Watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on CBS was a bit like being waterboarded, but matters improved very quickly when the channel changed and the aromas of the day began invading the house, along with just the right spirits: Praise be to Beaujolais Nouveau.
All Else
Dawn to Starlight: Palm Coast, Flagler Beach and the Hammock Warm Up Christmas Parades
Palm Coast’s annual Starlight parade is scheduled for Dec. 14. Flagler Beach’s Holiday at the Beach Parade is scheduled for Dec. 7 at 1 p.m., and businesses in the Hammock will be lighting up A1A with special events, lights and Christmas cheer for the first two week-ends of December.
Bunnell’s Burden: A Photo Gallery of the Old Flagler County Courthouse and Annex
A photo gallery provides the first comprehensive inside look at the conditions of the old Flagler County Courthouse and annex, which Bunnell acquired at no cost on Nov. 26. But the city is now responsible for all repair and maintenance costs of both attached structures. The costs will be heavy.
Spared Again: Florida Makes It Through 8th Straight Hurricane Season Without Major Hit
The pre-season forecast for the June-through-November storm season for the Atlantic and Caribbean was for 12 to 18 named storms, with between six and 10 reaching hurricane status. Saturday was the last official day of this year’s hurricane season.
Monique Haddad Branon
Beirut 1938 – Palm Coast 2013
Monique Haddad-Branon, née Safa, who died peacefully on the evening of Sunday 17 November 2013 in Palm Coast, had been a fixture in Lebanon’s media of the 1960s, 70s and 80s as a television and radio and newspaper reporter and columnist before evolving into a novelist and poet in her American years.
Vagina Monologues Dressed Up: Nora Ephron’s “Love, Loss, and What I Wore” at Palm Coast’s City Repertory Theatre
Ever since god allegedly turned Adam’s rib into a companion of the opposite sex, men have struggled to understand women. You can’t blame them: men are not only the weaker sex. They’re also the dumber. In comes Nora Ephron’s “Love, Loss and What I wore” to help them out this weekend at Palm Coast’s City Repertory Theatre.
Flagler Playhouse Pleasing Faithfuls With Mainstream Theater But Looks to Broaden Appeal Beyond Retirees
Aside from “Urinetown,” its last play of the current season, the Flagler Playhouse’s offerings hew to traditional crowd-pleasers, which keeps seats filled, though the community theater’s leaders are interested in experimenting beyond their comfort zone.
Shooting and Car Chase Involving ATF Agents and Palm Coast Suspects Ends in Wreck and Injuries on US1 at Hess Station
The Hess Station on U.S. 1 just south of Palm Coast this morning was the scene of a chase involving federal ATF agents that culminated in a wreck involving several vehicles and a shooting. Several gunshots were fired. The chase had begun in Volusia County.
As High Court Takes On Medical Marijuana Proposal in Florida, Politics Muddy Merits
The Florida Supreme Court will try to sort through the conflicting arguments between Attorney General Pam Bondi, who opposes legalization, and proponents of the measure. The court hearing is scheduled for Dec. 5, a key step in deciding whether voters will get to have their say next fall.
Burdens and Costs Pile Up for School Board’s Ex-ITT Building on Corporate Drive, Disrupting Community Education
The board bought the 54,000 square-foot building for $3.5 million in 2001 and housed the Flagler Technical Institute’s community education classes and offices there, but the building must be evacuated either by January or by summer and either rebuilt and renovated at costs approaching $5 million or demolished even as the district continues to pay $445,000 in annual debt service on it.
Speed Limit Could Go Up to 75 On I-95 By July, and to 70 on U.S. 1
Florida lawmakers’ proposal to raise speed limits would direct the state Department of Transportation to determine the safe minimum and maximum speed limits on all divided highways that have least four lanes. In Flagler County, that includes I-95 and U.S. 1. On U.S. 1.
Live Smoke Bomb and Dud Grenade Found at Flagler County Landfill; Bomb Is Safely Detonated
For the second time in six weeks, the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office’s bomb squad was called into Flagler County early Wednesday morning to investigate the discovery of a live grenade–in this case, a live smoke bomb from the Vietnam era, packed alongside a dud grenade from World War II, and discovered in the hazardous materials pile at the Flagler County landfill.
