Category Archives: Other

What A Year!

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I have nominated 2020 as being the worse year of my life. I am going to surmise that most of my fellow Americans will agree it was their worst year also.

 

The biggest surprise was not the pandemic itself. It was not the economic impact either. Nor was it how many Americans either overreacted or played down the seriousness of what we faced. No, the biggest surprise was how inept our national and state governments have become in solving the nation’s most pressing problems.

 

From the roll out of testing, to not being able to contact trace, or just providing reliable and consistent statistics, we were let down. The one bright spot in all of this was the rapidity of making so many different vaccines to combat Covid. That success was due to allowing the private sector to do what it does best. We unleashed a market response because governments throughout the world committed to buy hundreds of millions of doses. That gave the companies the incentive to move fast.

 

We should be celebrating because the hard scientific part is done. However, Washington does not have a realistic plan to administer the vaccine to the American people. The national government’s petty and ridiculous excuse that vaccine administration is to be handled at the state level shows how completely incompetent the current administration is.

 

Florida has a public health department that is completely underfunded and inadequate to even coordinate a plan for administering the vaccine never mind inoculating 21 million people. Earlier this week, the Martin County branch of the Florida Department of Public Health said it had the vaccine and advised residents to call a phone number to get on the list. Of course, they were overwhelmed and fully subscribed for their 500 doses probably before the phone number was even made public.

 

Cleveland Clinic issued a statement that it would begin giving out the vaccine to its patients. The term “patient” in this instance means most of the county since many health care practices are part of their network. Even though my primary care doctor is not, when I went to their My Chart portal, I was considered a patient because of my interaction with specialists who are participating members of their network. All my medications were listed. This is modern medicine!

 

The reason I went to their portal was because when my wife called to see about the vaccine originally, the voice message said appointments would be done through the portal. Brilliant, I thought. That brilliancy did not last long. Within an hour, they too gave a phone number to call. However, a busy signal greeted me every time.

 

Here we are in the third decade of the 21st century and we are supposed to use an invention of the 19th century to schedule our appointments. When I want to see my doctor, I go online for an appointment and do the same to schedule an appointment for bloodwork at the lab. But I would suspect that neither Cleveland Clinic nor the Department of Health had enough doses at this point to make much of an impact. It is all for show as so much of American life has become.

 

Where is the government in all this? Well, it looks like they are lost in space. American public health was once the envy of the world. Those agencies were instrumental in eradicating typhus. New York’s system gave me the polio vaccine and then the booster. It was not “welfare.” It was something that government did to provide for its citizens.

 

Somehow in the last 40 years, we have lost sight of the purpose for government. It is not only to protect us from foreign invasion. Government should be a problem solver. It should provide for the overall good of its people.

 

Every county and many cities have trained EMTs and paramedics on their payrolls. Give them the vaccines to administer at the local fire house. Cleveland Clinic and the pharmaceutical chains do not need to be cut out of the loop. The more the better.

 

The new administration should do everything to ramp up production and distribution including using the military to transport and administer the vaccine. If we want to get the economy back for all Americans, administer the vaccine. Let us make sure that our primary care providers have it so that they can get shots in arms.

 

America’s newest threat to the vaccine rollout is that apparently millions of already manufactured doses may expire before they can be administered. We have come so far in a year to see this precious product tossed in the dumpster. How many millions of Americans will get the virus instead of the vaccine to prevent it?

 

courtesy of Etsi

As a nation, we need to stop seeing government as the enemy. That sentiment is especially aimed at the many politicians who, while being on the public payroll for years, do nothing to make our institutions better. We need leaders who are not afraid to use the power of government to solve problems instead of crying that the problems are insolvable or to blame someone else for their incompetence.

Who Will Be Last

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Who is an indispensable person? That is the question being asked by government, medical specialists, and everybody else as we try to determine in which order Americans should receive the vaccine.

 

The CDC recommends that those in healthcare and residents of senior citizen facilities and their employees are first, and we are proceeding along those lines. From there it goes to first responders, seniors that are 75 years and older, and essential workers. The New York Times reports that there are 80 million Americans that fit the term essential.

