FELLSMERE — Sometime in the 1920s, a Fellsmere student may have flipped a penny, hoping for heads. But he never found out how it landed.

Andy Davis knows.

As project superintendent with Doug Wilson Enterprises Inc. of Cape Canaveral, his crew is restoring the Old Fellsmere School, a 1916-era building, on a $2.97 million city contract. They’re hoping to be done in January, City Manager Jason Nunemaker said.

One of the workers recently found the 1920 penny on top of a door frame. Davis envisioned a student flipping the coin and losing it. And he was lucky without knowing it.

“It flipped heads up,” Davis recalled. “We also found a young girl’s homework from 1920 behind a baseboard. It was still kind of legible math homework.”

Such finds, which he has turned in at City Hall, provide a rare glimpse into the lives of everyday people back when the school was built.

The 27,000-square-foot building, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, was built in 1916 for about $40,000 and housed classrooms for kindergarten through 12th grade for more than 60 years, local historian Clarence “Korky” Korker has said.

After the School Board relocated classes in 1982 to a more modern building, City Hall used the Old Fellsmere School into the mid-1990s. Then storm damage and public-access problems forced the city staff to relocate into the current modular buildings provided by the Harris Corp.

But now City Hall is coming back. Nunemaker said plans call for the Boys & Girls Club to move into the basement and the south part of the first floor, while city staffers relocate into the second floor and the north part of the first floor.

The northernmost section of the basement, meanwhile, will become a kitchen devoted to the city’s specialty: frog legs. Organizers of the annual Fellsmere Frog Leg Festival, who started raising money in 1990 for the restoration plans, will have a permanent headquarters.

Davis said the challenge has been taking a structure that was built before building codes and retrofitting modern wiring and plumbing — including an elevator and central air conditioning — without interfering with the 1916 glory. The result is various square holes cut into the old brickwork for new shafts and ducts. They will be covered by grills.

“This is my first real restoration job to this extent,” Davis said. “I really don’t mind coming to work everyday. This is a rare opportunity.”

Davis and Dean McMurphy, with Door & Window Systems Inc. of Cocoa Beach, said they have a keen respect for tradesmen who had to do everything by hand and built a structure that has withstood every storm and hurricane since 1916.

Replacing a broken brick or wood timber from 1916 means making it anew, McMurphy said. It’s not ready on the shelf at the home-improvement store.

“You can’t get parts for this,” McMurphy said. “Everything we need has to be custom-built. … Everything has to fit right back together or there are gaps. That’s the hardest part about restoration.”

Regions Bank has foreclosed on two communities owned by Shelby Homes in Indian River County, according to civil lawsuits filed in Indian River Circuit Court.

The total judgment on the two properties is $25.7 million, likely one of the largest foreclosure amounts in Indian River County.

A foreclosure judgment in the amount of $21.93 million was made against Shelby Homes at Millstone Inc., developer of Millstone Landing, a luxury gated community on 300 acres southwest of 27th Avenue and 17th Street Southwest. According to court documents, the original mortgage on Millstone Landing was $34.45 million.

The foreclosure judgment on the 82-acre Shelby Homes at Pine Lake Inc. is $3.79 million, according to court documents. That is undeveloped raw land south of the Vero Fashion Outlets mall on State Road 60.

Regions Bank spokesman Mel Campbell declined to comment. Regions Bank’s Miami-based attorney Ronald Rosengarten couldn’t be reached for comment.

Fort Lauderdale-based Shelby Homes President Robert Shelley said the foreclosure at Millstone Landing would only affect vacant raw land. No residential homes, community amenities or common residential areas would be affected.

“This is all pretty simple, it’s just a part of business restructuring,” Shelley said about Millstone. “They are just taking back certain aspects of the property which is part of a negotiated settlement.”

Mindy Mora, a partner in the corporate restructuring group at the law firm of Bilzin, Sumberg, Baena, Price & Axelrod in Miami, said the foreclosure was part of a “restructuring workout” that involved different Shelby Homes projects locally and in Fort Myers.

“It was consensual, expected and not contested,” Mora said. “Essentially, we worked through a resolution of differences with Regions Bank.”

Both properties are scheduled to be sold at the Indian River County Courthouse on Oct. 2 at 11 a.m.

“This doesn’t affect any existing homeowners,” Shelley said. “No one is going to be left being stranded or anything.”

In 2004, Shelby Homes entered the Treasure Coast with its seaside community of Mariner Bay located just south of Seaway Drive on Hutchinson Island. Shelby’s other Treasure Coast developments include Bradford Place in Vero Beach and two projects in Fort Pierce: Carriage Pointe Estates and Mariner Cove.

Millstone Landing was to contain 630 homes and had committed to setting aside 18 acres for an elementary school that would have been part of what county planners call the South County Initiative, seven projects by different developers, all planned as one community of 2,736 housing units on 1,218 acres.

Indian River County Planning Director Stan Boling said Shelby Homes had fulfilled its roads and infrastructure obligations with the county. Utilities and infrastructure for the school have also been built, but the building of the school has been delayed indefinitely according to the Indian River County School Board’s five-year plan.

