PORT ST. LUCIE — Port St. Lucie football coach Doug Kerr will not return for the 2009 season.

Principal Terry Davis informed Kerr he would not be re-appointed Tuesday evening and told the team of the decision Wednesday after school. Kerr was preparing for his fifth season, as spring football is set to begin Friday. (more…)

STUART — A Martin County grand jury on Wednesday returned first-degree murder and robbery indictments against two Stuart residents accused in the April 5 beating death of Keith A. Hall, who died three days after being attacked.

Charged are James Louis LaForteza, 29, and Kobi Anderson, 15, who authorities say beat Hall into unconsciousness to steal $40 he’d shown the man and teen in an attempt to buy drugs. (more…)

INDIANTOWN — A 15-year-old boy was stabbed during a fight that broke out during a party over the weekend.

Shortly before midnight on Saturday, Martin County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a home on 172nd Avenue where they found 15-year-old Andres Felix stabbed in the back.

The teen was transported to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach for treatment.

Witnesses told investigators that there had been a party at another home a few blocks away when several people who hadn’t been invited showed up.

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FORT PIERCE — Not much will change Friday when Lawnwood Regional Medical Center & Heart Institute begins serving as a provisional state trauma center.

Much of the $15 million Lawnwood invested in five trauma surgeons, staff training, new equipment and emergency department renovations was earmarked two years ago when hospital officials proposed St. Lucie County taxpayers chip in $7 million a year to pay for the regional, Level II trauma center.

Trauma tax opponents said then Lawnwood’s parent company, Tennessee-based HCA Inc., would find the cash if it really wanted to care for trauma patients. Nearly 75 percent of voters rejected the trauma tax.
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STUART — Martin County’s lowest-paid workers will keep fighting the county’s furlough program because they can’t afford a 5 percent pay cut, a union leader said Tuesday.

Teamsters Local 769, which represents 275 of the county’s clerical and blue collar workers, will ask the Public Employees Relations Commission to resolve the contract dispute through binding arbitration, said Mavis Curley, the union’s chief steward in Martin County.

The furlough program requiring all county employees, except fire rescue workers, to take one unpaid day off per month starting Friday violates the Teamsters contract, Curley said. Under the contract, a workweek is 40 hours.
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VERO BEACH — An educational security expert said the days and weeks that passed before arrests were made for the false bomb threats at Vero Beach High School isn’t unusual.

“You could have multiple threats made before the perpetrator is caught,” said Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services, a Cleveland-based consulting firm. “Often the individuals making the calls have a tendency to tell others who weren’t involved and are caught that way.”
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John Santilli

According to the woman, she had been involved with 47-year-old John Santilli for two and a half years before ending the relationship two months ago.

The woman told St. Lucie County Sheriff’s deputies that she moved and asked Santilli not to contact her but she had received several phone calls and notes from him. She has also had several UPS packages stolen and her television cable cut off, according to a sheriff’s report.

On Monday the woman said her cable had been cut off again. She told investigators Santilli admitted he had cut it and to fix it would need to enter her apartment.

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PORT ST. LUCIE — A house was ravaged by a fire this morning, half of it consumed by flames by the time firefighters arrived.

Shortly after 7:30 a.m., St. Lucie County Fire District crews responded to the house in the 7900 block of Horned Lark Circle in the Savanna Golf Club community.

All the residents evacuated, according to district spokeswoman Catherine Chaney.

FORT PIERCE - Despite severe budget constraints, St. Lucie County School Board members gave full-throated approval today to a recommendation to rehire a retired administrator with a six-figure salary.

Board members voted unanimously to bring back former Deputy Superintendent Sandra Wolfe, effective May 1. Wolfe retired in February.

They said the position, as second to Superintendent Michael Lannon, was integral to the operation of the school district and that Wolfe herself was needed for her experience, leadership and skills as an educator and administrator.

“We still need a deputy superintendent, we’re still going to pay for one,” said School Board member Troy Ingersoll.

Board member John Carvelli agreed: “We need experienced people. This is not a hokey operation.”

The school board received phone calls and emails today protesting the recommendation in the wake of a decision three weeks ago to eliminate 331 positions as part of its efforts to cut about $30 million from the district’s operating budget for the 2009/10 school year.

The district employs about 4,751 employees. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — Two men accused in connection with a Sunday night confrontation with skateboarders in which a shot was fired were arrested on a series of charges, according to police reports released Monday.

Two 20-year-old men and a 13-year-old boy told police they were skateboarding outside their home on Southwest Escarole Street just before 8 p.m. when the confrontation happened.

Angry about an incorrectly executed trick, the teenaged boy smacked his skateboard on a ramp as a vehicle driven by a man identified as Alexander A. Thompson, 30, went past. The vehicle stopped nearby and Thompson asked, “Are you OK?” before one of the older skateboarders said “Yeah, are you OK?”

Thompson spoke in a language other than English to the passenger in his vehicle, 26-year-old Gustavo Quiroz, before both got out. Thompson had a handgun and Quiroz a magazine, according to the reports. (more…)