 

Cops, schoolteachers, bus drivers and grocery store workers all have a claim to be “one of the first.” Uber drivers are lobbying, as are those working in food production, to be bumped to the top of the ever-growing list. Determining who should be the first among us is beginning to sound as if we all live in Lake Wobegon “where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”

 

I am a senior with a pre-existing condition which is supposed to mean that I am ahead of many others. It is true that if I do contract the virus, I have less of a chance of survival as someone who is not as old and decrepit. I am not sure as a gadfly writing on our local governments that I would qualify as essential. Yet it is nice to believe that I am indispensable.

 

This Darwinian way that we are looking at prioritizing vaccine distribution appears to me to be unchristian in this season in which we celebrate the birth of Christ. Much of the way America has prioritized policy for decades has been that way. We have moved away from looking at individuals to classifying us into groups.

 

Classifications are easy to understand but most problems are not that easy to solve. Classifications are a way to divide us. That in and of itself is a not how Jesus saw us. He saw us as individual souls deserving of His grace and love.

 

You do not have to be a Christian to think in terms of each American’s individuality. That is why trying to prioritize vaccination by occupation or age is so difficult. Why is a 25-year-old police officer more deserving than a 50-year-old biologist working in a lab?

 

I have no ready answer on how to choose who goes first. In the Gospel of Matthew 25:40, we are commanded to provide sustenance to the poorest of humanity because in doing so we are providing it to the Lord. We are committed to providing the vaccine to all. It is determining who will be last in line that is so hard.

 

 

For you see the question should not come down to who is indispensable but which of us has been deemed dispensable. Who wants to be the last American to die in this pandemic?

 

Again found in Matthew verse 20:16 is something that explains that choice ultimately: “So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.“

 

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Term Limits Are Needed For Local Office

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Representative Anthony Sabatini has filed a bill to begin the constitutional amendment process imposing 8-year term limits on county school board members. Similar bills have been filed in the past including last year where the measure died in the Senate. It is about time that this is passed including term limits on other local elected offices.

 

Being a town council member or county commissioner was never meant to be your job. Serving on these elected boards was to be a public service much as membership on the United Way Board. It wasn’t meant to be your career. Yet for many that is what it has become.

 

Too often being a local official is seen as a gateway to higher office. Though in Martin County you usually do not go on to state or federal office. At first being a municipal or county commissioner was like being on a board of a non-profit. Then two things happened that made it into a job.

 

The first was the concept of being paid. That turned the position of elected office from volunteer into employee. Then once a paycheck was received, the elected officials thought they should also have employee benefits including medical and retirement. Being a commissioner or school board member now had perks worth fighting to retain term after term.

 

The second reason that a public volunteer went to being a public employee was how complexed government has become. It takes years to master the intricacies of how the government functions. In some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing through the government’s coffers each year. The programs have labyrinthine rules that require experts to know the finer points.

 

Yet commissioners were never meant to “run” the government only oversee the manager or administrator who is doing so. Their function is to preside over their policy being implemented. Whether you agree with the concept or not of “strong manager-weak commission,” that is what we have in Martin County. Broad policies are what elected boards are supposed to enact not become entangled with the minutia of everyday management. The managers are the experts and are paid accordingly.

 

I agree that elected officials should have a stipend to help pay for things like attending events. The minute that stipend turns into a paycheck of thousands of dollars the incentive to leave office is not very strong. Throw in medical for you and your family and retirement benefits and thoughts like career and job become attached to the alluring sound of being called commissioner or school board member.

 

Recently the City of Stuart voters approved a charter change that imposed 3 four-year term limits on individual commissioners. The Charter Review Board had initially wanted only 2 four-year terms. The commission before sending to the voters for a referendum had changed made sure that 3 terms was guaranteed.

 

Expecting boards to impose reasonable term limits is not realistic. Even in Stuart’s case the 12 years begins with the present commissioners’ new terms. In effect giving everyone a clean slate. Some members on the Charter Review wanted to limit the commission’s ability to vote themselves a raise. That was a non-starter with the commission.

