the county all summer long.

Scholastic, a national company At Monday’s event, children had
based out of Seattle, Wash., promotes a blast making crafts, spinning a
reading at Road Trip events around wheel for prizes, entering an Ani-
the country, their brightly decorated mated GIF Photo Booth to have their
Scholastic RVs touring the nation and pictures taken with book characters,
encouraging children to read books. and cooling off with sweet treats
from Rita’s Italian Ice.

20 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

PEOPLE

Authors Mike Maihack and Lisa McCourt.

Shane Saldivar with Lynne Greene and Bryson Fantauzzi.

Thomas and Emma Lee Leonard. Jacob, Logan and Connor Van Brimmer.

Caroline and Ella Castle. Author Walter Wick.

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 21

PEOPLE

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19 more organic experience with a book “It teaches them language skills and that there is a real person who writes
over a digital device.” develops an essential love of reading these stories for them. There is an old
said Walter Wick, whose popular “I from a young age.” saying that if you can read, you can
SPY” photo illustration books trans- “From the research I have done, it survive. Whether it is just reading di-
late better on a page than digitally. is never too early to read with your “Children associate reading as rections or learning about something
children,” said Caroline Castle, who a good time from events like this,” you need to know, reading can give
“Kids are in front of screens enough came to buy books and have them au- said VBCC Marketing Director Cyn- you all of that knowledge.” 
these days,” said store owner Chad tographed for her 7-month-old baby. thia Callander. “They also get to see
Leonard. “It’s good to give them a

22 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

PEOPLE

Carole and Larry Strauss. Conrad and Phillis Rock, Art and Mary Pingree, and Isabel Garrett. PHOTOS: DENISE RITCHIE Sara Gordon and Isobel Gordon.

‘King’ reigns at Guild’s glitzy Genie Awards gala

BY MARY SCHENKEL – the swanky Vero Beach Theatre
Staff Writer Guild version of Broadway’s Tony
Awards.
“The King and I” took top honors,
including recognition as the Out- Once again held at the theater on
standing Production, at Saturday San Juan Avenue, home to the Guild
evening’s Genie Awards Banquet since 1985, roughly 130 attendees
enjoyed an evening of glitz, glamour

Nancy Alicea, Keenan Carver, Kelly Clemenzi and Troy Clemenzi.

and great food in the Green Room 25 years ago doing a parody of ‘Mu-
and backstage areas of the newly en- sic Man’ in Fort Pierce. Then we
larged East Wing Expansion, both up- were in ‘Hairspray’ this past season,
stairs and down, followed by talented and married back in April.”
performances on the main stage.
Guild members also encourage
It’s a family affair for many in the the many Charter High School stu-
Guild – with parents passing their dents who volunteer at the various
passion for the craft to their chil- performances and events such as
dren, and there are even a few love the banquet.
affairs that have blossomed among
the actors. Young Isobel Gordon, “They’re just great kids; we love
looking particularly grown up as the Charter kids,” said Mark Wygon-
she showed off her lovely blue gown, ik, longtime Guild supporter and
said that one of the things she liked former president. “We love celebrat-
best about performing as one of the ing our volunteers for the time they
royal children in “The King and I” take to be in a show – on stage and
was that she got to act on stage with back stage. That’s what this event is
her mother, Sara Gordon. all about. We love thanking them for
their time and their talent, and we
“We’re newlyweds,” said Sandi have a lot of talent in this town.”
Hellstrom-Leonard of her “Hair-
spray” co-performer Kent Leonard. In between the actual awards pre-
Her daughter Lauren Hellstrom is sentations they had planned won-
also active with the Guild. “We met derful songs and dances from the

CONTINUED ON PAGE 24

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 23

PEOPLE

Leslie Christoffel and Mark Wygonik. Brian LaCerda and Jim Daly. Richard Giessert and Shelley Adelle.

Lauren Hellstrom, Kent Leonard and Sandi Hellstrom-Leonard. Wayne Clemenzi, Joy Wild and Linda Clemenzi. Chuck and Judy Covarrubias.

24 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 PEOPLE Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

Carolyn and Claude Cooper. Karren Walter with Jim Mitchell and Donna Roberts-Mitchell. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22

various shows, humorous parodies
and a video montage. “We’re doing a
lot of audio-visual, something we’ve
never done before,” said Wygoink.
“As technology advances we try to
keep up with it.”

“It’s been a record-breaking year
both in terms of money and cus-
tomer count,” said Guild President
Jim Daly. “We had so much success
that we’re doing double shows this
coming season on the second and
third Saturdays; matinees and eve-
ning shows for the musicals.”

In addition to winning Outstand-
ing Production, “The King and I”
– directed by Clara McCarthy – re-
ceived: Outstanding Set Design,
Isabel Garrett and Shawn Webber;
Leading Actor in a Musical and
Male Vocalist, Derrick Paul; Sup-
porting Actor in a Musical, Micah
Nalzaro; Character Actress in a
Musical, Shannon Maloney; Actor
in a Secondary Role in a Musical,
Doolin Dalton; Cameo Actress in
a Musical, Tristen van der Meulen;
Outstanding Male Juvenile, Micah
Nalzaro; Outstanding Female Juve-
nile, Shannon McNair; and Group
Performance, the other 11 Royal
Children.

The musical “Hairspray” received
awards for: Leading Actress in a
Musical, Dana Rogers; Supporting
Actress in a Musical and Female Vo-
calist, Vallery Valentine; Character
Actor in a Musical, Kent Leonard;
Actress in a Secondary Role in a
Musical, Kelly Clemenzi; Outstand-
ing Female Newcomer, Shannon
McNair; Outstanding Male Rookie,
Javaune Daley; and Outstanding
Female Rookie, Jasmine Bell.

The play “Run for Your Wife” was
recognized for: Leading Actor in a
Play and Outstanding Male New-
comer, Doy Demsick; Leading Ac-
tress in a Play, Leslie Christoffel;
Supporting Actor in a Play, Jason
Avery; Character Actor in a Play,
Michael Flipse; and Cameo Actor
in a Play, Brian Lacerda. And “So-
cial Security” garnered awards for
Supporting Actress in a Play, Leslie
Christoffel; and Character Actress
in a Play, Isabel Garrett.

Additional presentations: Steve
Stahl President’s Choice Award,
Larry Strauss; Joe Paldi Award, Nor-
man Cross; Jim Hindert Award, June
Vitti; Bette Parfet Music Award,
Karen Wiggins; Jacobus-Seibert-
Hazen Award, Gerry King; Lifetime
Member Award, Jo-Ann Mattison;
Special Appreciation Awards, Isabel
Garrett, Martha Kelly and Marion
Searfoss; Offstage Genies, Lauretta
Hlebichuk and Mark Wygonik; and
Backstage Awards, Don Croteau,
Kathy Robbins and Greg Squire. 



26 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

ARTS & THEATRE

Vet’s pet projects: Filmmaking, writing, comedy

Filmmaker John Stein.

PHOTOS BY LEAH DUBOIS

BY MICHELLE GENZ manages to keep a straight face while recent entry to the Vero Beach Wine ing a single frame of the film.
Staff Writer talking to clients about their pets’ re- and Film Festival was a comedy short “Ludwig was sad and lonely,” says
productive systems. film about the sex life of chairs.
Like most veterinarians, John Stein the mournful-sounding narrator –
Imagine their surprise when Stein’s It was Stein who was surprised when Stein himself. “Life was one fat (back-
festival judges picked “Ludwig: A Se- side) after another.”
cret Life” for its Vero Visions Award.
“I’m stunned,” said Stein, clutching his Then Ludwig meets Helga, and gets
trophy, a stylized wood carving of the a leg up on his love life, so to speak. But
letters “VB.” then Helga meets Pedro, who has a car
– and now we see the chairs reclining
As he told a cheering audience after in the backseat of Pedro’s Lexus. (Stein
the screening, “Ludwig” was inspired recruited neighborhood kids to shake
by a row of stacked chairs lying face the chairs.) When Ludwig meets Hans,
down in a production barn. “One chair a director’s chair (he’s in the movie
was on its side, and next to it was a pile business), a whole other side opens up
of empty bottles. I thought, that guy in him.
was too drunk to get in on the action.”
While in print, Stein’s explicitness
From that moment of anthropomor- may seem graphic; on screen, it reso-
phism came a story line: Ludwig, the nates as, well, resin. After all, how dirty
lonely chair. can PVC be?

Stein wrote the entire script while Stein got used to such humor early in
waiting for an oil change. His Grammy- life. Not through his father – he left be-
nominated friend Chris Munson wrote fore Stein turned 3. It was his otherwise
the music in 15 minutes – without see- perfectly lovely mother who all her life

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 27

ARTS & THEATRE

"It was fun as hell. I was fascinated hand, he was awed by the amount of tice as well as his house in Vero. There
by everything about it, setting up talent around him. he made several more shorts, includ-
the cameras, moving the stands, the ing “Ludwig,” and others he felt were
“You have no idea how many D-list at least as good. For a time, he worked
multiple takes." actors are out there who are really tal- with a production house in Portland,
– John Stein about working in the ented, really good-looking. I’m looking but ultimately went back to work as
at all this talent and I say, I’m making a a veterinarian. He and his wife Karen
film “All Shook Up” movie and they’re going to be in it.” have been dividing their time between
Maine and Vero until last year.
On an offer of gas money and a few
meals, Stein got his cast and crew to Stein started with Florida Veterinary
come to Fort Pierce. But the film he League in February. He gets up early to
made was so awful, it drew laughs work on his novel for a half-hour or so,
when it wasn’t supposed to at a small before heading to the office. With mul-
film festival in West Palm. tiple doctors, it is a busy practice; in the
long row of chairs in the waiting room,
So in 2001, he decided to go to film there is rarely an empty seat. 
school at Rockport College in Maine,
selling his Fort Pierce veterinary prac-

“was a great hand with an off-color with a respected academy in Orlando,
joke,” he says, repeating one she told and stand-up comedy before that.
him when he was 12 – word for word.
It was in the mid-1990s that a mar-
It was around that time that films keting person for a veterinary supplier
became “the biggest thing in my life,” found Stein’s phone calls so hilarious
Stein recalls. that she urged him to find an open-mic
night at a comedy club.
“I saw ‘South Pacific’ in the theater
seven times,” he says. “I was horribly He came up with three minutes of
hung up on Mitzi Gaynor.” material and headed to West Palm
Beach’s Comedy Corner on a Sunday
Television proved a close second: He night. Instead of the normal 30 or so
was glued to “The Ed Sullivan Show” for open-mic night, he found a packed
waiting for the stand-up routine. “Jack- house waiting for the headliner, a na-
ie Mason, Myron Cohen, the Catskills tional act.
guys – I lived for them.”
Still, he wasn’t nervous “once I got up
A less-than-stellar student, Stein there,” he says.
says no one was more shocked than he
was when his SATs came back through “I opened up with some screwy joke,
the roof, earning him a scholarship to and the place was like a tomb. But it was
the University of Miami. From there he a joke you had to think about. Sudden-
went to vet school at Ohio State, gradu- ly, there was this tidal wave of laughter
ating in the top 10 percent of his class. washing over me. I was hooked.”
Anxious to return to Florida, he ended
up in Fort Pierce in 1972, opening a vet Over the next few years, he played
clinic and buying a horse farm. the West Palm club, Vero’s Atlantic Grill
and Melbourne’s Groucho’s, and in
“It was my dream to be the big-shot between wedged in three trips to New
horse doctor with race horses,” he riffs. York to the Stand-up Comedy Insti-
“It was going to be my picture on the tute. Each time, he and his classmates
front of Blood-Horse magazine leading would perform at Caroline’s or Don’t
Bold Ruler off the airplane.” Tell Mama.

