MARTIN COUNTY — Foreclosure activity in Martin County hit an all-time high in June.

Of the 472 Martin County homes in some stage of foreclosure, 398 were first-time notifications of default with intent to file suit, according to data released Thursday by California-based RealtyTrac (www.realtytrac.com), an online marketplace for foreclosure properties.

The 472 was 84 percent higher than May’s total and nearly three times the number of homes in any stage of foreclosure a year earlier.

Since RealtyTrac began tracking foreclosures in 2005, the highest number of Martin County homes in some stage of foreclosure was 312 in October 2008. Homes in foreclosure never topped 100 until they reached 106 in August 2007. (more…)

MARTIN COUNTY — Almost two weeks after her apartment building caught fire, Karen Diaz’s second-floor apartment still smells of smoke.

The fire that briefly displaced Diaz, 21, and her family from their lodgings at The Crossings at Indian Run never entered the apartment, but the smell still greets her when she wakes and when she walks out the damaged front door.

“It feels like it’s on fire again,” said Diaz, who lives in the apartment with her mother, 4-year-old son, older sister and infant niece.

The fires that struck the building at 3740 Southeast Gatehouse Circle and a condo in Port Salerno on Independence Day weekend are over, but the task of recovering is not. The American Red Cross of Martin County has spent a little less than $1,000 aiding those affected by the fires.

On July 4, fire broke out at one of building’s three columns and spread up its interior to the building’s attic, where it was contained.

The fire department accused two juveniles of starting the fire with fireworks. The juveniles are not being charged, but they are being put into a fire safety program, said Frank Lasaga, community safety coordinator for the Stuart fire department.

Diaz and her family were the only ones relocated after the fire, estimated to have caused $80,000 in damage, and have since returned home.

The Red Cross spent a little less than $200 for the family’s food and alternate lodgings while repairs to the ceiling were made, said Sam Yates, a spokesman for the organization. Diaz said the family stayed at Molly’s House in Stuart from July 6 to July 8.

Earlier on July 4, a fire in a waterside condo on the 4000 block of Manatee Lane ended with one dead and one injured. The next day, firefighters with Martin County Fire Rescue returned when another fire broke out in a different area of the same building. None were injured in the second fire.

Yates said the Red Cross spent more than $300 helping the survivor of the first Manatee Lane fire. It has also spent $550 helping a family displaced in the second Manatee Lane fire and will contribute more to help to help them find a place to stay.

After the fire, dust from the attic covered the apartment floor and furniture, Diaz said. The front door was damaged and cut from when firefighters broke into the apartment. The apartment and outside stairwell still smell, and the storage closet on the balcony smells of mold and smoke.

“I don’t know how I’m going to get in there with that smell,” Diaz said.

Parts of the apartment’s ceiling have been repaired, and the dust has been cleaned from the apartment floor. Diaz is still waiting for the apartment complex to replace the front door and damaged air conditioning equipment. Diaz said the complex told her the door would be repaired next week.
By Alex Tiegen, TCPalm.com

PORT ST. LUCIE — Which would you prefer?

A 26 percent property tax increase, cutting 117 city jobs, having 16 fewer police officers, closing the city Parks and Recreation Department and its facilities or not tuning into PSL-TV.

Those are the options the City Council plans to discuss Thursday and Friday as the group looks at an $11 million deficit for next year’s budget. (more…)

FORT PIERCE — Five men caught snipping “buds” off pot plants in a Port St. Lucie house in May 2008 face up to 11 years in prison after being convicted Friday of cultivating marijuana, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

After a four-day trial at the St. Lucie County Courthouse, a jury deliberated about four hours Thursday evening and Friday morning before reaching guilty verdicts for Reinaldo R. Ramos, 35, of Hialeah, and Jose V. Alvarez-Hernandez, 55, Luis O. Leal, 33, Manuel Gonzalez, 35, and Jose Antonio Blain, 42, all of Miami.
(more…)

More Treasure Coast students soon will be able to ditch classes at bricks-and-mortar schools.

Instead, they’ll head to class without leaving the house.

Starting with the new school year in August, all Florida school districts are required to offer virtual schools because of a 2008 law created to give parents more choice over how their children are educated. (more…)

FORT PIERCE — A 14-year-old boy who police say fled from officers, brandished a gun and barricaded himself inside a home Monday afternoon surrendered after a few hours, officials said.

Patrick Casimir of 1105 North 29th Street was arrested just before 5 p.m. after he walked out of the house in the 3000 block of Avenue L with his hands raised, according to Sgt. Dennis McWilliams. No one was injured, and no shots were fired.

Casimir was charged with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, armed burglary and two counts of resisting arrest without violence, officials said.
(more…)

New Medicare payment rules are starting to strangle local small oxygen suppliers by forcing them to turn away business.

In the process, patients who live here part-time, travel, move or want to switch suppliers locally are left struggling to find new options for oxygen.

