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 — St. Lucie County officials say they’re tired of paying higher-than-Medicaid rates in hospitals for their jailed inmates.

St. Lucie County is lobbying the state to force hospitals to accept the Medicaid rate for inmate medical care. But hospitals are warning that forcing more people on the Medicaid rolls could increase costs to taxpayers.

As it is now, when a Medicaid patient goes to the hospital, the county does not get the bill. Hospitals are required to accept and treat indigent patients. If that same person needs medical care at a hospital while an inmate, the county — and ultimately taxpayers — pay the bill, St. Lucie County Commissioners say. (more…)

VERO BEACH — Piper Aircraft Inc. has been sold to an international investment firm for an undisclosed price.

The Vero Beach-based plane maker announced today that Imprimis purchased 100 stake in the company from American Capital Ltd. (Nasdaq: ACAS).

“Imprimis intends to invest significant capital in Piper’s current operations to strengthen its position in its traditional markets and support the development of key new products such as the PiperJet,” Piper said in a statement.

Imprimis, which operates from offices in Bangkok, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam, is committed to keeping Piper’s headquarters in Vero Beach, the company said. (more…)

Along with status and prestige, Treasure Coast celebrities and CEOs bring in beaucoup bucks to the local tax collector’s offices.

Pop star Celine Dion just shelled out $171,040 in property taxes for her 3.7-acre oceanfront Jupiter Island estate on the 200 block of South Beach Road.

Dion’s estate, which is registered under her Montreal-based company Renlec Management Inc., is on the same street as Richard Fuld Jr., the former chairman and chief executive officer of Lehman Brothers. He changed ownership of the $13.3 million Jupiter Island home on 265 Beach Road exclusively into his wife’s name almost two months after the company had the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history.

Public records show the couple plunked down $197,194 in property taxes on Nov. 11.

Professional golfer Greg Norman, who slashed the price of his famous barrier-island estate from $65 million to $47.5 million last year, also shares the same ZIP code as the Fulds and Dion. Tax records show Norman paid a whopping $326,751 in residential taxes last January on his 8-acre property, named “Tranquility,” at 382 South Beach Road.

Tiger Wood’s 12-acre site on the 400 block of South Beach Road still is under construction, but his future property taxes could beat out Norman’s bill in the future.

County records show Sand Turtle LLC, the entity registered as the owner of the Woods property, paid a $70,744 tax bill in November. Woods is building a 10,000-square-foot, two-story home with an elevator, guest house, guardhouse and boathouse. The property stretches from the Intracoastal Waterway to the Atlantic Ocean.

Taxes seem a little more reasonable in Indian River County. Author and journalist Carl Hiaasen and his wife Fenia paid Vero Beach their $16,988 property tax bill on Nov. 5.

“I think these people, the celebrities, we do have here are very quiet about it,” said Janet Vizzo, a manager at the Martin County Tax Collector’s Office. “It’s not very well known.” (more…)

An Asheville, N.C.-based company paid $3.8 million this month for Freedom Plastics Inc.’s plant in Fort Pierce.

Pipe manufacturer Silver-Line Plastics intends to refurbish the 100,000 square feet and may rehire some of the 33 workers who lost their jobs there, according to Chief Financial Officer Bill Beard. (more…)

FORT PIERCE — City Commissioner Reggie Sessions, perhaps the most vocal critic of the Fort Pierce Utilities Authority, hasn’t been paying his utility bills on time for the past year, records show.

And to help Sessions remember to pay his bills, the utility has been giving him preferential treatment, including special calls from the utility director’s office and customer service. These services aren’t generally extended to the utility’s other 28,619 customers, utility officials said.

Sessions, who lives in a 1,200-square-foot home on North 22nd Street, said he hasn’t been paying his bills on time in protest of “high rates.”
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STUART — The city of Stuart continued Monday to close in on the purchase of Arthur’s Dockside Waterfront Restaurant property adjacent to City Hall with commissioners authorizing just more than $4 million for the deal.

“We’re 98 percent of the way there at this point in time,” said Stuart City Manager Dan Hudson. “There’s only about one other item to nail down.”

Since agreeing to the purchase in December, the city has been negotiating with lien and mortgage holders on the property to arrive at a final price.
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FORT PIERCE — Despite the Florida sunshine, a nationwide report by California-based ZipRealty that tracks the hottest ZIP codes nationwide pegged an area of Fort Pierce as not being so hot.

The report, which tracks how offers submitted by buyers and accepted by sellers compares to a home’s original list price, said 81.75 percent of all homebuyers gave lowball offers to sellers in Fort Pierce’s 34949 ZIP code. (more…)

The Baehrs — Derek, Kellyanne and their two young daughters are five months behind on their mortgage payments. They sometimes eat at a soup kitchen and shop at a food pantry. They expect to lose their three-bedroom suburban house before the end of the school year.
“This is just awful, and I know that we are not the only ones going through this,’’ says Kellyanne, 37, an accounting clerk. Derek, 40, is disabled. “We used to try to go day by day. Now we are just trying to get to the end of each day.’’

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FELLSMERE — Visitors to the 18th annual Frog Leg Festival will, for the first time on city property, be able to drink a beer with their food.

And the festival organizers will be able to collect the additional proceeds in their ongoing mission to boost the efforts of recreational agencies.

“I can’t tell you how many people have said to me, ‘I’d like to come out (to the festival), but I’d want to have a beer with my frog legs or gator tail,’ ” festival President Maggie Sammons said Thursday. (more…)