While the thoroughbreds grazed, he Back in Florida, after performing at
took care of the town’s dogs and cats Groucho’s, he was approached by Lisa
(this writer’s included). Now 69, after Maile, owner of an Orlando acting
15 years or so testing out his talents in school. “I would love for you to attend,”
comedy, commercials and filmmaking, she said. Expecting a ruse, Stein looked
he has just joined Florida Veterinary through the stack of information she
League – and won his first film festival sent him, and saw that the fee – $2,200
prize. – had been crossed out. “It was compli-
mentary,” he says.
“Ludwig” was one of four that made
it into the Vero Visions category. Stein went to a half-dozen weekly
classes, each several hours in length.
Stein was surprised they didn’t After that, the acting jobs started trick-
take another of his films, “Tea Time,” ling in, a half-dozen spots including
about two socialite assassins, a mov- the “fat guy eating chicken” in a com-
ie Stein considers “very, very Vero mercial for Shoe Carnival sandals. And
Beach.” Another is a spoof of French there was a bit part in the 1998 movie
cinema, “Le Poisson and Les Fleurs,” “All Shook Up.”
complete with fabricated subtitles,
ubiquitous cigarette smoke and ex- “I got the role of a red-neck Elvis spot-
aggerated camera angles that, for ter. I saw Elvis in a giant flying guitar.”
example, followed a character up the
stairs so intimately that the shot jerk- While the big parts eluded him, he
ed with each step. found the process of filming riveting.

Stein came to filmmaking in late mid- “It was fun as hell. I was fascinated
dle-age. Entering film school in his mid- by everything about it, setting up the
50s, he had studied acting before that cameras, moving the stands, the mul-
tiple takes,” he recalls. On the other

28 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

ARTS & THEATRE

Strings attached, Walsh set for music camp gig

BY MICHELLE GENZ Kennedy Center. He has played with Joe K. Walsh and his mandolin.
Staff Writer Emmylou Harris, Bela Fleck, John Sco-
field (whom he cites as a major influ-
When cellist Mike Block gathers to- ence these days) and Ricky Skaggs,
gether some of the country’s top string among many others.
players to teach a summer fiddle camp
in Vero, it isn’t just the campers who He toured Europe in his four years
benefit, nor is it the audience at Block’s with the Gibson Brothers, a multiple
free annual festival. award-winning traditional bluegrass
band; they parted ways in 2013. Walsh
It is the musicians themselves, says just released a debut album on Com-
Joe K. Walsh, a mandolinist arriving pass Records of a new band, Mr. Sun,
this weekend to teach his fourth Mike founded with another Vero band camp
Block String Camp. veteran, Darol Anger. Walsh describes
the new group as “my genre-inclu-
Summer camps like Vero’s, now in sive omnivorous improvisatory string
its seventh year, serve as a sort of test band.”
kitchen for musical “recipes.” as Walsh
puts it. Not unlike the Monday gigs That unserious experimentation
he has kept up for years in a Portland, is wide open at string camps, evolv-
Maine, pizza place, that regularly at- ing of the sort of unsupervised fooling
tract astonishing talent to join in, the around that roots seems born to. And
instructors at fiddle camps across the Block, as host of the party, draws up a
country benefit from the connections guest list of faculty that invariably in-
they make and even the music they cludes musicians new to the room.
make together.
Music school is one way to forge the
Not that his playing is limited to connections, Walsh says. “But honest-
summer camps and pizza joints.Walsh, ly, camps are a big way. I go to Mike’s
considered among the top mando- camp and I’ll spend time with people
linists in the country, has performed I know and some people I know a little
at the Ryman Auditorium and the less. Over the course of the week, we

Walsh, in red, with the band Mr. Sun.

"I’d be hard pressed to find music that interests
me that doesn’t take great risks. The music
that we respond to isn’t the music that’s
playing safe." – Joe K. Walsh

often find that opportunities arise to Similarly, Walsh was hired for the
work together,” he says. camp through Anger, an icon in the fid-
dle world and among the best-known
That just happened in a big way for of the camp’s lineup. Anger has played
Walsh. “Mike just hired me to play on with contemporary bluegrass and
his latest record,” he says.

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 29

ARTS & THEATRE

Joe K. Walsh during a performance
with some of his students.

folk greats like Bela Fleck, David Gris- young and old from as far away as Swe- Road Project. Block has been a mem- dents in the FBI will each be in three
man, Bill Frisell and Edgar Meyer. His den, Africa and Australia. ber of the Silk Road Ensemble since he faculty-led bands.
Republic of Strings and Turtle Island was a student at Juilliard.
String Quartet are among the best- The Vero Beach camp is for all levels Other faculty for the second week are
known groups of the genre. and all ages. Block also leads another Anger and Walsh are part of the bluegrass fiddler Kimber Ludiker, world
group at DePauw University in India- camp’s second week this year, which music player Jeremy Kittel, and banjoist
Anger has taught a number of times napolis: the Global Musician Work- includes more advanced students as and composer Jayme Stone. Along with
in Vero and returns this year. His fid- shop, with a focus on world music for well as a new initiative, the Florida Block, they will be joined by Hanneke
dle-playing is on the theme song of the musicians 18 and over. That camp is Band Incubator (or FBI, as the comic Cassel, Alex Hargreaves and LorenWeis-
public radio show “Car Talk.” He was under the auspices of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Block clearly enjoys calling it). Stu- man, a drummer, music producer and
also violinist on the “Sim City” com- author of “The Artist’s Guide to Success
puter game series. in the Music Business.”

Both Anger and Block teach at Berk- The String Camp’s second-week fac-
lee College of Music, as does Walsh. ulty – including Walsh – will perform as
part of the camp’s Vero Beach Interna-
Walsh also plays with a trio that in- tional Music Festival, Wednesday, July
cludes fellowVero veteran Brittany Haas. 13, at 7:30 p.m.

“As a musician, you need a portfolio On Thursday and Friday, July 14 and
of gigs that fulfill different needs,” says 15, the advanced students join the fac-
Walsh. “The gigs that pay well aren’t the ulty for two more performances. Both
gigs you’re going to mess around with also start at 7:30 p.m.
and take the greatest risks. But if you
never take the risks, you’re never evolv- Wednesday, July 6, faculty for the first
ing and growing. For me it’s a great week of camp will perform. That too
place to take the risks. starts at 7:30 p.m. That will be followed
by a student concert Saturday, July 9, at
“I’d be hard pressed to find music 3 p.m., with a barn dance following.
that interests me that doesn’t take great
risks. The music that we respond to The concerts are all free, but a $20
isn’t the music that’s playing it safe.” donation is suggested for the camp’s
scholarship program. 
Walsh was still a teenager when he
set his mind to learning the mandolin.
He learned other stringed instruments
in high school in Minnesota. But by the
time he entered Berklee College of Mu-
sic in Boston, he was ready to declare
the mandolin as his principal instru-
ment – even though, at the time, there
was no professor of mandolin.

Walsh, who in 2007 graduated as
Berklee’s first-ever mandolin major,
now teaches there. Two years ago, he
inaugurated Berklee’s American Roots
Music summer program.

All the while, he has been writing his
own compositions and mustering mu-
sicians for his third solo recording. If it
follows the lead of the first two, credits
will read like a Mike Block String Camp
faculty roster.

Block first came to Vero in 2009 at the
invitation of Kathryn Johnston, a Vero
attorney whose daughter had studied
violin under Block at a summer pro-
gram in another state. Staying at the
Johnstons’ home, Block went to Vero
Beach High School and gave a work-
shop for its orchestra students.The next
summer, he gathered together some of
his highly accomplished colleagues for
the first Mike Block String Camp, tak-
ing over what is now the Prestige Hotel
on the beach and attracting students

30 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

ARTS & THEATRE

Coming Up: All that jazz – and more – at Vero music fest

BY MICHELLE GENZ
Staff Writer

1 There’s a veritable summer fes-
tival trifecta in Vero now, for

those of us lucky enough not to leave

at the end of season: film in June, mu-

sic in July and dance in August.

After June’s successful first effort of

the Vero Beach Wine and Film Festi-

val, and before the Riverside Dance

Festival brings us the Wylliams/Henry

Contemporary Dance Company Aug.

5 and 6, the roots-music-oriented Vero Bastille Day celebration at the Norton Musuem of Art is July 14.

Beach International Music Festival will The Vero Beach International Music Festival starts
next Wednesday at First Presbyterian Church.
be marking its seventh year next week,
faculty that can throw a jam together
beginning on Wednesday evening. every night if they want to – and they concert grew to a five-hour marathon until the renovation is complete, and
typically do. Just stroll past the Pres- – a wildly entertaining one, by the way this summer is putting on quite a show
The festival, held at First Presbyte- tige Hotel, the camp’s accommoda- – the decision was made to declare it of events, starting with what sounds like
tions on the island’s South Beach, a festival and divvy up performances a gorgeous large-scale video art installa-
rian Church, celebrates improvisa- around 10 p.m. for the next two weeks over several days. tion by Mark Fox, a Brooklyn-based art-
to get a taste. ist who spent a three-month residency
tional techniques used in a wide range This year, that festival has swelled to in Giverny, France. “Giverny: Journal of
For an only slightly more formal ex- five public performances over five days. an Unseen Garden” gives viewers a look
of music from roots to jazz. It was perience, each year the acclaimed fac- at Monet’s famous lily ponds from be-
ulty has given a free concert, asking Wednesday, July 6, in the first of five neath the water’s surface.
spawned by Vero’s phenomenal fiddle only for donations at the door for the concerts, the faculty will perform at
camp scholarship program. When the First Presbyterian Church starting at The museum is also putting on dis-
camp, the Mike Block String Camp, 7:30 p.m. play works from its permanent collec-
tion, including a work of Monet. Other
the brainchild of Juilliard-trained cel- Then, Saturday, July 9, at 3 p.m., it’s French impressionists in the show are
the students’ turn, with each of the Gauguin, Cezanne, Pissarro and Degas.
list Mike Block, a member of Yo-Yo camp’s ensembles performing a tra- Also on display: Jackson Pollock’s “Night
ditional tune they learned in class. Mist,” Edward Hopper’s “August in the
Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble. Afterwards, the teachers join in for a City” and Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Pelvis with
barn dance. the Moon – New Mexico”
The camp’s workshops include not
Then, the following week, on Wednes- A few blocks south of Okeechobee
only string playing, but vocals and day, July 13, the faculty for the camp’s Boulevard on Olive Avenue, at the start
more advanced extension week per- of the beautiful El Cid neighborhood of
percussion as well, which makes for forms at 7:30 p.m. On Thursday and historic homes, the Norton has not only
Friday, July 14 and 15, the advanced stu- a fine art collection and hosts excellent
dents join the faculty for two more per- exhibits, it also throws great parties, in-
formances. Both also start at 7:30 p.m. cluding the regular Thursday evening
events, Art after Dark. Next Thursday,
2 July 1 is opening night for the mu- July 7, features an Americana theme,
sical “1776” staged at Palm Beach with guitar and fiddle music, plus craft
beers to accompany a menu of sliders,
Dramaworks in West Palm Beach. At a corndogs and fries.

