ST. LUCIE COUNTY — Four of the five commissioners who oversee the county’s $587 million budget suffered personal declines in their net worth last year.

Commission Chairwoman Paula Lewis, on the board since 1996, was the only one to record an increase, growing nearly $20,000, even as her home dipped in value by $10,000 and liabilities grew by $3,000.

The largest drop was recorded by Commissioner Chris Dzadovsky, who was elected to the board in 2008. He saw his net worth down nearly $200,000 from the prior year, with real estate being the biggest reason. His two residential properties in Fort Pierce lost a combined $185,063 in value from 2007 to 2008. (more…)

STUART — A Martin County jury tomorrow will likely begin deliberating the case of former Jensen Beach pastor Rodney McGill and his wife, Shalonda McGill, accused of orchestrating a real estate scheme that ended in more than $1 million in foreclosed property from three unwitting investors.
After a week on the other side of the witness stand, the former pastor and real estate investment pitchman took the stand in his own defense Monday, telling a jury that unscrupulous mortgage brokers were the ones to blame for an alleged mortgage scheme that ruined the credit of the women he and Shalonda helped invest in local properties. (more…)

PALM CITY — Hard financial times have turned tumultuous at a local church, with the pastor using a sheriff’s deputy to keep elders outside the sanctuary doors and the elders, in turn, filing suit to remove the pastor.

In the lawsuit filed Wednesday in Martin County Circuit Court, seven members of Palm City Christian Church charge Pastor Anthony “Pastor Tony” Galbicka with breach of fiduciary duty and seek a ruling “ousting” him and voiding the “improper and/or illegal” actions he took.

The suit also alleges Galbicka slandered one plaintiff, Edward Taudien, when the pastor told other church members Taudien had stolen money from the church. The suit counters that Taudien had donated more than $168,000 to the church and loaned it $200,000 to build the sanctuary at 6450 Martin Highway in western Palm City.

Galbicka could not be reached Thursday at his home in Palm City, at the church, via telephone or by e-mail.

Robert J. Watson, a Stuart attorney representing the plaintiffs, said he expects a hearing on his request for a temporary restraining order against Galbicka to be scheduled late this month or early August.

According to the lawsuit, the 80-member church “began to struggle financially” this year; at a May 28 meeting attended by Galbicka, the elders approved several spending cuts, including reducing the pastor’s salary “by a modest percentage.”

Watson said the cut was to be about 15 percent, adding the church paid Galbicka’s housing and car expenses plus $22,000 a year. Details of how to make the cut had not been worked out, he said. (more…)

Since March, Leroy Stennett has spent more than 10 hours talking to seven people in five departments at Bank of America about getting his mortgage modified.

In 2006, Stennett and his wife purchased a house in Port St. Lucie for $285,000, putting $95,000 down and adding another $5,000 in closing costs from the sale of their previous home.

“My house is worth $120,000 now, so, I’ve basically paid it off, but they don’t want to cut me a break,” Stennett said about his lender, Bank of America. “Every time I call, I talk to a different person, so I can’t get any real answers.”

Like thousands on the Treasure Coast, Stennett hoped President Barack Obama’s Making Home Affordable plan would help adjust his house payments after applying for a mortgage modification. But frustrated homeowners, who remain current on mortgage payments despite economic setbacks, say they are confused about the modification process and aren’t getting support or cooperation from their lenders. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — Hundreds of Tesoro property owners aren’t waiting around while their subdivision’s developer grinds through bankruptcy court: They’re filing their own lawsuits against Ginn Resorts and its affiliates.

Property owners are charging Ginn with a host of wrongdoings, including selling lots through Ponzi schemes, fraudulently inflating property values, lying to and duping clients, failing to account for hundreds of thousands of dollars in membership dues and missing escrow accounts and backing out on promises to build amenities.

Timothy Vetrano, 72, a retiree from Manhasset, N.Y., who lives at Tesoro with his wife Marilyn, said his experience falls under “buyer beware.”
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ST. LUCIE COUNTY — More than a year after developers of the planned Cloud Grove had the county put the controversial 12,000-home project “on hold,” their creditor has added it to the Treasure Coast’s ranks of foreclosed properties.

“I imagine this pretty much closes any opportunities for that project,” St. Lucie County Commission Chairwoman Paula Lewis said this week.

MLIC Asset Holdings LLC, of Morristown, N.J., an affiliate of the lender, Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., filed the foreclosure suit in Circuit Court on Nov. 26, accusing the developers of failing to pay on a $48 million mortgage.

MLIC is scheduled to auction the Cloud Grove land to the “highest and best bidder” at 11 a.m. June 24 in the St. Lucie County Courthouse.

Officials from Lennar Homes, who were managing the project in a partnership with Centex Homes, could not be reached for comment. (more…)

Core Communities LLC, the company behind the Tradition community and Port St. Lucie’s biggest developer, is trying to renegotiate two major loans as the value of its property has dropped.

Core’s parent company, Fort Lauderdale-based Woodbridge Holdings Corp. (Pink Sheets: WDGH), warned in its first-quarter report last week that Core was dealing with “cash flow deficits” and said its lenders are seeking payments to more closely align two development loans with the depleted value of Core’s land.

The deterioration of the real estate market and the possibility of those cash payments “raise substantial doubt regarding Core’s ability to continue as a going concern,” Woodbridge states in the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. And Woodbridge points out that it’s under no obligation to inject cash into Core. (more…)

While foreclosure actions on the Treasure Coast continued to fall during the first quarter of this year from the last quarter of 2008, the numbers for March indicate a resurgence.

Foreclosure actions — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were down 18.5 percent in Indian River County, 3.3 percent in St. Lucie County and up 1.1 percent in Martin County in the first quarter compared with the last quarter of 2008, according to U.S. Foreclosure Market Report released today by RealtyTrac (realtytrac.com). Those first-quarter numbers were still up 40 percent to 68 percent from a year ago.

But foreclosure actions in March rose 71 percent from February in Indian River County and 48 percent in St. Lucie County, though they declined 6 percent in Martin County.
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Indiantown’s home-grown telephone company is about to invest big bucks to link fiber optic lines to homes in the central Martin County community.

ITS Telecommunications Systems Inc. got an $8 million loan this month from the Rural Utilities Service, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that makes sure people living in the country have access to electricity, water and telephones. (more…)