 

I am not picking on Stuart, but you are asking the people who have an entrenched interest to limit their time in the job and the amount of money they are paid for doing it. It simply is not going to happen. It is time for Tallahassee to do so for them.

 

Term limits and a look at pay and benefits for local office are in order by the Florida Legislature. Being on a board should be a public service and not a career. Thinking that the voters should decide on limiting time in office through voting the rascals out is somewhat meaningless. That only happens when the incumbent has done something flagrantly awful. With the three Stuart commissioners running for re-election recently only one drew a challenger. And with the county commission only one of the three seats for election had an opponent.

 

Those thinking of running wait for open seats. That was the case with the fourth seat in Stuart when a long-time commissioner stepped down in the middle of her term to run for another office. That open race drew two people. The way to have new people run is to remove the perks and pay and do what non-profit boards do which is limit the terms people can serve. In that way we can make public employees into public servants again.

 

It Is Not About Costco

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People are using the possibility of Costco coming to Martin County as a symbol in the development wars. It has little to do with Costco. It has everything to do with the future of the county.

Many have this idealized vision of what Martin County should be. It should remain as it was in (insert your own year here.)

 

Nothing stays the same. Flower farms were once prevalent on Federal Highway just as today is the retail sprawl that has taken the place of the farms. Yet many say Costco should be located there because it fits with their perception of what should be built on Federal Highway. Current plans have Costco located on Kanner Highway by Cleveland Clinic.

 

Others feel sorry for the family that owns the nursery on Kanner Highway. Rarely mentioned is the fact that the family sold most of the land that is currently being developed along that stretch of road. I guess farming or having a nursery is not as economically viable as land speculation.

 

Then there are those who claim that the now 6-lane Kanner Highway is a residential street not suited for anymore development. They forget that at one time the new development on the block was Riverland and there was not anything else. The condos, housing communities, fast food joints and other retail have been added over the past few decades.

 

Costco is the latest excuse being used by those who want to pull up the draw bridge after they arrive. What they are not understanding is that to control development, you need to allow development to in fact occur. It must happen is a very systematic way to prevent the sprawl that has enveloped our neighboring counties.

 

The best way to do just that is by providing density within an urban core. The City of Stuart and the county’s CRAs are the place to allow this to happen. Trying to keep Stuart or other urban core areas the way they were (again provide your own year) is not possible. All that will do is encourage growth in every direction without a central plan.

 

Two recent examples of just what I mean were the BOCC approving most of Christ Fellowship’s campus to be sold to a builder for hundreds of new homes. Last week, they allowed a swap of an agricultural parcel for an industrial one on Kanner at 96th Street to make way for a possible e-commerce warehouse. This to me is the real danger which is sprawl without any corresponding benefits.

 

Good planning is the continued development within the City of Stuart limits and the CRAs. As a county we will grow, and it will probably continue to be at the approximately 2% annual increase that we have had historically. Do we do that by filling in the blanks within the Urban Services Boundary (USB) and in our towns or by building more and more single-family homes on 2 or 5 acre lots encroaching on more and more ranches and farms.

 

Every time that type of development is approved, it places additional pressure on the surrounding agricultural lands to do the same. Residential development demands more infrastructure, schools, and retailers such as a Publix to service the new residents. This is classic sprawl.

 

Whether or not Costco is built is not germane to the argument being made. At issue is how Martin County plans the future.

 

If the Costco proposal is denied, something will go on the proposed site at some point and it will not be a farm or a nursery. It will certainly not be a development of single-family homes. Development should be encouraged where you have the infrastructure already in place. All manner of housing needs to be built to accommodate all our residents.

 

The question is not whether a Costco will be built but rather how will future Martin County be developed. The answer is not to say no to all growth but to have a plan for how we do develop and then to follow the plan.

 

Is Sailfish Splash Park For All?

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In a recent column for the Stuart News, Gil Smart wrote that Sailfish Splash Park would lose money for the year. (You can read it here )

 

He mentioned the park ended the fiscal year in the red by $350,000. 2020 is an exceptionally bleak year for the park and many other things in the County because of COVID. I agree with Gil that falling short of expectations and requiring a County taxpayer subsidy this year is to be expected.