time when global economic experts are The next Thursday, July 14, is the
Norton’s Bastille Day celebration, with
debating what the Brexit will mean, we French food and wine, language cours-
es and a French horn ensemble.
get an inside look at America’s reverse
The New Norton, as it’s billed, is ex-
Brexit – the break from Britain 240 years pected to be completed in late 2018 and
will include a new 42,000-square-foot
ago. This “reimagined” production al- West Wing, a new entrance and a sculp-
ture garden.
lows the audience to spend a couple of
You can bring your bikes and make a
hours in Independence Hall, contem- day of it by riding along the Intracoast-
al on Flagler Drive, or cross the bridge
plating from up close the people in- to make the loop of the island of Palm
Beach on the Lake Trail, which starts at
volved in the signing of the Declaration another great museum, the Henry Mor-
rison Flagler Museum, a 55-room man-
of Independence. sion that during the season features art
exhibits along with events from speak-
With music and lyrics by Sherman ers to bluegrass. The Flagler is at One
Whitehall Way, Palm Beach. 
Edwards and a book by Peter Stone, the

show is staged in an intimate, recently

renovated theater at the Intracoastal

end of Clematis Street in downtown

West Palm Beach. “1776” runs through

July 24.

3 The Norton Museum of Art is re-
opening with a bang July 5, after re-

installing the galleries and preparing for

a major renovation. In light of that, the

museum is waiving admission charges



32 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

HEALTH

Superbugs and supermarkets are closely linked

BY TOM LLOYD sight along the aisles of your local su- feed efficiency. That is, to increase the drug resistant strains are already
Staff Writer permarket. animal’s weight gain per unit of feed.” common.

It happens now with surprising reg- Speaking with Dayla Boldt, an in- In simpler terms UCS says “rela- Methicillin-Resistant Staphylo-
ularity. fectious diseases clinical pharmacist tively cheap meat prices at the grocery coccus Aureus or MRSA bacteria and
at the Indian River Medical Center, store” is the main goal of antibiotic Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobac-
Your television flashes images of and Matt Lambie, the hospital’s phar- use in agriculture. teriaceae or CRE are two of the most
Petrie dishes packed with squirming macy clinical manager, illuminates troubling.
microbes. Your newspaper runs bold, the problem. For that reason, the vast majority
front-page headlines. Yet another of beef, pork and chicken products in And Thomas-St. Cyr says it’s likely
strain of antibiotic-resistant bacteria According to Lambie, “Something supermarkets come from animals “only a matter of time” before more
is announced to the world. like 70 percent of all antibiotics are raised on a steady diet of antibiotics. such superbugs evolve or are discov-
used in agriculture,” and – according The same is true of most farm-raised ered.
Just this past May the Washing- to the Alliance for the Prudent Use fish found in stores.
ton Post and New York Times, along of Antibiotics at the Tufts University The current list of “antibiotics of
with a swarm of broadcast and cable School of Medicine – in both human The problem is – small as they may last resort” includes Colistin, Tigecy-
TV networks, feverishly reported on and veterinary medicine, “the risk of be – bacteria are living organisms. cline, Avycaz and Zerbaxa, but bacte-
what they called a “first-ever” case of developing resistance rises each time They adapt. ria are being exposed to those drugs
a bacteria that is resistant to Colistin, bacteria are exposed to antibiotics.” on a regular basis.
one of the so-called “antibiotics of last These bacterial micro-organisms
resort.” That resistance “opens the door to eventually learn to produce an en- While Boldt, Lambie and Thomas-
treatment failure for even the most zyme within their cell walls which, St. Cyr have no control over decisions
On May 27, Reuters reported that common pathogens and leads to an Boldt explains, “chews up the antibi- made by meat producers and sellers
Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. increasing number of infections.” otics we give which means the antibi- to keep the price of boneless chicken
Centers for Disease Control and Pre- otic is no longer effective.” breasts and New York strip steaks low,
vention, went so far as to say, “We The Union of Concerned Scientists, possibly at the cost of human lives, all
[now] risk being in a post-antibiotic a non-profit science advocacy organi- Dr. Aisha Thomas-St. Cyr, an infec- three do point to “antibiotic steward-
world.” zation or “think-tank” founded at the tious disease expert at the Sebastian ship” programs within the healthcare
Massachusetts Institute of Technol- River Medical Center, cautions that arena as now-essential measures to
What Frieden didn’t mention is that ogy in 1969, says all those antibiotics while the May media “uproar” was slow the evolution of killer bacteria.
the likely trigger for that apocalyp- are used in agriculture primarily “not brought on by the discovery of a Co-
tic vision may well be hiding in plain to cure sick animals but to promote listin-resistant Multi-Drug Resistant In a hospital setting, according to
or MDR-1 superbug in Pennsylvania, the Centers for Disease Control, “pre-

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 33

HEALTH

Matt Lambie and Dayla Boldt. PHOTO: LEAH DUBOIS

vention of antimicrobial resistance Boldt and Lambie aren’t doing this
depends on appropriate clinical all alone. The hospital is a member
practices that should be incorporat- of DASON – the Duke Antimicrobial
ed into all routine patient care. These Stewardship Outreach Network – and
include optimal management of vas- as such it has access to the network’s
cular and urinary catheters, preven- “regional pharmacy liaison” who
tion of lower respiratory tract infec- travels between member hospitals
tion in intubated patients, accurate sharing the most recent information
diagnosis of infectious etiologies, on what other facilities are doing in
and judicious [antibiotic] selection infection control.
and utilization.“
“Stewardship is so extremely im-
To that end, Boldt says, “I basically portant,” says Lambie. “It’s refreshing
look, every single day, at every single to see that the federal government is
patient in the hospital that’s on anti- now getting involved and mandating
biotics and evaluate that for appro- stewardship practices and steward-
priateness. I work with Dr. Callahan ship activities, because five years ago
from our infectious disease depart- we were on the route to having no an-
ment really closely.” tibiotics that are effective.”

“We work with providers,” she con- The U.S. National Library of Medi-
tinues, “to try to either get antibiot- cine at the National Institutes of
ics de-escalated to something more Health sums up the situation this
narrow so we’re not using these big way: “Antibiotics are arguably the
gun antibiotics unnecessarily, or in single most important and widely
some cases we’re even stopping an- used medical intervention of our era.
tibiotics earlier to help decrease ex- Almost every medical specialty uses
posure. Then, sometimes it’s the flip antibiotic therapy at some point.”
side. We might have a patient with
a drug-resistant bug that we actu- It goes on to say, “Since bacterial ad-
ally need to escalate therapy on and aptation and resistance were reported
maybe have multiple antibiotics on- soon after antibiotics were first used,”
board to try to combat it.” there’s no reason to believe that’s go-
ing to stop anytime soon. 

34 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

HEALTH

Take heart: New tests better at seeing danger signs

BY TOM LLOYD ease Control and Prevention, coro- Dr. Jeff Gottfried. PHOTOS: DENISE RITCHIE
Staff Writer nary artery disease – or CAD – is the
leading cause of death in the United
Dr. Jeffrey Gottfried is a man on a States for both men and women.
mission.
And Gottfried says there’s a big
That mission is to help his patients problem in diagnosing the disease.
better detect signs of coronary artery
disease and, as a result, help prevent One of the most commonly used
heart attacks. diagnostic tools in fighting CAD, he
says, is seriously flawed.
According to the Centers for Dis-
In simple terms, CAD is the nar-

rowing or blocking of arteries that “The biggest thing we look at is
supply blood to the heart as a re- cholesterol, because we know from
sult of the buildup of cholesterol studies that having high bad cho-
or plaque deposits along the inner lesterol and having low good choles-
walls of those arteries. Over time the terol causes significant risks,” Gott-
condition can lead to heart attacks, fried explains. “So how do we check
heart failure and, yes, death. that? We do a blood test called a lipid
panel.”
Each year, says the CDC, about
715,000 Americans will have a heart Indeed, approximately 60 million
attack brought on by CAD and more lipid panels are ordered and per-
than 385,000 will die from the dis- formed annually in the U.S., making
ease. it one of the nation’s most frequent-
ly ordered lab tests, but Gottfried
“The statistics,” admits the gre- maintains those lipid panels miss
garious Gottfried, “are scary.” important clues.

Gottfried then turns his attention “They’re just not giving us enough
to what he feels is a woefully under- information,” he states flatly. “In one
performing diagnostic tool: the tra- study, 75 percent of people who had
ditional lipid panel cholesterol test.

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 35

HEALTH

heart attacks had normal cholesterol also look at the size, type and num- the levels of bad cholesterol present line of defense against coronary ar-
profiles according to their lipid pan- ber of LDL and HDL particles. A per- in the blood and arteries. tery disease, Gottfried is fixated on
el results.” son with a low LDL score could actu- finding better ways to prevent heart
ally have a lot of small LDL particles, Gottfried knows this all too well attacks in his patients.
Gottfried points to two somewhat putting him or her at higher risk for from first-hand experience.
newer tests as much better alterna- heart disease. And a person with “I’m really focused on this,” Gott-
tives to the standard lipid panel – the very high HDL, thought to offer dra- Ten years ago, at the ripe old age fried summarizes. “Clinically, I’m
Vertical Auto Profile (VAP) test by matic protection against heart dis- of 40, this muscular family practice seeing a big difference. [These new-
Quest Diagnostics, and the Nuclear ease, might not be getting as much physician suffered a heart attack of er tests] allow me to help reduce risk
Magnetic Resonance (NMR) test by protection as he thinks, because he his own. dramatically. I feel like I’m definitely
LabCorp and Atherotech Diagnos- can have too much of the wrong kind making a difference and that’s very
tics. of HDL,” according to the Journal. It was an attack that no one, in- rewarding.”
cluding Gottfried, saw coming. His
The U.S. National Library of Medi- In other words, traditional lipid lipid panel test results at the time, Dr. Jeffery Gottfried practices fam-
cine at the National Institutes of panels don’t characterize the size or he says, showed no sign of a problem ily medicine with the Sebastian River
Health seems to agree with Gott- the shape of any of the lipoproteins yet his main coronary artery was ac- Medical Group. His Vero Beach office
fried’s assertion. It emphatically examined and they only estimate tually 99 percent blocked. is at 1300 36th Street, Suite H-1. The
states that VAP tests “can identify phone number is 772-569-5714. 
patients at high risk for coronary ar- Today, because primary care phy-
tery disease who cannot be identi- sicians are usually a patient’s first
fied using the standard lipid panel.”

