Fellowshipping on Sunday Christ Fellowship opens in Tradition
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School year prepping
Principal’s progressive planning
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Bare Necessities of theatre Missoula brings the ‘Jungle Book’
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ST. LUCIE WEST • TRADITION
YourVoiceWeekly.com VOL. 4/ISSUE 36
YOUR INDEPENDENT LOCAL COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
FRIDAY, JULY 8, 2016
Blue-green algae Rubio tours our bloom 135 years tainted waterways in the making Patrick McCallister STAFF WRITER
pmccallister@YourVoiceWeekly.com
TREASURE COAST — Put a finger on an Orlando map at Sand Lake Road and South John Young Parkway. That’s pretty much where the blue-green algae problems on the Treasure Coast begin. More accurately, the about 100 miles and 135 years of development between south Orlando and Lake Okeechobee are where the problems begin. “It all begins in the 1880s with Hamilton Disston,” Marty Baum, executive director of Indian Riverkeeper, said. More about Disston in a moment. For now, that finger on the Orlando map will cover Shingle Creek. Most who know a lot
about these sorts of things say that’s where the headwaters of the Everglades begin — way up in Orlando with Shingle Creek. Baum said if nature is taking its course, a drop of rainwater falling on Shingle Creek takes about three months to make it to Lake Okeechobee. Humans cut that down to less than a week by straightening the Kissimmee River with the canal systems. Drag the finger south on the map to Osceola County, then head a little east. That’s where Lake Tohopekaliga is. That’s where Shingle Creek ends and that drop of water starts heading to Lake Okeechobee through the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes and down the Kissimmee River. Along
See HISTORY page A20
Mitch Kloorfain/chief photographer Senator Marco Rubio held a press conference at Central Marine in Stuart Friday, July 1 after touring the local waterways stricken by a preventable toxic algae bloom.
PSL poised to extend Southwest Annexation Area payments five years Patrick McCallister STAFF WRITER
pmccallister@YourVoiceWeekly.com
TRADITION — The Port St. Lucie City Council gave its first tense nod to extending a 2007 bond-issuance assessment five years.
The ordinance extending the assessments requires a second reading, but Mayor Greg Oravec made it clear it’ll never get his vote. “I will not be able to support extending special assessments out to 35 years,” he said. Councilwoman Michelle Berger
joined the mayor in voting against the extension. The assessment started in 2010 and is slated to wrap in 2040. If the council approves the extension at its second reading, that’ll take it to 2045. In an emailed response to queries, Edwin Fry, finance director, said the assess-
ment — which is paid by property buyers and owners in the affected area — is now $11.4 million a year. He said if the council approves the extension and refinances the associated bonds with new interest rates, that could
See EXTENSION page A12
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