ST. LUCIE COUNTY — There are almost 360 sex offenders living within a mile of St. Lucie County public schools and there are about 135 sex offenders living within a mile of a Martin County public school.

And along the Treasure Coast, almost 670 sex offenders and predators legally live within a mile of local schools as of Oct. 29, a Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers analysis of Florida Department of Law Enforcement data shows. Expanding the search of the FDLE database almost doubles the number in some cases. (more…)

ST. LUCIE COUNTY — Michael Lannon returned to his job as public schools superintendent Monday, ending a 30-day retirement that the School Board granted him to deal with family matters and cash out about $115,000 in accrued vacation and sick days.

“I’m happy to be in the saddle again,” Lannon said from an office still stripped bare of personal effects. State law is strict about public school employees being truly absent during retirement. So Lannon said he rented a nearby commercial storage unit, even though it was clear from the outset he would return in one month. (more…)

STUART - The public is invited to attend a free presentation at 7 p.m. tonight at South Fork High School about the dangers of drinking and driving.

The program, which was organized by the Martin County School District and the Martin County Sheriff’s office, will feature Renee Napier, whose daughter, Meagan, was killed in a car crash involving a drunk driver. Meagan’s best friend also died in the accident. (more…)

Students from two local schools may soon be learning issues and sharing cultural values with peers from around the globe, using cutting-edge computer technology.

The Dawn Project is described as an international network of students and teachers. Current plans are to make it available to some or all high school students at Lincoln Park Academy, and to Forest Grove Middle School students who are enrolled in the school’s Marine Oceanographic Academy preparatory program.

“This is an opportunity to engage students in a global learning community,” said Owen Roberts, assistant superintendent of accountability and assessment for St. Lucie County Schools. “You could be talking to people in the U.S., students in Europe or Asia.” (more…)

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.”

You would think that the Martin County School Board would be thrilled that Superintendent Nancy Kline, who has been in office less than a year, is cleaning house after both internal and independent investigations revealed long-standing shoddy, wasteful practices in the district’s finance, construction and maintenance departments.

You would be wrong.

According to memos from the state auditor general, the district paid bills without checking their accuracy, paid to repair equipment already under warranty, and time and again handed out contracts without seeking low bids. In response, Ms. Kline fired several employees, accepted the resignation of at least one other and ordered adherence to improved procedures. That and other reforms have saved the public $2 million so far.

Read the rest of the Post’s opinion piece here.

A driver who died in August along with his two friends in a high-speed crash south of Stuart had a blood alcohol content three times higher than the legal limit, authorities said this morning.

Nick Coady, 18, of Stuart had a blood alcohol content of .251 percent when he drove a speeding 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee head-on into a front-end loader on Cove Road about 2 a.m. on Aug. 4, killing himself and passengers Christopher Briglio, 18, of Tequesta and Connor Graver, 16, of Hobe Sound, according to a Florida Highway Patrol statement.

Briglio’s blood alcohol content was .129 percent, or one-and-a-half times the legal limit. Graver’s blood alcohol content was .152 percent, or nearly twice the legal limit. He also tested positive for marijuana use, the statement said. (more…)

FORT PIERCE — Shelitta Woods calls the past six months “miserable.”

“You got to understand, it’d been like 13, 14 years before I had another child,” Woods said. “It was just me and Lil’ Bo, just me and Lil’ Bo, everywhere I go, me and Lil’ Bo.”

Woods’ 16-year-old son, Torenda “Lil’ Bo” Youngblood Jr., was fatally shot at his bus stop March 9, two days after Demetrius Wells, 18, sustained fatal wounds in a drive-by shooting. Two men also were hit by gunfire during separate shootings between the homicides. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — City property owners may be able to avoid a proposed 26 percent increase in their property taxes.

During a special meeting Wednesday, the City Council unanimously agreed to use half of the city’s general fund reserves to keep the property tax rate at its current rate of $4.22 per $1,000 of taxable value. The council will formally vote on setting the property tax rate during scheduled 7 p.m. public hearings Sept. 14 and Sept. 28 at City Hall.

Using the city’s median home price of $112,000 with a $50,000 homestead exemption, an average city property tax bill using the current rate would be $261, excluding taxes from other agencies, such as the school and fire districts.
(more…)

A former Jupiter Island Town Commissioner died Monday in Rhode Island in what police there are investigating as a possible suicide.

Finn Caspersen, 67, was found dead Monday at the Shelter Harbor Golf Club in Westerly, R.I. from what police believe is a self-inflicted gunshot wound, said Westerly police Capt. Edward St. Clair.
Caspersen a philanthropist, was first elected as town commissioner in Jupiter Island in 2005. He resigned on Aug. 4. Caspersen also had a home in the Shelter Harbor Golf Club where he died.

“As a public servant, policy-maker and overall gentleman, Finn Caspersen exceeded every standard of good measure,” said Jupiter Island Mayor Charles Falcone. “Stoic and soft-spoken, he did a lot of listening during town meetings before carefully weighing in with insight and informed expertise.”

An assistant reached at Knickerbocker, LLC said the family did not want to comment. No funeral information was available.

Caspersen served as the chief executive officer for the Beneficial Corp., a major financial holding company, from 1976 to 1998. More recently he was serving as the chairman of Knickerbocker, a private management company that oversaw numerous trusts and foundations. Caspersen personally donated money to Harvard Law School in Massachusetts as well as the Morristown Memorial Hospital, and schools such as the Peddie School and the Drew University Caspersen School of Graduate Studies, all in New Jersey

Longtime friend Tom McNicholas described Caspersen as “approachable and genuine” and said: “Each time I would refer to him as Mr. Caspersen he would peer over his glasses, softly chuckle and say, ‘Call me Finn.’ He was a friend and always fair to everyone.”

As a town commissioner, Caspersen was pushed for a town referendum on whether to bury power lines on the island underground. He also got involved in Martin County’s contentious debate over real estate development, paying $17,000 out of his own pocket in 2006 to bankroll a phone survey of 500 Martin County residents about their views of population growth. He also created a political action committee, Keep Martin green, that ran advertisements opposing rapid growth in the county.

“Finn had strong convictions towards protecting our environment and he invested a lot of his own money and time to support local causes like Keep Martin Green which focused on smart growth and environmental protection,” McNicholas said.

This is the second longtime Jupiter Island official to die in recent months. Town Manager Joe Connolly, a friend of Caspersen, died of Lou Gehrig’s disease just days after Caspersen resigned from the town commission in August. Deputy Town Manager Gene Rauth said the town is considering a memorial to Caspersen.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.