Each year, says the CDC,

about 715,000 Americans will

have a heart attack brought

on by CAD (coronary artery

disease) and more than

385,000 will die from

the disease.

Additionally, Gottfried says these
newer tests actually count the low-
density lipoproteins (LDL) – the so-
called “bad cholesterol” – while tra-
ditional lipid panels merely estimate
the presence of LDL.

The Wall Street Journal reports
“the typical cholesterol test doesn’t
directly measure LDL. It just mea-
sures high density lipoproteins or
HDL – the ‘good cholesterol’ – and
triglycerides (another type of lipid or
fat cell) and then uses a mathemati-
cal formula to come up with an LDL
score.” But that formula, says the
Journal, can be very unreliable.

The newer tests “not only provide
a direct measurement of LDL, they

36 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

HEALTH

Gain, no pain: Build an injury-free workout routine

BY GABRIELLA BOSTON The warm-up: Some gym-goers For example, without the proper weights are used and high repeti-
Washington Post might forsake the warm-up because, form in a hip hinge movement such tions are performed can also cause
well, they don’t have much time and as a deadlift — a very popular drill problems, he says.
You’ve resolved to get in shape, warm-ups aren’t really a workout. these days — gym-goers can suffer
you’re going to the gym regularly, True, but the body has a hard time injuries such as herniated discs. Everything is connected: Also
you’re on a roll — and then: adjusting when it goes from zero to among top gym-related injuries are
60, and on a muscular level, warm- Progressions (safe conditioning ankle sprains and, to a lesser de-
Rotator cuff tears! Ankle sprains! ing up is kind of like lubricating an and strengthening): A common con- gree, Achilles’ injuries (more com-
Herniated discs! engine. In other words, the soft tissue dition Mullner and Estafanous see mon in runners than general gym-
gets primed when the blood starts is rotator cuff injuries, which can goers), Mullner says. Both injuries
These are among the gym-related flowing, Mullner says. involve partial or full tears in one or are excellent examples of how ev-
injuries that doctors, trainers and more tendons (the soft tissue that erything is connected in the body,
physical therapists see regularly. He adds that as we age, our muscles connects muscles to bones) in the he says.
and tendons become less responsive shoulder joint. This condition is often
“A lot of the time, soft-tissue inju- — meaning they might need longer caused by overhead presses with too A weak back and you can get rotator
ries happen when you progress too warm-ups. The warm-up doesn’t much external load, says Estafanous. cuff issues, a weak core/hip section
quickly — load too much, too soon,” need to be anything fancy, just about and you can get tearing and inflam-
says Justin Mullner, a sports medi- 10 minutes of gradually increasing Generally, when out-of-shape cli- mation of the Achilles’ tendon and
cine doctor and team physician for the heart rate and gently doing some ents come in, they need one to two sprained ankles, Mullner says. Tight
D.C. United. dynamic stretching and range of mo- months to just get back into basic IT (iliotibial) bands (soft tissue that
tion exercises. fitness — meaning they will work runs down the outside of the thigh
Adds physical therapist Chris Es- at least three times a week on body- and helps stabilize the knee) can lead
tafanous: “It’s great when people are Postural control and mobility: An- weight exercises, light resistance, to knee pain.
excited about getting in shape — they other key component to staying inju- high repetitions, conditioning of core
want to get ripped or big fast. But it ry-free is paying attention to postural and other stabilizing muscles, as well So when it comes to injury preven-
takes time to progress safely.” control and developing enough body as some cardio fitness. tion, remember the big picture: warm-
awareness that once an external load up, postural control, gradual progres-
Along with safe progressions (the is added you don’t change your pos- Estafanous cautions, though, that sions and balance among muscle
most important aspect of staying ture, Estafanous says. So if the back it’s not just lifting heavy that can put groups. We have to connect the dots
healthy), an injury-free workout rou- needs to stay straight, you should injury-inducing stress on the body. (hip to ankle, back to shoulder, outer
tine should include a warm-up and know what that feels and looks like. Popular classes such as barre and thigh to knee) even though they might
postural control drills as well as ex- body pump in which relatively light not always be readily apparent. 
ercises that create a balance between
strength and mobility.



38 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

INSIGHT COVER STORY

HOW WASHINGTON, D.C., IS PREPARING
FOR THE NEXT TERRORIST ATTACK

BY JEFF STEIN | WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP camera views of the city’s major avenues and bridg- patrolwoman in 1990 and quickly rose through the
es, was pulling in data from all over the region. ranks to head its homeland security and counterter-
The cellphones of dead people were still ringing rorism division before becoming chief in 2007, is de-
inside the Pulse nightclub on June 12 when Cathy Everyone from hospital emergency rooms to the termined to be ready for any eventuality.
Lanier, chief of the Metropolitan Police Department power system and business association had been
in Washington, D.C., got a message from her coun- given notice that something bad was going down Nightclub shooters, like Omar Mateen? Check.
terparts in Orlando, Florida. First reports were that a 850 miles south and could be coming their way. Bombers, as in Brussels last year? Check. Anthrax?
terrorist had carried out “the worst mass murder in Check. Nuclear, chemical or biological weapons?
American history” there. “What you would expect,” Lanier says. Business Check, check, check.
as usual for the city’s most high-profile, and perhaps
A famously hands-on and nocturnal leader, Lani- popular, official, an instantly recognizable, 6-foot Unfortunately for Lanier, the recent attacks in Or-
er started punching numbers on her cellphone. One blonde who’s often seen behind the wheel of her lando, Brussels and Paris show that you can plan and
call went to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the FBI- own cruiser in the city’s poorest wards. If the history train until your budget runs dry, and still you rarely
led body that gathers intelligence on threats. Anoth- of terrorism since 9/11 has been a sad litany of “les- stop a determined attacker. “Lone wolves” come out
er went to the city’s homeland security ops center. sons learned,” Lanier, who joined the force as a foot of nowhere. The urban guerrillas of the Islamic State
A text message came in from D.C.’s mayor, Muriel group, or ISIS, use encrypted cellphones. Meanwhile,
Bowser, asking for information. Lanier knows her city is not just a top-tier target but
the greatest unclaimed prize for terrorists.
Lanier then set up a conference call with her se-
nior commanders, who were already out in force be- It’s the thriving capital of their arch-villain, home
cause of the revelers in town for the city’s annual gay to the president who has vowed to destroy them,
pride weekend. Extra resources were deployed into the Congress that funds the wars against them, the
the nightclub district and venues connected to the Pentagon that carries out the president’s orders and
day’s march, expected to draw over 250,000 people. the Supreme Court that helps keep their brethren in
Guantánamo.
As the sun lit up the Washington Monument, D.C.’s
Homeland Security and Emergency Management “Suffice it to say, the capital remains a target,”
Agency, a 24/7 nerve ganglion of blinking phones, 911 Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the
operators, intelligence analysts, computers monitors House Homeland Security Committee, says. “They
with incident reports and banks of TV screens with like to return to targets they missed” the first time
around, like the World Trade Center, whose garage
was merely wobbled by a truck bomb in 1993.

“We’ve stopped several plots against the Capitol,”
he adds. One case involved pipe bombs and AK-47s;
another had drones with explosives. There have been
other, more recent plots, he says, but “I’d rather not
get into that.”

A U.S. SECRET SERVICE AGENT
STANDS WATCH ON THE SOUTH

LAWN OF THE WHITE HOUSE
AS MARINE ONE LIFTS OFF.

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 39

INSIGHT COVER STORY

“God willing,” a fighter proclaimed in a typical ISIS WASHINGTON POLICE CHIEF CATHY LANIER next to the Reflecting Pool, again on the Capitol’s
video from November 2015, “as we struck France in West Lawn, and told police he was carrying a bucket
the center of its abode in Paris, then we swear that we DESPITE THE INTENSE SECURITY IN THE AREA, A of anthrax material that had infected him? Hazmat
will strike…Washington.” MAN RECENTLY PARKED HIS PICKUP NEXT TO THE specialists hosed him down, ran tests and found he
was just delusional. But what are police to do on the
One day, Lanier knows, they will come. And despite REFLECTING POOL AND TOLD POLICE HE WAS tourist-choked Mall, security experts ask – stop traf-
all her tireless training, surveillance and planning, CARRYING A BUCKET OF ANTHRAX. fic for random checks?
she knows she can't stop them all.
A MAJOR HOLE IN D.C.’S EMERGENCY RESPONSE PLAN The U.S. Park Police, responsible for the Mall, “is
BILLION-DOLLAR BOONDOGGLE WAS EXPOSED LAST YEAR WHEN METRO RIDERS not staffed or equipped to effectively respond to criti-
cal incidents…or protect” such icons as the Lincoln,
Washington was still jittery from the 9/11 attacks WERE STRANDED IN A SMOKE-FILLED TUNNEL AND Jefferson and Washington monuments, its union says.
in the late spring of 2002 when an unidentified small FIREFIGHTERS HAD TO USE CELLPHONES AND RELAYS Representative Betty McCollum of Minnesota, the top
aircraft showed up on radar heading straight for CIA Democrat on the House appropriations panel with ju-
headquarters in Langley, Virginia, a few miles up the TO COORDINATE THEIR RESCUE. risdiction over the Park Police, says the force “has not
Potomac River from downtown D.C. “I was on the stant’s notice to intercept intruders into D.C.’s Flight received the resources it needs, and that concerns me
seventh floor. It was late on a Friday morning,” re- Restricted Zone, which extends 15 miles out from greatly...[g]iven the potential threats to Washington.”
calls Joseph Augustyn, then the CIA’s deputy associ- downtown.
ate director for homeland security. “Somebody runs The specter of a biological or chemical attack, in
in and says, ‘It’s at stall speed. It’ll be over headquar- Yet even with all this high-tech barbed wire, an not just Washington but many other big cities across
ters in about eight minutes.’” unhinged postal worker managed to pilot a gyro- the country, has haunted security officials since
copter through the no-fly zone last year, circle the 1995, when the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo doomsday
Six months after Al-Qaeda hijackers flew airliners Washington Monument, soar over the National Mall cult uncorked a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo sub-
into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, officials and land on the West Lawn of the Capitol, where way that killed 10 people and injured 5,000. (The
were on high alert for another such attack, especial- millions will gather in January for a presidential cult was also experimenting with weaponized botu-
ly since it was only the brave passengers of United swearing-in. His payload? A bag full of petitions for linum and anthrax.)
Flight 93 who had prevented a hijacked plane from Congress to clean up campaign corruption. Home-
using the National Mall as a big green glide path to land security officials shudder at what else he might If the federal government is good at anything,
fly into the Capitol Building. Washington, D.C., they have carried. It was yet another “lesson learned.” however, it’s throwing money at threats. Since 2003,
figured, was Al-Qaeda’s unfinished business. The “We fixed that,” a city security official says. taxpayers have contributed $1.3 billion to the feds’
group had demonstrated its patience when it made BioWatch program, a network of pathogen detectors
sure it destroyed the World Trade Center the second How, then, to explain the incident just a month deployed in D.C. and 33 other cities (plus at so-called
time around, on 9/11. F-16s had been flying regular ago, when a Virginia man parked his pickup truck national security events like the Super Bowl), despite
patrols over the city ever since. persistent questions about its need and reliability.

