Young jumper
Equestrian champ in Tradition
A3
It’s not painless
Suicide prevention sought
A20
Shanghai fusion
Restaurant melds multiple flavors
B1
ST. LUCIE WEST • TRADITION
YourVoiceWeekly.com VOL. 4/ISSUE 14
YOUR INDEPENDENT LOCAL COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
Heavy flow on the boulevard
Surf soccer player Fabricio Scaccia steals the ball from his opponent during an exhibition game between the newly formed South Florida Surf PDL soccer team and the Treasure Coast Galleons. The game benefitted the Kyle Conrad Foundation and was played Sunday, Jan. 24 at South County Stadium in St. Lucie West.
Patrick McCallister STAFF WRITER
pmccallister@YourVoiceWeekly.com
ST. LUCIE WEST — It’s an unpopular drive, because the lights take forever. Maybe not forever, but at times if feels that way. Readers will know it well: St. Lucie West Boulevard. At the last regular meeting of the Port St. Lucie City Council, a public commenter said what many do: “The timing (of traffic lights) is essentially set for rush hour, and it’s kept that way all day.” Mayor Greg Oravec told him the city is working on that. There are about 35,000 trips a day on the road between Cashmere Boulevard and Interstate 95, according to the 2015 Traffic Counts and Level of Service Report by the St. Lucie County Transportation Planning Organization. In other words, there are a lot of folks who’d like to know when those lights won’t take forever. By the way, for comparison, Crosstown between the same two roads gets less than half of the trips SLW Boulevard does, close to 15,000. That drops off after California Boulevard heading east to 12,300. Nick Dibenedetto, project coordinator, explained in an emailed response to queries that it’s not just people’s imaginations that they’re sitting for nothing at red lights, besides avoiding tickets, when there’s no cross traffic. “(St. Lucie West Boulevard) runs
See TRAFFIC page A8
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2016
Mitch Kloorfain chief photographer
The Surfs up in fútbol Adam Laten Wilson
FOR YOURVOICE NEWS& VIEWS
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ST. LUCIE COUNTY — On Jan. 28, at a press conference at the St. Lucie Civic Center, the South Florida Surf Soccer Club was publicly awarded franchise status in the Premier Development League (PDL), a fourth-tier soccer organization of 67 North American teams that readies players for the major league. The process began last year when Global Sports Group, a corporate sports interest in Lake Worth reached out to Eric Arbuzow and asked him to manage a team “somewhere between West
Palm Beach and Vero.” In October, the newly founded SFSSC began talking with PDL about official induction, and this past November, PDL entered the club in its books. Port St. Lucie was suggested as an ideal location for the team by SFSSC Senior Sports Advisor Tom Power and heartily seconded by Arbuzow, who says that there is a lot of support and demand for a high quality team in the Treasure Coast. Arbuzow, a Treasure Coast local who was formerly assistant coach of the Tampa Bay Rowdies, said he was excited to return home. The inclusion marks a major
cultural event for St. Lucie, said Mayor Gregory Oravec, who spoke at the conference. “Putting the PDL in PSL is a quality first step,” said the mayor in an interview. “This will be a great way to support the extended community, and we can provide a real fan-base. The team will serve as a passion and inspiration for young people, and our goal is to leverage soccer as a major section of our local economy.” According to the mayor, there are more than 3,500 youth soccer players in Port St. Lucie, 500 of whom are in high school.
See SURF page A30
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