PALM CITY — Martin County Commissioner Ed Ciampi closed his ice cream and chocolate shop at the Publix shopping center on Martin Highway in May and anticipates reopening in late July at a new location in a strip mall on Mapp Road.

It was the second setback for Ciampi’s 3-year-old chain of “Sweet Sarah’s” ice cream and chocolate shops. Last year, Ciampi closed his shop in Port St. Lucie because of a lack of traffic at a shopping center near Veteran’s Memorial Park.

“We all have to adapt to the current economic conditions and I’m doing just that,” Ciampi said. “Three or four years ago, when I started this process, the economy was different. So now I’m making smart decisions to stay in business.”
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PALM CITY — A longtime honey and bee company on the Treasure Coast is having problems at its Palm City site for more than a year with people knocking over its bee hives.

Gruwell Apiary has been watching over bees for about three generations in the Treasure Coast. With about 900 hives on 30 different properties, this family of beekeepers doesn’t understand why people would want to hurt the bee hives.

“We are just helping the community,” said David Gruwell, a third generation beekeeper. “A third of the fruits and vegetables we eat would disappear if all the bees die. Everything would disappear after four to five years. It’s just a matter of time and we are over.”

For the past year, Gruwell has been finding ATV and golf cart tracks on their Palm City property after multiple hives were knocked over. Alcohol and beer bottles have also been found on the family’s property.

The most recent incident was this week. When Gruwell checked on the Palm City property located on Mistletoe Lane Wednesday he found five hives knocked over. The colony in one of those hives died and $2,500 in bees and honey was lost.

In the past year the Gruwell family has lost about $5,000 in honey and bees because of the incidents. (more…)

The White House is reviewing the merits of the proposed Indian Street Bridge as a response to a U.S. senator who included the span in his list of 100 questionable federal stimulus projects.

The review is being conducted only because it was raised by U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., not because it is a concern of the White House.

The review could be quickly wrapped up as the White House has already determined that one-third of the items highlighted by Coburn in a report released Tuesday are not stimulus projects or are misleading characterizations of stimulus projects.
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Detectives with the Martin County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Unit in partnership with the Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco conducted an undercover operation on Thursday, when they checked 17 convenience stores throughout Martin County to see if they sold alcohol to minors.

One-hundred percent compliance was reported on that date. No sales were made to the concerned citizen volunteer that worked with detectives.

This operation was the second conducted in the past thirty days. Two arrests were previously made on May 7, 2009. These operations continue year-round.

Christopher Reber

Christopher Reber, 23, was arrested last Wednesday on those charges after his release from St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Martin County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Rhonda Irons said.

Reber was shot when he broke into Joe Russo and Linda Schultz’s house the morning of April 16, sheriff’s investigators say.

That morning Reber entered the home in the 1500 block of Southwest Crossing Circle after shooting into a sliding glass door, then headed to an upstairs bedroom where Schultz was waiting with a handgun, according to sheriff’s reports.

Schultz told deputies she shot at Reber three times, striking him in the torso.

Reber then fled in his mother’s black Ford Contour and drove to her condo in the 1200 block of Southeast Parkview Place.

The mother told detectives her son took a shower and asked her to take him to the Suburban Lodge Extended Stay Hotel on U.S. 1 in Stuart.
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INDIANTOWN - Three new fires have been reported in western Martin County where between 2,000 acres and 3,000 acres have burned since Sunday.

The three new fires - making it a total of 16 fires - were small and two were quickly extinguished, said Melissa Yunas, a spokeswoman for the state Division of Forestry.

No homes are being threatened, Yunas said. One of the fires destroyed two homes in Indiantown and damaged several others, she said.

Three children, ages 7, 8 and 10, were arrested earlier this week for allegedly setting at least one of the larger fires near Indiantown. The children were charged with a third-degree felony and released to their parents.

INDIANTOWN — Thirteen fires still are burning in western Martin County, but none threaten homes and all are contained, forestry officials said today.

The fires, which destroyed two houses and damaged others, have burned through an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 acres in or near Indiantown and Palm City. The fires started on Mother’s Day and are expected to continue burning for about a week.

Three children, ages 7, 8 and 10, were arrested Wednesday for allegedly starting one of the larger fires in Indiantown. All three were released to their parents. More information about their arrests is expected today from the state Office of Agricultural Law Enforcement.

INDIANTOWN — Firefighters already contained a 1 acre flare-up today, even after 4 inches of rain fell overnight.

Officials say years of hurricane debris is keeping a fire near the Booker Park Community, and firefighters are focusing on extinguishing all smoldering vegetation as brush fires burn for a fourth day. Several firebreaks are inaccessible for crews in the Indian Wood Community, causing problems containing the Indian Trail Fire, according to a Division of Forestry release this morning.

As the rain helps, it also brings lightning that can spark new fires.

For firefighters, the “witching hour” comes not at midnight, but at midday, with the threat of dark magic buried deep in the ground.

The temperature rises, the humidity drops and a seemingly subdued fire can burst with surprising strength, sparked from burning muck.

Residents of Indianwood, a mobile home community in Indiantown for ages 55 and up, got a taste of that phenomenon firsthand this week, as embers suddenly blew across a nearly dry canal bed and shot flames up vines and through palmettos. Two houses were lost, another was saved only by a rapid change in wind, and people were injured as they fled the rapidly moving fire.

“People were running for their lives, really,” said Mel Smith, a retired firefighter who has lived in Indianwood for 17 years. “At one time you couldn’t see 10 feet with the smoke and the flames.”

Wildfires burned through nearly 3,000 acres in three days in western Martin County, fire and forestry officials said. Much of the fire was in and around Indiantown, with other blazes in Palm City near the Martin County landfill. By mid-morning Tuesday, there were at least 10 fires, authorities said. (more…)

Nilima Vyas

Wyn Loucke

Arrests were made at two local stores: Mapp Road Texaco in Palm City, where 50-year-old clerk Wyn Loucke sold alcohol to a 17-year-old resident, and A-1 Discount Beverage on Monterey Road in Stuart, where clerk Nilima Vyas sold beer to a teen, according to investigators.

No sales were made at the other locations to the concerned citizen volunteer that worked with detectives.

These operations continue year-round.

STUART — A California woman arrested for defrauding a Palm City couple out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in furniture, flooring and home accessories was sentenced to 15 years in prison as part of a plea deal she struck with state prosecutors.

In addition to prison, Corrine Victoria Blakely, who pleaded no contest to first-degree grand theft, was also ordered to pay $267,508 in restitution to the couple and serve 15 years of probation after her release from prison.

Authorities said Blakely, 47, fraudulently posed as an interior designer in 2006 when she was hired by a 67-year-old Palm City man to do about $400,000 in renovations to a home in the 3200 block of Southwest Winding Way.

Court papers show the man never received $129,000 worth of furniture for which Blakely was paid. When asked when the goods would arrive, Blakely provided fraudulent invoices and “padded bills,” which she falsified to perpetrate the fraud, investigators concluded.

As part of her plea bargain, state prosecutors dropped a count of organized fraud, grand theft from a person 65 years of age or older and practicing interior design without a license.

Blakely, who at one point had promised but later failed to repay thecouple, was arrested in January and extradited from California.

By staff report, TCPalm.com