Now a plane was heading straight for the CIA, an- In 2013, Republican Representative Tim Murphy
other symbol of American might. F-16s scrambled to of Pennsylvania, chairman of the House Energy and
look for it, Augustyn says, but they flew too fast and Commerce Committee’s Oversight and Investigations
high to see it. The plane kept coming. “It went right subcommittee, called it a “boondoggle.” Jeh Johnson,
over the agency,” he says. Secret Service agents raced who took over the reins of the Department of Home-
to small landing strips in Virginia, hoping to find the land Security (DHS) in late 2013, evidently agreed. One
plane and its owner, but neither could be found. And of his first acts was to cancel a planned third genera-
to this day, Augustyn says, "nobody knows where it tion of the program, but the rest of it is still running.
landed.”
“The BioWatch program was a mistake from the
The “lesson learned,” Augustyn says, is that “you start,” a former top federal emergency medicine
can’t send F-16s – you gotta send helicopters.” Four- official says on condition of anonymity, fearing re-
teen years later, choppers of all kinds – from the taliation from the government for speaking out. The
police, National Park Service, Marine Corps, Coast well-known problems with the detectors, he says, are
Guard, Customs, Drug Enforcement Administration, both highly technical and practical. “Any sort of thing
FBI and more – constantly flit across the city’s skies. can blow into its filter papers, and then you are wrap-
ping yourself around an axle,” trying to figure out if
In 2013, residents of leafy far northwest Wash- it’s real. Of the 149 suspected pathogen samples col-
ington got annoyed by loud, unmarked “black heli- lected by BioWatch detectors nationwide, he reports,
copters” swirling low and slow over their neighbor- “none were a threat to public health.” A 2003 tulare-
hoods at night. After much hemming and hawing, mia alarm in Texas was traced to a dead rabbit.
officials finally admitted they had been dispatched
by the obscure National Nuclear Security Adminis- Michael Sheehan, a former top Pentagon, State
tration to take air samples to help them detect the Department and New York Police Department coun-
presence of a future “dirty bomb,” an evil marriage terterrorism official, echoes such assessments. “The
of conventional explosives and radioactive material. technology didn't work, and I had no confidence that
it ever would,” he says. The immense amounts of
“It’s not likely, but you can’t take that for granted,” time and money devoted to it, he adds, could’ve been
says Lanier. “I have to be prepared if the most remote better spent “protecting dangerous pathogens stored
kind of attack does occur, so we can continue our op- in city hospitals from falling into the wrong hands.”
erations here.”
Even if BioWatch performed as touted, Sheehan
The city has built up air defenses Saddam Hus- and others say, a virus would be virtually out of con-
sein would have envied. From the city-side window trol and sending scores of people to emergency rooms
of an airliner descending into Washington’s National by the time air samples were gathered, analyzed and
Airport, a discerning passenger can spot some of the the horrific results distributed to first responders.
Stinger anti-aircraft missile batteries and 50-caliber BioWatch, Sheehan suggests, is a billion-dollar ham-
machine guns potted on the roofs of government mer looking for a nail, since “weaponizing biological
buildings around town, including the White House, agents is incredibly hard to do,” and even ISIS, which
all of which are backed up by Sentinel phased array theoretically has the scientific assets to pursue such
warning radar. weapons, has shown little sustained interest in them.

Air Force F-16s also sit “cocked and locked” at The $1.1 billion spent on BioWatch is way out of
nearby Andrews Air Force Base, deployable at an in- proportion to the risk, critics argue. What’s really

CONTINUED ON PAGE 42

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42 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 39 INSIGHT COVER STORY

driving programs like BioWatch, Sheehan says – be- uranium sniffers around downtown Washington and operators crazy, “reduc[ing] the sense of urgency
side fears of leaving any potential threat uncovered, its Metro system to seagoing drones prowling the among those who respond to them,” the NTI said.
no matter how small – is the opportunity it gives Chesapeake Bay and other major waterways and “Between May 2001 and March 2005, there were re-
members of Congress to lard out pork to research ports for radiological contraband. portedly 10,000 false alarms.”
universities and contractors back home.
With alarming regularity, reports surfaced that the Despite serious questions about whether DHS
When contacted for this story, DHS spokesman first generation of technology deployed by DHS to was fudging its statistics, Congress allowed it to steer
Scott McConnell issued a statement calling Bio- inspect cargo from container ships was a bust. The $1.15 billion worth of new business to contractors “to
Watch “a critical part of our nation’s defense against harshest criticism landed on the radiation screeners enhance the detection of radiological and nuclear
biological threats.” But only on condition of anonym- DHS deployed to ports. materials.” Seven years later, the Government Ac-
ity would a department official claim that BioWatch, countability Office, Congress’s investigative arm,
“operational 24 hours a day, 365 days a year...has a SURVEILLANCE BY HUMANS, CAMERAS AND COM- found that the new technology was pretty much a
robust quality assurance program, which includes PUTERS HAS BEEN A 24/7 OBSESSION IN D.C. SINCE 9/11. bust too. It “did not meet key requirements to detect
evaluating and auditing all operational processes radiation and identify its source,” the GAO said.
from sample collection through final data analysis Officials had decided to inspect only “high-risk
and results reporting.” [containers]...actually only 6% of all incoming cargo, Holes like that mean police, fire and health officials
leaving the great majority of containers and imports must ponder the unthinkable. Jerome Hauer, who
The former federal medical emergency official has unchecked,” the Nuclear Threat Initiative reported in ran the Public Health Emergency Preparedness office
a succinct reaction to that claim: “What baloney.” 2007. False positives, from such naturally radiating within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Ser-
material as kitty litter, bananas and ceramics, drove vices from 2002 to 2004, says he’s not worried about ter-
PONDER THE UNTHINKABLE rorists getting their hands on a ready-made Nagasaki-
style plutonium device; he’s more worried about them
The prospect of a terrorist gang heading for Wash- obtaining highly enriched uranium from sympathizers
ington with a nuclear weapon – a dirty bomb or the in places like Pakistan, India and Iran – or anywhere
Hiroshima-like device – has kept many a U.S. official there’s a nuclear power plant – and fashioning what he
awake and staring at the ceiling since the early 1990s, calls “an improvised nuclear device,” or IND.
when reports surfaced that Al-Qaeda was trying to
obtain uranium with the help of Sudan. Nobody is ready for that. D.C.’s Homeland Security
and Emergency Management Agency, or HSEMA,
More recently, evidence emerged that ISIS opera- concedes as much. Its response plan says: “Emer-
tives in Belgium were casing a nuclear plant; in 2012, gency responders and hospitals may have limited ca-
two employees of a nuclear plant in the country left pability to isolate and treat casualties contaminated
for Syria and joined up with ISIS, according to news with chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and/
reports. Such events have prompted U.S. presidents or explosive (CBRNE) material.”
from Bill Clinton onward to funnel untold billions of
dollars into systems to head off such an attack, from Despite years of thinking about such dire threats,
however, the city’s mass evacuation plan is still a
work in progress, a capital-region emergency plan-

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 43

INSIGHT COVER STORY

ner says. “What they had was only a basic tactical authority, like, when everything hits the fan, what communicate by radio with subway emergency offi-
transportation plan. their roles and responsibilities are – that this agen- cials. Riders waited for 35 minutes to be rescued.
cy does this, this agency does that, how transport
“What it showed was all the evacuation routes will be mobilized...” Chris Geldart, who took over the HSEMA in 2012,
and basically the stuff they might do in a crisis, has privately grumbled about the state of D.C.’s pre-
such as the police directing traffic,” the source con- A major lapse was discovered in January 2015, paredness for a major emergency, insiders say, but
fides on condition of anonymity to discuss such a when D.C. Metro passengers were trapped in a publicly, he claims he’s ready. “We have a mass evac-
sensitive issue. “But it didn't have an overarching smoke-filled tunnel, and first responders couldn’t
CONTINUED ON PAGE 44

