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Opinion: Palm City should talk Discussion needed on incorporation
Family ties
Search for your roots here at home
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Back in time
Medieval Baebes debut at Lyric
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PALM CITY/TESORO
YourVoiceWeekly.com VOL. 3/ISSUE 2
YOUR INDEPENDENT LOCAL COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
Sweetening the pot
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2014
After recount, sales tax still doesn’t pass Patrick McCallister STAFF WRITER
pmccallister@YourVoiceWeekly.com
Mitch Kloorfain/chief photographer Jelene Kane of Palm City disrupts the honey-making activities of some of the approximately 100,000 bees on her property to extract their honey. Jelene started cultivating honey with her husband, John, nearly a year ago as stewards of the Indian River Lagoon by creating a natural way of cutting their connection with the sugar companies. More images on Page 12.
MARTIN COUNTY — On election night, there were no nail-biters in Martin. Except for the proposed 1-cent sales tax. As Vicki Davis’ team at the elections office went through the 62,461 ballots cast this year, they counted up 30,241 votes for the proposed 1-cent-for-four-years local sales tax, and 30,324 against it. “Eighty-three vote spread,” Davis said before a mandatory recount that happened on Nov. 8. “It’s amazing.” Any Florida election with less than a quarter of 1 percent difference must go to a machine and manual recount, although it’s very rare for recounts to overturn original election results. So, now what? “The problem hasn’t gone away,” County Commissioner Doug Smith, Jensen Beach, said. He added, “We still have $250 million of maintenance to catch
See TAX page 4
Election 2014: Keeping the status quo STAFF WRITER
pmccallister@YourVoiceWeekly.com
PALM CITY — It’s a voting town. Almost 61 percent of Palm City’s registered voters cast ballots in the general election, Nov. 4. That’s slightly more than Martin County’s 59.35 percent turnout, and much more than the state’s 50.34 percent turnout. Martin had 105,248 voters qualified when the books closed on PRSRT STD US POSTAGE PAID FORT PIERCE, FL PERMIT NO. 248 ECRWSS
Local Postal Customer
Oct. 6. Slightly more than 52,000 were Republicans, and slightly fewer than 27,200 were Democrats. About 26,000 were without party affiliation, or registered to minor parties. However, it’s well known that many register as Republicans to have more opportunities to vote in primaries, but likely lack party loyalty. There were 62,461 ballots cast in Martin County in the general election. The race that got the most votes was for the 18th Con-
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gressional District. Martin voters cast 61,582 ballots in that race, or about 98.6 percent participation. The race with the lowest participation was the Florida House District 82. Only 34,178 cast ballots in that race, about 55 percent. Palm City residents cast 13,264 ballots, about 21.23 percent of the county’s total. Supervisor of Elections Vicki Davis said if the 2014 elections hold any lesson for future candidates and referen-
dum supporters, it’s this: Election Day is largely a thing of the past. Candidates probably have to think Election Month from now on. “When early voting shuts down, the majority of your votes are in house,” Davis said. “Sixty-three percent voted before Election Day.” Mailed — what used to be called “absentee” — ballots were the
See ELECTION page 5
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