 

Yet there has never been a year where the park did not require a subsidy. Year after year, many of the park’s costs (e.g., payroll) were picked up by the County’s general fund. The Martin County Taxpayers Association devoted an entire paper to the park pointing out the yearly deficit. (It can be found here )

 

At the end of Mr. Smart’s column, he wrote that he believes Sailfish should be treated as every other park and be heavily subsidized because it is an amenity for Martin County. He goes on to say that spending millions more by the County to keep the park fresh is a necessity to keep the place operating and draw in visitors. I can’t tell you how strongly I disagree with both those statements.

 

Much of the reason for the disagreement is because of the differences in our definitions of what a park should be. In my opinion, a park is to be used by all residents for recreational purposes. Undoubtedly Sailfish is for recreation, but not every resident is able to access that park.

When there is an admission charge of $13.95 for kids and $15.95 for adults, many residents cannot afford to take advantage of that County-built and taxpayer-supported amenity. When a family needs $70 to use a County facility, many of our residents are automatically excluded. The families who cannot afford to go there are probably the ones that need the park the most.

 

The park cost nearly $9 million to build and has a plan to spend another $5 million in improvements. The same residents that can easily afford Sailfish’s admission probably have a pool in their condo complex or backyard. Those that cannot afford the price of admission probably do not have their own pool.

 

Like so much in Martin County, we dream of having Taj Mahals. Our Commissioners don’t seem to care that for the constructing and projected improvement costs of $14 million, several community pools could have been built throughout County neighborhoods.

 

County parks that rely on tax dollars are there to provide recreation for all. They are not there for any other reason. Government should provide good “quality of life” experiences for their residents. But they need to be either free or with a minimal admission fee.

 

Mr. Abate, the Parks Director, once said that Sailfish needs to spend money for improvements so it wouldn’t lose so much money. Is that what our tax dollars should be used for to minimize bigger losses? That isn’t money well spent.

 

Some of us, including the Commission, have lost sight of what government should be about.   

 

 

The Criminalization Of Children

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At one time or another, most boys have had a fight with another student in school, the back of the gym, or school yard.

 

That is something that happened to me more than once. I received a phone call from my son’s school when it happened to him…unfortunately, more than once. If my son were caught fighting in school today, it would not be the school office that would be calling but the police to tell me an arrest had been made.

 

According to a study by the University of Florida, there was a 40%-82% increase in arrests at schools since the implementation of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act in 2018 which mandates law enforcement to be assigned to all schools. That is an alarming increase in the state.

 

It is resulting in our children having criminal records instead of a school infraction.  Before this 2018 change, school authorities would handle tobacco use, behavioral problems, and other school misbehavior. Now, the first call is to the school resource officer who is a law enforcement employee.

How are our children safer in this environment? It is a well-known fact that kids do stupid things. They are impulsive, sometimes irrational, and often unthinking. School should be the place where they learn control, rational behavior, and to think before acting. Misbehavior that once would result in detention after school can now find the offender spending the night in juvenile hall.

 

Why have we decided our kids are criminals and they need to be arrested as young as kindergarten and often placed in restraints? The entire purpose of mandating armed law enforcement in schools was to prevent another Parkland. But are we instead instilling a mistrust of the police in students? According to the study mentioned above, one of their conclusions is that law enforcement’s presence did not make schools safer.

 

What we have done in schools are make them gated, impenetrable buildings and campuses. They more resemble minimum security prisons than places of learning. The only thing that has changed in Florida are the schools rather than the issues that gave us Parkland. Guns of all sort are still readily available. Mental Health programs are still woefully inadequate.

 

Schools should be places of intellectual and emotional growth within supportive environments where kids can learn behaviors that will make them better adults. They should not be places where armed guards patrol the halls.

 

Law enforcement should be kept at entrances to make sure that intruders do not enter the building. School staff should handle behavioral problems as they did before rather than having law enforcement fill the role of school disciplinarians. No child in elementary school should be handcuffed…this is child abuse. A fight between kids should result in punishment by the school district not the courts.