44 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 43 INSIGHT COVER STORY

uation plan,” he says. “In the past, we CAPITOL POLICE OFFICERS STAND WATCH ON CAPITOL HILL,
had a couple of different plans. Over MARCH 28. CAPITOL POLICE OFFICERS REPORTED A MAN
the last two and a half to three years, WAS SHOT BY POLICE AFTER DRAWING A WEAPON AT
we’ve been making sure that we have a A U.S. CAPITOL CHECKPOINT.
holistic plan.
ure out who should take the lead. In would be stuck in the streets, unable ‘YOUR FRONT-DOOR GUY
“For special events,” like the mas- the case of a clear act of terrorism, that to get to the radioactive disaster area, IS BLEEDING OUT’
sive annual Fourth of July gathering would be the FBI. much less ferry the sick and wounded
on the Mall, “we have a walk-out plan. to area hospitals. Depending on the A little perspective goes a long way
The surface evacuation plan,” he adds, If a dirty bomb were detonated with- size of the bomb and type of radio- in planning, says Sheehan, the NYPD’s
“has been in place for a while. But how out warning near the White House, logical material wrapped to it, parts of deputy commissioner for counterter-
to move people out of their homes to a there would be “a lot of panic, a lot of the federal district could be uninhab- rorism from 2003 to 2008. Pulling off a
shelter or a place outside the city, we’re chaos,” one of Geldart’s predecessors, itable for years. chemical, biological or nuclear attack
doing a lot of work on that now.” Darrell Darnell, told me in a 2008 in- is “hard to do,” he notes. “Any plots
terview. But “the conventional explo- D.C.’s first responders and hospitals outside the family tend to get rolled up.
Metropolitan Police Chief Lanier sive itself would be more harmful to are better equipped to handle a ra- Plus, fortunately, most of these terror-
also insists the city is ready. “The sur- individuals than the radioactive ma- diological explosion than they were in ists are stupid and incompetent – or
face transportation evacuation plan... terial,” says the NTI. “Making prompt, 2004, when a startling BBC-HBO docu- very limited in scope.”
has probably been revised five times in accurate information available to the drama, Dirty War, showed London po-
the last 10 years,” she says. Police will public may prevent the panic sought lice and fire crews rushing to the site He snarks about “terrorism hypers”
man intersections, synchronize traf- by terrorists.” of a big explosion and soon collapsing who have spent the years since 9/11
fic lights and open up “the primary 19 from radiation poisoning. predicting another big attack in the
major routes” out of the city. But as has been demonstrated again U.S., something on the scale of the
and again during D.C.’s confusion over D.C.’s emergency units are now four-day rampage in Mumbai that
On June 13, 2008, when Lanier says lesser emergencies, downtown inter- equipped with hazmat suits and de- left 164 dead and over 300 wounded
she had a plan, the combination of a sections, the major avenues to Mary- contamination equipment. D.C.-area in 2008. But neither Al-Qaeda, nor its
power substation failure that shut off land and the bridges to Virginia would hospitals, according to Dr. Bruno mid-2000s offshoot Al-Qaeda in Iraq,
traffic lights and a fire in a Metro sta- almost certainly be gridlocked as pan- Petinaux, co-director of George Wash- nor ISIS, he notes, “has been able to
tion created a massive downtown icked commuters raced for home. Po- ington University’s Emergency Man- organize a complex, multi-pronged at-
gridlock that froze D.C. police and lice, not to mention ambulance crews, agement Program, conduct regular tack inside the U.S. since 9-11.”
emergency crews in the streets. Three drills to stay sharp, including one in
years later, when Lanier says the evac- May mimicking a mass casualty inci- They’ve been relegated to inspiring
uation plan was going through one of dent. “We have a designated space to “lone wolf” ISIS agents and aspirants to
its routine revisions, a 5.8-magnitude decontaminate patients” by hosing carry out flashy attacks with bombs, gre-
earthquake rattled the region, casting them down, he says. “Other hospitals nades and automatic weapons – a far cry
more doubt on D.C.’s preparations. are doing same.” from the complex and sophisticated mul-
tiple-airliner hijacking operations of 9/11.
Another “lesson learned” or, as is Doctors and nurses are also better “None of this is easy, which is why they
usually the case, only partially learned? prepared to handle chemical and bio- haven't been able to replicate [Mumbai],”
HSEMA’s Geldart says his agency is logical attacks from their experience he says. “Guys willing and able to pull off
tight with counterparts in Northern with anthrax, swine flu and Ebola, he something like that are rare.”
Virginia and Maryland. Yet some D.C. says. “I think the medical community
officials seem unsure who’s in charge as a whole is so much more attuned Still, New York and other big-city po-
of what during a major emergency. to picking up these epidemiologi- lice departments studied Mumbai close-
Mayor Bowser is nominally in charge, cal” threats. “The D.C. Department of ly, using table-top exercises and field
and she has a deputy mayor for pub- Health,” he adds, “established a watch drills to game out how they might better
lic safety and justice, Kevin Donahue. officer position who’s available 24/7 handle similar scenarios. Paris was also
“The mayor is in charge,” his spokes- and allows us, at 3 a.m. on a Saturday a “game changer” for Lanier’s police de-
person says. “Chris Geldart would be morning, to notify them of an unusual
coordinating.” case.”

In reality, as Geldart and Lanier both
know, whatever agency responds to
the scene of a disaster first – depend-
ing on the incident, the D.C. police or
the city’s Fire and Emergency Medi-
cal Services Department – is in charge
until local and federal authorities fig-

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Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 45

INSIGHT COVER STORY

partment, because that city’s tapestry of “when we defeated a true strategic leave or vacation, plus the 200 unfilled of the hardest, if not the hardest, chief
“soft target areas and…a lot of dignitar- threat that had hundreds of nuclear slots, and “your 3,800 starts to look re- of police jobs in the country,” he says,
ies” is so similar to D.C.’s. It “caused us weapons pointed at our cities and con- ally thin.” In fact, it’s down to about “just because of what the city is, what it
to change some of our operations,” she trol of all of Eastern Europe,” to $50 bil- 1,650. Only 28 percent of that num- represents, who's here and who travels
says, “some of the tactics of our SWAT here, and how the world views Wash-
team and our first responders.” D.C. HAS AIR DEFENSES THAT WOULD HAVE MADE SADAAM HUSSEIN JEALOUS, YET ington, D.C. It is markedly difficult and
AN UNHINGED POSTAL WORKER PILOTED A GYROCOPTER THROUGH THE CITY’S markedly different than most other ma-
The lessons were applied at the NO-FLY ZONE, AND LANDED ON THE CAPITOL’S WEST LAWN LAST YEAR. jor American cities,” he says. Pointing to
Metropolitan police’s new $6 million Lanier’s years running the Metropolitan
training facility, which features lifelike lion, much of that increase spurred by ber, he says, work the midnight shift, police’s special operations unit, he adds,
streetscapes and buildings for practice. a preoccupation with a few hundred presumably a good time to throw gre- “She gets it; she always has.”
dedicated terrorists. nades into a nightclub or drive a truck
“You look at every attack, no matter bomb onto the Mall. That works out to No matter her talent, however, she’ll
how small or far away, and as quickly Lanier is spending on intelligence too, about 450 cops on the street. never be able to protect D.C. to the de-
as you can,” says Lanier, who has a she says. “I have a dedicated field intel- gree that NYPD Commissioner William
prominent role in the regional Joint ligence group. They're out in the field ev- When asked about this estimate Bratton can shield New York, he and
Terrorism Task Force (JTTF, one of 104 ery day.” She also gets feeds from the FBI (without being told the source), Lanier others say. “There are just too many
around the country), giving her real- and CIA through the JTTF. “But intelli- laughs, calls such numbers “insane.” moving parts” in D.C., as Augustyn puts
time access to the best intelligence the gence comes a lot of forms,” she says. “It it, too many federal and local govern-
feds have. “We’re trying to get those dy- doesn't just come from an intelligence “We have about 900 [on the street], ment agencies and jurisdictions with
namics as they are unfolding, because officer.” It can come from cops on the but it can be as many on a single shift their own homeland security agendas.
we don't know if there's not multiple beat or inside the schools, uniformed as 1,200 or 1,300,” she counters, “de-
attacks planned for other places. We officers who engage with people. Other pending on the day of the week and Augustyn, who joined the Jefferson
want to know about the explosives, experts see only limited value in that, what's going on.” Waterman international security firm
who are the people but they say Lanier is constrained from after retiring from the CIA, says he was
developing more muscular undercover But Atcheson stands by his num- astonished by the radio failures dur-
The consensus has been that you counterterrorism intelligence opera- bers: “You can’t speak truth to power ing the fire in the Metro tunnel last
can’t prepare much for “lone wolves” tions under the nose of FBI headquar- with her,” he says. In August 2015, the year. He thought D.C. officials fixed
like Omar Mateen, a misfit who ters. “The FBI would go ballistic,” says police union conducted a no-confi- that problem long ago, taking their
claimed loyalty to a variety of mili- one counterterrorism veteran. dence vote on the chief. It passed with lesson from the 9/11 radio failures at
tant Islamic groups before unleashing 97 percent. the World Trade Center. “I thought, for
terror with his automatic rifle at the Lanier is overstating the number of all the training…you have to wonder
Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Sheehan patrol officers who are actually out on But Lanier has big fans in the higher where the money’s been spent.”
and other experts say, such attackers the street at any one time, a recently precincts of the FBI and CIA, where
are “very difficult to stop once they are retired Metropolitan police captain she was a “frequent visitor” after 9/11, Lanier had no role in that disaster,
ready to launch.” says. “It would scare you if you knew Augustyn says. but she suggests her agency wouldn’t
how few police were on the street at fall down the way the fire department
Lanier and her federal partners were any given time,” says Robert Atcheson, “Chief Lanier has a no greater fan and Metro officials did. “Maybe I'm a
thinking about nightclub attacks months a 20-year veteran of the force and a than me,” says Michael Rolince, a little biased, but when you talk about
ago. In April, they convened a meeting of former unit commander in the spe- former high-ranking FBI counterter- [police in] the top-tier cities – NewYork,
nightclub owners and restaurateurs in a cial operations division. “At midnight, rorism official. “She probably has one L.A., Washington – I think we are the
banquet room around the corner from there are probably no more than 250 to most advanced in a lot of ways, but the
the White House. “The message was 300 police officers on the street” out of most advanced in terms of preparation
both dire and obvious, once unthinkable a total force of 3,600. and response as any law enforcement
and now unavoidable,” The Washington agency in the country.” She stops and
Post reported. “You know those terrorists Do the math, he says: “Forty percent then adds, “We have to be.”
who want to attack Washington? Forget of the police force is not in uniform or
the Capitol. Next time, they might come assigned to patrol, which is the only On that, at least, everybody can
for your happy hour.” people who respond to a 911 calls or agree. Yet despite the bulked-up Met-
calls for service. The SWAT guys wear ropolitan police presence on pride
Be ready, the attendees were told a uniform, but they only do SWAT; they weekend, a vandal managed to spray-
by a bevy of police, intelligence and don't respond to calls. The crime scene paint anti-gay graffiti on a sidewalk in
homeland security officials. “As in, techs wear uniforms, but they don’t pa- Dupont Circle, the 24/7 action center
who will be in charge if your front-door trol or respond to 911 calls.” The same for the city’s LGBT community. Thou-
guy is bleeding out on the sidewalk,” goes for K-9 officers, detectives and sands of revelers had gathered in the
according to the Post. uniforms assigned to homeland secu- neighborhood that night.
rity or federal task forces. Subtract an-
“They can pick their target,” Shee- other 5 to 10 percent for injuries, sick It could have been far, far worse. 
han says of the lone wolves, “and very
little can be done about it.” But ag-
gressive intelligence operations can
break up most plots, he argued in a
2008 book, Crush the Cell: How to De-
feat Terrorism Without Terrorizing Our-
selves. “Spies are the key!” he says. The
FBI, responsible for counterterrorism
nationwide, should work more closely
with “local police forces that can follow
up in the neighborhoods of [suspects]
to head off a potential attack,” he ar-
gues, “before they can be launched.”

