Tradition model boat club Fun with flotillas
A4
Monkey marathon
Racers compete for the chimps
A7
Drama camp
Missoula Children’s Theater at Sunrise
B1
ST. LUCIE WEST • TRADITION
YourVoiceWeekly.com VOL. 4/ISSUE 23
YOUR INDEPENDENT LOCAL COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
Service District considers next budget
FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 2016 New York Mets infielder David Wright attempts to slide home safely during the last game of spring training between the N.Y. Mets and the Washington Nationals at Tradition Field in St. Lucie West last week.
Patrick McCallister STAFF WRITER
pmccallister@YourVoiceWeekly.com
ST. LUCIE WEST — Water rates are staying the same in St. Lucie West. The St. Lucie West Services District Board of Directors got its first look at a proposed budget for 2016-2017 at its last regular workshop, Monday, April 4. “We are not looking at increasing utility rates and we’re not looking at raising assessment rates,” Dennis Pickle, manager and utilities director, said at the meeting. “We’re keeping them flat.” The proposed budget is about $9.6 million, which includes operating expenses and debt service. The district has about 7,000 commercial and residential accounts. It expects to raise about $8.9 million. “We’re maintaining fees, we’re maintaining assessments, but we are seeing increases in expenses,” board member Wayne Smith said. The proposed budget would dip into about $4.2 million the district has in the proverbial bank. That money has accumulated over the years through a variety of ways. “We’re in good financial shape,” Pickle said. The district hasn’t raised rates since 2010. It will have to in coming years. The district is a Community Development District, which is
See BUDGET page A11
Mitch Kloorfain chief photographer
On to the regular season Staff Reports
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ST. LUCIE WEST — For everyone involved with the New York Mets, it was a spring to remember. “I’ve never seen crowds this thick in my 18 years here, throughout the course of the season,” said Paul Taglieri, the Mets director of Florida operations. “It was a great spring training.” Still basking in the glow of their
team’s National League pennant and World Series appearance last fall, Mets fans flocked to Tradition Field for spring training games like never before. The Mets averaged a record 6,897 tickets sold per game in the 7,000-seat Tradition Field. The 96,552 total attendance for 14 home games was second only to the 97,929 they drew for 16 games in 2008. Last year, attendance for 15 Mets home games totaled 91,328. “We anticipated that we were going to have great crowds starting in mid-February,” Taglieri
said, “and everything came to fruition.” Mets fans who came down from the Northeast in large numbers filled up the hotels and restaurants around Tradition Field. Millie Feliciano, director of sales at the Holiday Inn Express in St. Lucie West, walking distance from Tradition Field, said the area’s hotels also were prepared for the onslaught of Mets fans. “Because the New York Mets got as far as the World Series,
See METS page A8
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