 

The criminalization of childhood is wrong. We are not keeping our children safe by locking them in as if they were inmates. Police should not be roaming the halls but guarding the perimeter.

 

If we are going to continue with this inane policy, then school resource officers need to be hired and supervised by the school districts rather than the sheriff’s departments. They should wear jackets and ties instead of uniforms with assault rifles. They need to be conflict resolution specialists and trained in mental health. They can be armed without being militarized.

 

Our children deserve to be kids. They should not be made to feel anxious that Big Brother is always looking. Schools are places of learning and nourishment not containment facilities.

Parks & Play

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The Martin County Park system is negligent in addressing the needs of many of our kids. The Parks Department is so invested in competing with the private sector that they forget those that can neither afford places like Sailfish Splash Park or to play in organized sports.

 

How many of us as kids just showed up at a neighborhood playground where we played in a pickup game with others? There were basketballs, bats, and balls we could borrow from the park attendant. In the summer, there were sprinklers to cool you off and pools to swim in. Cities and towns considered that a part of their responsibilities to provide free recreation.

 

Our poorer communities are the ones that need this type of old fashion recreation the most. Organized sports are beneficial to children. Yet, it should not be the prime recreation that is made available.

 

There are opportunities afforded to child development with unstructured play. Children learn how to organize and plan. They develop interpersonal skills and how to settle disputes among themselves. Without adults involved, the children must establish and accept what the rules are.

 

Unstructured does not mean unsupervised. Park employees are a necessary component to make sure children are not going to hurt themselves or their playmates. Our parks today are centered around outsourcing to sports leagues. The government does the maintenance. The league provides the recreation. In order to be allowed to play a game, the child and his parents must acquiesce to this very adult agreement between the government and the league.

 

While this is one way to “play ball,” it should not be the only way. Kids and their parents may not have the inclination to have such a disciplined approach to play. That is the important thing Martin County forgot…all kids deserve an opportunity to play the game as long as it is not destructive to themselves, another child, or the park.

 

The optimum word is play rather than sports. And while organized leagues serve a purpose, it should not preclude most children from participating in playing baseball, soccer, or football. Not all our children have the resources nor the inclination to be part of an organization. They should all be able to go to local parks and playgrounds and just be kids.

 

Not everything needs to be spectacular. Parks should be free and open to all but especially to those who can least afford to pay. Martin County sort of turned that around and became more elitist in its programs. We need smaller and more neighborhood playgrounds. Every kid within a CRA should be able to walk to and use the facilities free of charge.

A Tool In The Tool Box

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The voters of Martin County are being asked to re-authorize a business incentive program. The program is spearheaded by the Business Development Board (BDB). It is small potatoes in the realm of government spending. But it is important to note that since it was authorized in 2010, the program has never given out one penny. It came close…once.

 

So why is it needed? We have been told by the BDB that it is a necessary tool in the toolbox. You know like the special saw you bought in case you decide to make an elaborate rococo headboard.

 

What exactly would the happen if the voters approve the extension and the County Commission ever voted to award individual companies the opportunity of not paying their fair share of taxes?

 

It would allow companies moving into the area or expanding their businesses the opportunity to not pay ad valorem taxes under certain circumstances for several years. You can read the BDB’s accurate explanation of the program here

 

My position has always been that government should not give businesses handouts in any form or manner. The playing field should always be level for everyone. Make no mistake that when you allow Company “A” to pay no or reduced taxes, but not Companies “B” through “H,” government has demonstrated favoritism.

 

Even if everything is perfect and Company “A” hires more employees and builds a new machine to make its widgets, he is paying less taxes than all other widget makers doing the same thing. How is the economy better? If more widgets need to be produced, more widget factories will open because the market dictates that outcome. Business will do what is needed to make more money. These taxpayer subsidized incentives are government induced profit windfalls for a lucky few.

 

You do not build strong economies that way. Government needs only to allow all businesses the opportunity to permit, build, and hire capable employees without undue regulatory burdens. Both Palm Beach County and St. Lucie County offer these type subsidies. While programs such as this type of subsidy are used in those two counties and throughout the country, they do not produce any positive national GDP growth.