And the feds should stop spending
“obscene” amounts of money “on ac-
tivities that have a very marginal im-
pact on our safety.” The annual intel-
ligence budget has doubled since the
end of the Cold War, Sheehan told an
interviewer in 2008, from $25 billion,

46 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

INSIGHT OPINION

Protecting U.S. from Islamic terrorism not for faint of heart

After every radical Islamic terrorist attack in the VIOLENCE AGAINST CIVILIANS: At least 1 in 4 Mus- means that conflict between the West and the Islam-
US, the same arguments and explanation for the lims does not reject violence against civilians and ic world will be a feature of life for the foreseeable fu-
act are heard. The terrorist was “self radicalized,” he 45 percent of Muslims in the UK agree that cler- ture. Islamic terrorist attacks probably will regularly
was mentally unstable, there was no rational reason ics preaching violence against the West represent occur in the US; applying the term “home grown” will
behind the horrific act, US laws allowing access to “mainstream Islam.” About 25 percent of Muslim- be meaningless because they will be inspired by the
weapons are to blame, and it is the fault of American Americans say that violence against Americans in violent strain in the Islamic faith.
culture. But the ultimate excuse is that most Muslims the US is justified as part of the “global jihad.” Two in
in the world are peaceful. three Muslims in Britain would not report a terrorism  The rules and regulations on immigration and
plot to police, and 38 percent of Muslim-Americans entry into the country need to be reassessed to deny
In her newly published book on the need for refor- say ISIS beliefs are Islamic and correct. entry or residence to those preaching or planning vio-
mation, Ms Hirsi Ali makes a strong case that Islam lence against US citizens as a precept of their religion.
is not a religion of peace. She states that the call to SHARIA: Large majorities of Muslims favor Sharia
violence and its justification are “explicitly stated in including stoning of women for adultery, and they  Sharia law cannot be accepted as a legal system
the sacred texts of Islam,” and Muslims are “unwill- support honor killings. 40 percent of British Muslims parallel to US law.
ing to acknowledge, much less repudiate” the justifi- want Sharia law. 33 percent of Muslim-Americans
cation for violence in their religious texts. say that Sharia should be supreme to the US consti-  Political correctness should not guide law en-
tution. A majority of Muslims in 10 countries favors forcement at the local or federal levels. The FBI has a
Non-Muslims seem to have an even harder time basing laws on the Quran. legitimate need to know if violence is being advocat-
believing that radical jihadists could commit such ed in a Mosque and citizens should be encouraged to
atrocities in the name of Allah. There are “fringe“ ASSIMILATION: Only 7 percent of British Muslims report activities that might threaten US security.
literalists in Jewish and Christian religions who urge think of themselves as British first and 49 percent
violence or intolerance, but Ms Hirsi Ali says “they of Muslim-Americans say they are “Muslim first.”  There must be strong opposition to creating special
are the true fringe” while in Islam it is “those seeking 20 percent of Muslim-Americans want to be distinct “go, no go” zones protecting Muslim communities.
reform who are the fringe.” and do not support assimilation.
Protecting the nation from Islamic terrorism is
Muslims worldwide number over 1.6 billion. The So what difference does all this make in terms of not a task for the faint of heart. It will require further
number of those who believe in militant jihad and US attitude and policy? deployment of US troops abroad to destroy militant
terrorism is uncertain; some experts place it at 3 per- Islamists in their home countries. The American peo-
cent – which would be nearly 50 million. Others con-  The acceptance of violence as a legitimate part ple will have to overcome their reluctance to commit
sider that number far too low. Whatever the precise of its religion by a significant number of Muslims more troops overseas.
number, Jihadist violent attacks in 2015 ran into the
tens of thousands and involved over 50 countries. The need for aggressive actions by security elements
and police inside America aimed at preempting those
Over the past 10 years there have been a large advocating violence or planning terrorist operations
number of polls by diverse organizations – Pew Re- will meet stiff opposition from those who have genu-
search Center, World Public Opinion, YNET, NOP ine concerns about freedom of speech and religion.
Research, ICM, BBC, the Palestinian Center for Po- Similar concerns will be raised by any attempt to limit
litical Research, al-Jazeera and many others –ad- immigration that has an anti-religious component.
dressing what Muslins say are their attitudes toward
terrorism. Protecting the nation is not without costs. 

The questions posed in these polls include vio- This provocative column was written by Richard
lence in defense of Islam, Sharia, and assimilation Kerr, former deputy director of the Central Intelli-
in Western society. Like all polling, questions can be gence Agency and an island resident. It does not nec-
asked about the sample size and composition, the essarily reflect the opinion of Vero Beach 32963.
nature of the questions asked and the validity of the
results. One surprising thing about the polls is the
consistency of answers over the years.

MEDICAL ALPHABET SOUP QUIZ 4: 4.  TIA Transient Ischemic Attack 9.  CEA Carcinoembryonic Antigen
MEDICAL DISORDERS AND MORE Also called “mini-stroke.” A transient episode A protein that may appear in blood of some
of neurologic dysfunction caused by loss of people who have cancer of colon, rectum,
This concludes our four-part series on medical acronyms blood flow to the brain. Symptoms are same pancreas, breast, ovary or lung. May help
and abbreviations. As always, give yourself one point for as a stroke, but resolve in a few minutes determine how widespread cancer is and
each acronym/abbreviation you know. or within a 24-hour time period. how well chemotherapy is working.

MEDICAL DISORDERS* 5.  UTI Urinary Tract Infection 10.  PSA Prostate-Specific Antigen
(Part II, continued from last time) An infection in any part of the urinary system Used primarily to screen for prostate cancer.
– kidneys, ureters, bladder and/or urethra. To decide whether to have a PSA test, talk with
1.  MS Multiple Sclerosis Serious consequences can occur if spreads to your doctor, consider your risk factors and
kidneys. Usually treated with antibiotics. More weigh your personal preferences.
A disease in which cells in the brain and common in women.
spinal cord are damaged. Symptoms can *This is a partial list of acronyms and abbreviations of
include inability to communicate, double BLOOD TESTS* medical disorders and blood tests.
vision, blindness in one eye, muscle
weakness, trouble with sensation or 6.  A1C Hemoglobin A1c, HbA1c, SCORING
coordination. No known cure. or Glycohemoglobin Test A+ (10 correct) Bravo!
Provides information about a person’s average A (9 correct) Are you sure you didn’t go to
2.  PAD Peripheral Artery Disease levels of blood glucose (blood sugar); primary medical school? © 2016 Vero Beach 32963 Media, all rights reserved
test used for diabetes management. B (8 correct) Excellent
A narrowing of the peripheral arteries to the C (5-7 correct) You’re a good source of information.
legs, stomach, arms and/or head. Symptoms 7.  BUN Blood Urea Nitrogen D (3-4 correct) Take a family member with you when
can include cramping, pain or tiredness in Checks for kidney function. you go to the doctor’s office.
legs or hip muscles while walking or climbing Under 3 correct You’ve made it this far, you must be
stairs. Increases risk for heart attack or stroke. 8.  CBC Complete Blood Count doing something right.
Used as part of a routine check-up or if have
3.  TB Tuberculosis fatigue, weight loss, fever, infection, weak- Remember, your ultimate source for information about
ness, bruising, bleeding or any signs of cancer. diseases, screenings, tests, procedures and treatments is
Caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium Measures number of red blood cells, white your primary care provider.
tuberculosis. Usually attacks the lungs, but can blood cells, hemoglobin hematocrit.
attack any part of the body such as the Your comments and suggestions for future topics are always
kidneys, spine and brain. Not everyone welcome. Email us at [email protected].
infected becomes sick. Can be fatal.

48 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

INSIGHT BOOK REVIEW David Hepworth.

In March 1971, the Allman Brothers Band was cert tours, the shift of attention from singles to al- King played the Troubadour in Los Angeles, “al-
booked for three nights at the Fillmore East the- bums or album-oriented rock – was endless. So in most all of them were with their mothers.” Hep-
ater in New York. The Allmans had produced two terms of sheer subject matter, Hepworth is in fertile worth helps you appreciate that the “Tapestry”
studio albums by then, which had done a modest territory. His ambition, as he announces it, is are- cover benefited enormously from a dimly lit por-
business at best, but through their constant tour- na-size: “This book is a journey through the past to trait of a woman in a sweater, crocheting, with a
ing they had found believers in their stew of Ameri- discover what happened that year, in what order, cat by her bare feet – a figure who didn’t look like
can music – informed by the blues, jazz, country, why it did, how the changes on the surface were a musician so much as your cousin from Wauke-
a hint of gospel, with big slabs of rock. Not many responding to huge seismic changes underground, sha. And he digs up an illuminating quote from
rock bands before the Allmans were equipped with how it shaped and was shaped by a few hundred songwriter Carole Bayer Sager on King’s unique
two lead guitarists (or two drummers), but Duane people who were in their midtwenties at the time, appeal, noting that she had “a voice every woman
Allman and Dickey Betts’ competitive interplay, and why the music of 1971 still rings so clearly al- thinks she could have.”
not unlike Charlie Parker’s and Miles Davis’ in the most fifty years later.”
heyday of bebop, helped elevate the music to a new So much music, so many players. Hepworth re-
plane of harmonic daring. At the end of the third But on the first page, he blasts a dissonant note creates 1971, convincingly, as an ensemble play in
night’s first set, they closed with “Whipping Post,” when he asserts that the last day of 1970, which saw which characters are constantly bumping into one
which Greg Allman sang as if the theater was com- the Beatles’ official breakup, marked a cataclysmic another and having life-changing encounters. In
ing down around him. When they arrived at the shift in rock music. “You might say this was the last this studio is Joni Mitchell, and in the next one over
song’s end, the band held the last note for what day of the pop era,” Hepworth writes. “The follow- are the Carpenters. Here’s Jackson Browne, taking
seemed an eternity. ing day … was the first day of the rock era.” a break from working on his debut album (with
the rhythm section from “Tapestry”) and driving
In some ways, it feels like that note never really That is both silly and faulty. Part of the reason through the Southwest, where inspiration strikes.
stopped, since “At Fillmore East” is widely consid- “rock exploded” in 1971 goes back to what was hap- He writes a song that begins, “I’m standing on a
ered to be the greatest live album in rock history. pening in the genre years before. When supergroup corner in Winslow, Arizona.” That he happened to
That same sense of resonance is true of much of Cream came on the scene in 1966, when performers run the song by his neighbor Glenn Frey, who was
the music made in 1971. Some of the landmark al- such as Simon and Garfunkel and Connie Francis starting up his own band, explains why “Take It
bums released that year include the Who’s “Who’s were thriving, it was like a pirate ship laying siege Easy” landed on the Eagles’ debut album instead.
Next,” Van Morrison’s “Tupelo Honey,” Neil Young’s to lesser vessels. The following year the Doors, from And in a bizarre case of fortuitous luck and poten-
“Harvest,” Black Sabbath’s “Masters of Reality,” Los Angeles, produced a debut album that stomped tially deadly circumstances, Deep Purple, who had
David Bowie’s “Hunky Dory,” Carole King’s “Tap- all over the sunny, strumming sound of California come to Montreux, Switzerland, to use the Rolling
estry,” Led Zeppelin’s fourth, untitled album, Yes’ folk-rock with its blues-based, raucous anthems Stones’ mobile recording truck, happened to ob-
“The Yes Album” and “Fragile,” Sly and the Family and unnerving lyrics, rounded out by Jim Morri- serve a Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention
Stone’s “There’s a Riot Goin’ On,” the Doors’ “L.A. son’s dark oedipal stroll “The End.” Two years later, concert going up in flames (reportedly, someone
Woman,” the Rolling Stones’ “Sticky Fingers,” the Jimi Hendrix walked onto the Woodstock stage in shot a firework at the venue’s ceiling). The mem-
Eagles’ debut album, and Marvin Gaye’s “What’s the early morning to close out the festival and pro- bers of Deep Purple, who were staying in the ho-
Going On.” These albums would not only influence duced his own rocket’s-red-glare reading of “The tel that housed the burning casino, watched the
future artists but also help shape how we think Star-Spangled Banner.” As the last dazed hippies smoke drift across Lake Geneva; the bassist, Roger
about popular music today. wandered off Max Yasgur’s farm, the pop era of the Glover, was inspired to write — wait for it – “Smoke
Beach Boys’ “Fun, Fun, Fun” must have felt as long on the Water.”
As journalist David Hepworth makes clear in ago as Howdy Doody.
“Never a Dull Moment: 1971: The Year That Rock At the beginning, “Never a Dull Moment” ap-
Exploded,” the entire industry was new enough Fortunately, Hepworth offers interesting obser- peared difficult to write. By the end, though, it read
that what it still had to learn – about the power of vations about some of the music from that year, as if it were all too easy. 
rock spectacle, the increasing importance of con- such as “Tapestry.” King’s initial album revolu-
tionized the record business in a few ways: It was NEVER A DULL MOMENT
the first to sell consistently big numbers month in 1971: The Year That Rock Exploded
and month out, making it the first “evergreen” of
the rock era. (By 2015, it had sold 25 million cop- By David Hepworth
ies.) “Tapestry,” he writes, showed the buying Holt. 307 pp. $30
power of women, in particular, and by the time Review by David Rowell,
The Washington Post