“This is going to dramatically affect patients’ lifestyles, how they move and their freedom,” said Mark Hassett, general manager of Stuart-based OxyPros Inc., which also has a Port St. Lucie office “Patients need to speak up.”

In the new rules for 2009, Medicare pays suppliers about $164 monthly for three years for patients renting respiratory equipment. In the following two years, suppliers continue providing oxygen and services, but only receive negligible reimbursement. After the fifth year, the payment cycle begins again and patients are entitled to new equipment.

Now, it’s become a losing proposition, suppliers said, to take a patient who has been on oxygen even for a year or two, because two years of providing essentially free oxygen and services follow.

And close to three full years is necessary to cover the costs of the impending two-year period with little reimbursement, said Kathie Rovella of Oxygen Plus in Vero Beach.

So suppliers are often forced to reject patients who are a few years into their oxygen use. Oxygen Plus has turned away 12-15 patients this year because of the new billing cycle, including two in the last week, Rovella said.

Because much of Florida’s population doesn’t live in the state year-round that can make it difficult because patients have to find a supplier in two locations. And patients a few years into the cycle who move are often left confused and without coverage.

Travel cane be even more difficult.

Patients either have to lug their equipment around with them, or search diligently for willing suppliers wherever they are going, Rovella said.

The rule is part of a large-scale effort to cut Medicare costs and eliminate fraud in the oxygen industry, which long lacked sufficient regulation, said Zane Morgan, a manufacturers representative for several Florida oxygen suppliers.

Dorothy McGrath is approaching four years using oxygen. She decided that carrying her 30-pound concentrator to Kentucky to see her daughter last month was unreasonable.

So McGrath, of Hobe Sound, rented from a local supplier, and was handed a $150 bill, which OxyPros luckily paid for her.

Because McGrath was in the middle of her third year, the Kentucky supplier wouldn’t accept her Medicare.

“You’re really bound to your house, and that’s not fair,” said McGrath, 63.

Patients like McGrath, who travel, move across the state, live seasonally up North, or look to move closer to family simply are getting turned away, Hassett said.

Meanwhile, the loss in customers and reimbursement could be debilitating for small suppliers in the long run.

Medicare reimbursement hardly accounts for labor costs, like providing 24/7 on-call services, and equipment set-up, maintenance and refills, which in reality are the prime expenses for suppliers, Hassett said.

OxyPros and Oxygen Plus have both added smaller health-care items to their inventories to help make up for profit losses. And OxyPros is in a hiring freeze, while Oxygen Plus staff members have taken pay cuts.

But neither company is confident small suppliers will be able to continue the same services without a large-scale change.

“Oxygen Plus is a mom-and-pop store,” Rovella said. “And trust me, we won’t be able to sustain this much longer.”

In the end, however, it’s the patients like those who come in for portable oxygen so they can move and be active who suffer — and who become confined to one area in an effort to be mobile.

“They’re not thinking about the person’s life,” McGrath said. “It’s important when you’re disabled to be near your friends and family.

“Everybody has to breathe.”

OXYGEN BREAKDOWN

In years one to three, suppliers receive an average of $200 per month – 80 percent from Medicare, and a 20 percent copay from the patient or secondary insurer – for renting, installing and maintaining rented oxygen equipment

In years four and five, Medicare offers minimal reimbursement to oxygen suppliers, who are required to continue offering the same equipment and services

After five years, the payment cycle restarts, and patients are entitled to new equipment

By Jonathan Mattise, TCPalm.com

PORT ST. LUCIE — Put a kid on a bike on a race track sprinkled with jumps, lumps and bumps, and you’re likely to have one happy kid. Or teenager. Or adult, for that matter.

A new bicycle track for riders who love speeding through 1,000 feet of tricky obstacles is expected to open near Crosstown Parkway and Interstate 95 in Port St. Lucie in October. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — When Maria Trigueiro and her husband, Jose, bought a home in Lake Forest after living in New Hampshire, they did so under the impression that the vegetative buffer between the home and Florida’s Turnpike would remain untouched.

About six years later, Trigueiro is upset that St. Lucie West Services District officials are pulling up invasive, non-native Brazilian pepper trees in the surrounding community. The trees behind her house are still in the ground, but she is worried they will be coming down soon.

Under its development permit through the South Florida Water Management District, St. Lucie West Services District is required to check its property and destroy invasive plants such as the Brazilian pepper, which crowds out native vegetation and can damage the local environment.
(more…)

JENSEN BEACH — A man was charged Saturday evening with domestic battery after he drenched his wife with a garden hose and attacked her, according to an affidavit released Monday.

The altercation began when the victim entered the couple’s residence in the 1400 block of Northeast Chardon Street, while smoking a cigarette.

The affidavit says the victim’s husband, John Jeffrey Murray, 51, began yelling at her about smoking in the house and sprayed her with the hose.
(more…)