 

Time after time companies have moved to an area which gave little or no subsidies to those companies as compared to other governments. Amazon, ConAgra, and other companies base their decision on factors such as workforce availability and quality of life. Even corporate income tax rates are secondary concerns.

 

The best thing Martin County can do is stop taking months (and sometimes years) to green light a new commercial building. Martin County refuses to allow the housing needed to attract employees for businesses. Even when Stuart, on its city-limit fringes, approves apartments and lower-cost alternative housing, County residents cry no and sometimes County staff and Commissioners do as well.

 

Our schools need to produce educated employees in trades as well as other disciplines to fill those jobs. You cannot ask someone to create a business here if you make it so hard to open, their employees need to live in other communities, and they can’t find the necessary trained personnel to staff the enterprise.

 

Government must have as low a tax rate as possible for primarily the employees’ sake. Government needs to provide only those services that government should provide in the least expensive way possible. We do not need water parks and country club golf courses, but we do need adequate recreational areas and parks, roads, and schools. The elected officials need to be good shepherds of our tax dollars.

 

The Business Development Board received $450,000 of Martin County tax dollars last year. It has in the past and will continue to need that money in the future to keep its doors open. The Board of Directors are politicians and nonprofit executives with some private sector members mostly in banking, law, and real estate. (The Board can be found here

 

If you want to save nearly a half million dollars of taxpayer money a year, stop funding an organization that claims to be business-oriented yet needs a government handout to survive. There are five Chambers of Commerce in Martin County and an Economic Development Council. Those organizations are listed on the BDB website as having founded the organization. They should fund it too if the BDB is necessary in their opinion.

 

Better yet if the BDB provided a necessary product or service to the companies it is ostensibly recruiting then that company should pay for the perceived value of that service. Companies pay consultants, accountants, and lawyers all the time for advice. If the BDB has increased Martin County’s tax base through recruitment and retention of businesses, then it should be easy to quantitatively demonstrate that fact to the County.

 

Government never really demands hard facts. It is more than willing to go along with the fiction that something is being accomplished. Words such as develop, round-table, strategic, and collaborative, are often written and spoke at places such as the BDB. Seldom do you hear the expressions of bottom line or profit because to government and to semi-government organizations it is all about the perception of progress as opposed to concrete results.

 

The real difference is in the private sector if there is no profit the business closes. In government and organizations like the BDB there is always a future. They call it more funding we call it more tax dollars.    

 

We need to vote NO on re-authorization in August. Then we need to wean the BDB from receiving public funds. Every dollar spent on the BDB is one less dollar for needed resident services. I would rather make sure the County can pave an additional road or hire a few more employees to clean our drainage ditches each year than pay high salaries and fancy rent in Monterey Commons.

 

County Commissioners hang out with the people that populate the Chambers of Commerce, Economic Council, and the Business Development Board. It is easy for them to continue to fund their friends with your money. We need to make it a little harder to do so.

 

 

Freedom Is Just Not Another Word

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Kris Kristofferson wrote the song “Me and Bobby McGee” made famous by Janis Joplin back in the late 1960s. I always remember the lines:

 

“Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose
Nothin’, don’t mean nothin’ hon’ if it ain’t free, no no”

During those turbulent years, the United States had a half million military members fighting a war in Southeast Asia. Many of those enlisted personnel were draftees. Their choices were to be inducted into the army, flee to another country, or go to prison. That is a loss of freedom. Many felt they had everything to lose no matter their decision.

 

When you force someone to pick up a gun, shoot at another human being, and perhaps die, that is about as close as a government can get to depriving someone of his freedom. That citizen was ordered to do so for nothing more than being a nineteen-year-old American.

 

The drafting of young men has withstood constitutional challenges since the Civil War. With U.S. v. Arver in 1918, Chief Justice White wrote for a unanimous court that, indeed, the government had the right to conscript men into military service.

 

Fifty years ago, there was real consequence to what a citizen was asked to do by the government. There was a concrete and perhaps absolute meaning to the term depriving someone of his freedom. This act of forced military service was necessary to protect the rights of fellow Americans according to the government.