“We may have a number of projects sit dormant for a while,” Boling said about the South County Initiative. “Right now there is no need for the school … but in the long term it’s still a good size and that obligation has been fulfilled.”

Mark Tripson sold the massive family property on behalf of brother, Jens, and sisters Karen and Logan to Shelby Homes in 2005 for $8 million, according to public records. His family started farming the land in 1946 at the then JoBar Farms, named after his parents, John and Barbara Tripson.

“I feel sorry for him,” Tripson said about Shelby Homes President Robert Shelley. “But I don’t have the money to buy it back.”

Nadia Vanderhoof, TCPalm.com

VERO BEACH — Indian River County School District officials will not reverse their decision to prohibit the live broadcast of what has grown into a controversial address by President Obama to encourage students to work hard and stay in school.

The White House is expected to release the text of the address on Monday, a day before the midday speech is given.

However, because Monday is a holiday, the district would not have time to review the material in time to make any decision on the subject matter or provide parents enough time to let their children opt out of hearing the address, said Patty Vasquez, the district’s public information officer.

“We are not partisan. We do not allow political speeches to be made at school from politicians,” Vasquesz said.

The district announced on Thursday that board policy would require the broadcast to be taped and reviewed to determine if the material was educationally relevant.

Other Treasure Coast school districts are allowing teachers to air the midday C-Span broadcast, but accepting notes from parents who do not want their children to hear the message.

The White House has said the address will be about the value of education, not a policy speech.

Opponents of the administration contend the speech will be used to enhance worship of the president or to push a socialist agenda rather than foster a critical lesson, as the U.S. Department of Education now states.

The Department of Education has urged schools to offer the program.

In 1991, President George H.W. Bush’s address, carried on CNN and on public television, advised students on the importance of education. Vasquez said she didn’t know if the district allowed students to watch that broadcast.

FORT PIERCE — With the start of school just weeks away, school and health officials on the Treasure Coast want parents to know they are prepared for swine flu and will coordinate efforts to prevent its spread through the public schools.

They also ask that parents and students follow this simple advice to help: “If you’re sick, stay home,” said Larry Lee, administrator of the St. Lucie County Health Department.

School and health officials announced their efforts at a joint press conference today at the St. Lucie County School District offices in Fort Pierce. They noted that public schools in St. Lucie, Martin, Indian River and Okeechobee counties have about 83,000 students about 300,000 family members.
With frequent travel in the four-county region, they agreed to cooperate in controlling the spread of H1N1 virus. (more…)

By ELLIOT JONES
Tcpalm.com

VERO BEACH — There are now 65 confirmed swine flu cases in Indian River County, the latest being an unidentified youth age 18 or younger, health officials said Friday.

The child is not among the four confirmed swine flu cases recently reported at the Life For Youth Camp, a day and residential youth camp attended by hundreds of youths each week, said Miranda Swanson, director, Indian River County Health Department. Three are from Indian River County. The fourth was confirmed to have the swine flu, also known as the H1N1 virus, on Friday but the person had returned to a home out of the county so the case isn’t included in the Indian River County total.

Health Department officials visited the camp, off 82nd Avenue, on Friday to ask for information on who has become sick and when. And the department provided a health advisory the camp is to hand out to campers, Swanson said. (more…)

By ELLIOTT JONES
TCPalm
INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Confirmed swine flu cases in Indian River County now total 64 and health officials are looking into a possible outbreak at a youth residential and day camp.

Four cases have been confirmed at the Life for Youth Camp, which hosts hundreds of weekly campers from around Florida and elsewhere. One other camper, who went home out of state, is being checked for swine flu, said Miranda Swanson, administrator with the Indian River County Health Department.

Health officials have confirmed at the camp 20 cases of Influenza Type A, which in 90 percent of cases in Florida are turning out to be swine flu, also known as the H1N1 virus, Swanson said.
Life for Youth Camp officials couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday. Camp officials did post an announcement from the health department on the camp’s Web site, www.lifeforyouthcamp.com, alerting parents about the confirmed cases and recommending that they keep their children home if they develop symptoms of the flu.

More cases are expected elsewhere in Indian River County — especially after resumption of school in late August. School brings together in close quarters the most likely-to-be-infected group: children age 19 and younger. (more…)

If no public schools on the Treasure Coast close as a result of state funding that is expected to shrink by 10 percent for 2009-10, the three-county area may be an anomaly in public education.

“Just about every school district in Florida is looking at consolidating and closing some schools,” said Wayne Blanton, executive director of the Florida School Boards Association. “I don’t think there’s a school district in the state of Florida that’s going to have as many schools open next year as this year — except maybe some very small ones.”

Officials in Martin and Indian River County school districts say they are not now considering closing and consolidating public schools to reduce spending next year, while St. Lucie County school leaders will only say that every idea to save money is being discussed.

(more…)

VERO BEACH — Bringing in college teams from around the country to play at Holman Stadium is one of the options being explored now that the county has rescinded its offer to the Baltimore Orioles.

Indian River County Commissioner Gary Wheeler believes the college teams can have even more of an economic impact for the community than a minor league team. He said relatives, coaches and fans of the teams could fill hotel rooms during the slow summer months of June, July and August. (more…)