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 49

INSIGHT BOOK REVIEW

There’s a fascinating story to be told about the entertainment world,” Michael Leahy writes in This is the strength of “The Last Innocents,” the
Dodgers of the 1950s and 1960s, although it’s not the “The Last Innocents,” a book that seeks to place way it moves beyond the game to the issues under-
one we’ve come to recognize. You know: the saga of the team within a broader historical and cultural neath. Koufax is most compelling not as the team’s
Walter O’Malley and Robert Moses, and the betrayal context. “The biggest names in Hollywood wanted ace starter but as a private and self-aware individual,
of a borough when the team pulled up stakes and the players for their shows. Bob Hope already had whose premature retirement – the result of arthritis
abandoned Brooklyn for Los Angeles after the 1957 signed [Sandy] Koufax, [Don] Drysdale, and Tom- in his pitching arm – had less to do with baseball
season. That’s a compelling narrative also, don’t get my Davis to appear on a network special with him.” than with long-term ramifications for his health.
me wrong – one of my favorites, with all it portends Gold Glove-winning first baseman Wes Parker, on
about our current era of continental, or even global, Leahy, whose previous books include “When the other hand, is driven by a more complex set of
baseball – but what it leaves out is that by the early Nothing Else Matters: Michael Jordan’s Last Come- demons: the insecurities and terrors of his upbring-
1960s, the Dodgers were a team transformed. back,” was a longtime feature writer for the Wash- ing by parents who were distant and often destruc-
ington Post; “The Last Innocents” grew out of a 2009 tively cruel. “I had one shot to make it in life – not in
“The Dodgers represented the model of the su- story for the paper about Maury Wills, the Dodg- baseball – in life,” he recalls. “I was fighting for my
perstar athlete to come, one with a wryer sense of ers’ fiery shortstop and team captain, who faced survival. Baseball was just the means.”
sports as show biz and quick to see the benefits in a race-based backlash when he broke Ty Cobb’s
moving back and forth between baseball and the single-season record for stolen bases in 1962. Here, In addition to the personal complications
the author expands his focus to several representa- faced by the players, Leahy brings in the Watts
tive players – Wills, Koufax and Davis, along with riots (Wills, for one, owned a dry cleaner in the
Jeff Torborg, Dick Tracewski, Lou Johnson and area, which he guarded in the afternoons before
Wes Parker – using their stories, personal and pro- night games), the antiwar movement and the
fessional, as a lens through which to examine the Democratic convention of 1968. This material is
team’s impact on and off the field. The 1960s, he not always effective; asides about Robert Oswald,
reminds us, were a decade of both enormous op- Lee Harvey Oswald’s brother, seem gratuitous,
timism and significant disruption: Camelot, civil disconnected, and his analysis of Los Angeles
rights, assassinations, Vietnam. as a social landscape — particularly the story
of Chavez Ravine and Dodger Stadium – often
We tend to imagine, even now, that sports can glosses over necessary complexities.
stand apart from all this, that it is a place we go
for escape. Yet Leahy’s argument is that upheaval In the end, though, that may be as it should be,
can’t help but infiltrate every corner of the culture, since for many of these players, baseball offered a
even the playing field. Take Davis, who in 1962 or- necessary refuge. “It was so beautiful,” Wills said
ganized a group of African American players to ap- of Dodger Stadium. “It protected me from every-
proach Peter O’Malley, son of Dodgers owner Walter thing on the outside, at least when I was there.”
O’Malley, and demand the integration of Holman And yet, time takes its toll, as surely on the field as
Stadium, the field at the team’s spring-training fa- off. Injuries, age, turnover: Those Dodger teams,
cility in Vero Beach. “Tommy pointed out things we which won two World Series in three years, could
were negligent on,” O’Malley remembers. “He was not maintain their success. Just like the Yankees,
eloquent. And I knew he was right.” Still, segrega- whom they swept in 1963, they grew old and tired,
tion not only persisted but also continued to affect swept in their turn by a young Baltimore Orioles
black players in insidious and destructive ways. squad in 1966. The following year, they finished
When the team’s St. Louis hotel finally integrated its eighth. As Leahy tells us, smartly, “It is hard to keep
dining room in 1964, the Dodgers’ taciturn catcher holding on.” 
John Roseboro continued to eat meals in his room.
“The passage of the Civil Rights Act,” Leahy writes, THE LAST INNOCENTS
“had come too late to change the ways of Roseboro The Collision of the Turbulent Sixties and the Los Angeles Dodgers
and other wary black friends, who never would be
comfortable sitting in some places that once had By Michael Leahy
wanted nothing to do with them.” Harper. 473 pp. $26.99
Review by David L. Ulin,

The Washington Post

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WAKE UP AMERICA
The Nine Virtues That BY BRAD MELTZER & Lies: The Patriots BY BRAD MELTZER
TOD GOLDBERG
Made Our Nation Great BY DAVID FISHER 2. Can You See What I See?:
–And 2. The Last Mile Treasure Ship BY WALTER WICK
2. Valiant Ambition
Why We Need Them BY DAVID BALDACCI 3. Wonder BY R.J. PALACIO
More Than Ever BY NATHANIEL PHILBRICK 4. Return to the Isle of the Lost
3. Foreign Agent
3. The Boys in the Boat BY MELISSA DE LA CRUZ
BY BRAD THOR
BY DANIEL JAMES BROWN 5. Hey, Seymour! BY WALTER WICK
4. Duty and Honor
4. The Romanovs
BY TOM CLANCY & GRANT
BLACKWOOD BY SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

5. A Man Called Ove 5. Eat Fat, Get Thin

BY FREDRICK BACKMAN BY MARK HYMAN

392 Miracle Mile (21st Street), Vero Beach | 772.569.2050 | www.verobeachbookcenter.com

50 Vero Beach 32963 / June 30, 2016 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

INSIGHT TRAVEL

Shaken Orlando, a tourism mecca, tries to cope

BY CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT for a theme-park vacation and cruise have many friends and neighbors all beach areas and posted warning
Washington Post in December to celebrate her parents’ who are connected to the tourism signs after the alligator attack, and is
40th wedding anniversary. She said industry. My first response to the reviewing its safety precautions.
Eva Dickerson’s recent Orlando vis- her family reviewed its plans after question “Is Orlando safe?” is to dis-
it ended on a less-than-magical note. hearing the news. missively say, “Of course it is.” Or- Beyond these steps, the city hasn’t
lando has been safe for my family announced any new long-term ini-
Her family vacation coincided with “Orlando had a very tough week – and for a vast majority of visitors. But tiatives to attract more guests or
the shocking murder there of singer a tragic week. But it doesn’t change the more I think about it, the more I calm existing ones. “We have adjust-
Christina Grimmie. Over the next few our opinion of the city or the area, understand the worriers. And there’s ed our messaging to recognize the
days, the worst mass shooting in U.S. or Disney World operations,” she probably nothing Orlando’s attrac- sensitivity of [recent] events,” said
history left 49 dead at a packed Or- said. “You can’t live your life in fear George Aguel, president and chief

lando nightclub, and an alligator at- of what might happen, in fear of the tions can say that will reassure every executive of Visit Orlando. “We are
tacked and killed a young guest at a unexpected.” visitor, particularly in light of what listening to consumers, answering
Walt Disney World resort. just happened. their questions and thanking them
But some visitors aren’t so san- for their support.”
“What a terrible trio of events,” said guine. Vicki O’Grady, a marriage Nevertheless, the city is working on
Dickerson, who works for a school in counselor from Orlando, said her ways to put tourists’ minds at ease. People plan vacations to places like
Sierra Vista, Ariz. boyfriend, who works in the time- In reaction to the crisis, the Orlando Walt Disney World far in advance,
share industry, has seen some can- Convention & Visitors Bureau up- and it’s possible that the events could
The tragedies have a broad person- cellations. She emailed me to say that dated and expanded the safety infor- affect bookings later this year and in
al resonance because so many people Orlando is probably the safest it will mation on Visit Orlando’s consumer 2017. But it’s too soon to know. Aguel
have visited Orlando, many of them ever be, and asking me to tell would- website, Visitorlando.com. Tourism said it would be “premature” to spec-
more than once. The theme-park be vacationers that they’re still wel- authorities have briefed their phone ulate on future visitation.
capital of the world, with 66 million come. “Please tell them not to cancel representatives on how to answer
visitors last year, is the No. 1 destina- their plans,” she wrote. security questions from prospective “To date, we have not seen indica-
tion in Florida and one of the most visitors. Walt Disney World closed tions of change to our visitors’ plans
popular vacation sites in the country. Disclosure: I live in Orlando and to visit the destination,” he said.
“What we have seen is an incredible
This is a confusing time for the outpouring of support from people
city and its guests. Is Orlando still a all over the world – for Orlando as a
safe place to visit? And if it’s possi- community as well as a beloved trav-
ble to discern the long-term outlook el destination.”
for the city, how should you adjust
your plans? Potential visitors who aren’t daunt-
ed by the recent news might do well to
Many visitors, Dickerson among wait and see if cancellations inspire
them, say they won’t let the disasters discounts. It pains me to write these
stop them from returning. “We will words, as someone who calls Orlando
not hesitate to visit Orlando again,” home. But I think the worst impact on
she said. “We are not deterred by the tourism hasn’t hit yet. We might see
events that have recently unfolded.” some deals ahead. If you have a little
time before your vacation, it might be
Janae Melvin, who works for a uni- smart to wait before you book. 
versity in Ottawa, Kan., is a regular
visitor to Orlando, and she has plans


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