 

Kristofferson’s song and Joplin’s rendition began playing over and over in my head as I listened to the silliness being spewed regarding freedom and rights at last Thursday’s BOCC meeting. The wearing of a mask is far from a constitutional issue. It trivializes what the Framers bestowed on us. Those that think it is a depravation of constitutional rights for the government to issue an order for mandatory mask wearing are wrong. People’s ability to distinguish between rights and responsibilities are why the nation is in such a bad place.

 

A few other thoughts came to mind watching that meeting. Statues to men that led an insurrection against the Constitution are part of our history, but they are not to be revered as part of our proud heritage. No one, not even a police officer, can deprive another person of his life without just cause. Every American regardless of color, religion, ethnicity, sex, and now sexual orientation is the equal of any other American.

 

These should be the truths that are self-evident. They are Constitutional rights we need to defend. Men and women that gave their all from our national birth to today are what we need to preserve. We should not trivialize what freedom and the Constitution mean.

 

There are many that say that the Constitution and history are not taught adequately in our schools. I agree with that statement. It was quite evident at the last County Commission meeting that it was true.

 

What Can Happen Next!

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What can happen next!

 

Martin County and the City of Stuart have had their problems of late. In 2020, we have had the COVID-19 pandemic which began in February resulting in a shutdown of the economy whose effects are still reverberating. We now have our own version of “London Bridge is falling down.”

 

The New Roosevelt Bridge on Federal Highway has been closed due to possible corrosion of the cables that secure the bridge between spans. The bridge may look like a work of concrete, but underneath it is still an old fashion suspension bridge. And it is a new bridge having officially opened in 1996. The Old Roosevelt Bridge is the drawbridge on Dixie that is also closed because the “New” Bridge could collapse and fall on the original.

 

Stuart PD is completely cut off from patrolling its northern neighborhoods. The Sheriff’s office is picking up that slack. Yet if you have a heart attack north of the bridge, how do you get to the hospital? Fire/Rescue will have to take you to St. Lucie County. State Senator Gayle Harrell told me that she and other officials would like to have the bridge opened to emergency vehicles. Our City, County and State officials are waiting to hear from FDOT.

 

Florida Department of Transportation is currently performing a detailed inspection to determine the extent of the damage. That will probably take a few weeks. The Bridge has an interior causeway to allow golf cart type vehicles go into the interior of the bridge for inspections and to do partial maintenance.

 

The bridge was built in prefabricated sections that were then joined on site. Did this way of construction contribute to the problem in a bridge that is less than 25 years old? It is no Parisian Pont Neuf (1607), it is not even New York’s Brooklyn Bridge (1883). I once walked over the Queensborough Bridge (1909) during a subway strike. I have a picture in our den of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco (1937).

 

Except for the Pont Neuf, all the bridges I named are suspension bridges. Using modern standards of engineering for the times, they were still overbuilt to allow redundancy. At the time of their construction, the science was not as exact as it is in our modern world. Those bridge builders used more cement in their caissons, steel in their walkways and cables holding it all together. Modernity gave us the New Roosevelt Bridge engineered to greater tolerance, using new construction techniques, and not a spare bolt anywhere.

 

The one good thing that this shows the citizens of Martin County is that our legislative delegation, County and City governments work well together to solve crises as they arise. Last week, Senator Harrell, Representatives Overdorf and Magar, and the County Commission and staff all responded to the Hobe Hills flooding. They are currently working on a plan to obtain funds to purchase the most vulnerable homes in that area.

 

What the bridge fiasco should show everyone is that our infrastructure is important. The months this may take to be resolved will be a hardship that could result in further economic disruption. I live on the south side of the bridge and until there is a pain free way of doing so, I will not go to the mall, Target, Total Wine or BJs. My dentist is in north Stuart and I have an appointment next week. A normal five-minute drive will now require perhaps 40 hours or more.

 

From COVID-19 to the bridge, our quality of life has been affected. We may emerge stronger as a community, but I know we are different than before. How those differences affect us will be how we move forward.