The Trouble With Veterans Day
It’s hard to see how, if a war is unjust, it can be heroic to wage it. So it’s flat-out preposterous to claim that everyone who has ever been in the U.S. military is a hero, argues Arnold Oliver, a Vietnam veteran who finds it troubling that Veterans Day has devolved into a hyper-nationalistic worship service of militarism.
At Hollingsworth Gallery:
Christine Sullivan, Artist of the Year
The works of Christine Sullivan, the 2013 Gargiulo Art Foundation Artist of the Year, convey an intimate connections with a sense of place and memory while exploring the pleasures of solitude. Sullivan;s exhibit opens at Hollingsworth Gallery Nov. 9, running through Dec. 3.
Justices Skeptical of Red-Light Cameras as Supreme Court Hears Case Affecting Palm Coast
With one insistent exception, Florida Supreme Court justices on Thursday strongly questioned the legality of city ordinances that permitted red-light traffic cameras that spread around Florida before 2010, when the state standardized those systems. Cities like Palm Coast may have to refund fines should the court rule against the local ordinances.
Hunting Camp Rape Case: Conflicting Details Emerge as 4th Suspect Turns Himself In and 2 Bond Out
As Frank Goggans turned himself in at the Flagler County jail Wednesday and promptly bonded out (as had his brother Daniel), extensive and lurid details from investigators’ interviews with the two brothers and a third suspect have emerged in the case of the alleged gang rape of a woman in Flagler Beach and at the Cowart Hunting Camp on March 20.
A Little Less Stingy, a Lot More Conditional: Palm Coast Approves $25,000 in Culture Grants
Eleven cultural organizations applied and all 11 got cultural grants from Palm Coast government, but with many strings attached even though none of the grants exceeds $2,370, and the total awarded is still a far cry from the $40,000 budget of six years ago.
Gentle Warning Beep as Flagler’s $10 Million Emergency Radio System Approaches Its End
It’s less than eight years since Flagler spent $10 million to upgrade its county-wide communications to an 800 MHz system, to which some 1,500 radios from police, fire, municipal and county agencies are attached. That system is set to reach its official life’s end in 2017, requiring county government to start now to examine how it will replace it, and how it’ll pay for the replacement.
The Other Disastrous Government Website: Florida’s Unemployment Portal Still Kicking Users
The state’s new, but troubled $68 million unemployment website, intended to provide a more modern, user-friendly method of access for people who receive benefits, has instead been a nightmare for many of its 200,000 users and may have a few months to go before it’s fixed.
Trevor Blumenfeld, 19, Is Shot While Skateboarding in Palm Coast’s LL-Section; Shooter Is At Large
Trevor Blumenfeld, 19, was shot while skateboarding in the area of Llovera Place and Lloyd Trail the Palm Coast neighborhood just south of the Flagler County Airport, just before 8 Monday evening. He was evacuated by air to Halifax hospital. His assailant was still at large.
A Modest Crime-Prevention Proposal: If You Want to Raise a Child, First, Get a License
Jim McClellan has an idea that will reduce all types of crime and violence without explicitly infringing on the Constitution in the process. What I propose are some tough new restrictions on people in this country who want to have and rear kids.
Point Pleasant Dr. Tragedy: A Brief Stand-Off Amid Tears, a Refusal of Help, Then a Gunshot
Joshua Schmidt Roberson, 23, shot himself in the head in a construction lot on Palm Coast’s Pleasant Drive early Friday morning after a brief stand-off with deputies, and after calling 911 five times in tears, but refusing help.
1963’s Familiar Bloodstains: Far Right Politics from JFK to Barack Obama
John F. Kennedy was called treasonous and was the target of a relentless far-right campaign to vilify and demolish his presidency by demagogues and media barons whose ideological descendants have unleashed the same tactics on Barack Obama, writes Steve Robinson.
Palm Coast Getting Fleeced of Red-Light Camera Dollars, Harming Local Economy
In September, the 43 red-light cameras in Palm Coast generated $255,740 in fines, what would work out to an annual total of $3 million. The state and ATS, the private company running the system, took more than seven times the revenue share left Palm Coast, which means that the overwhelming majority of the money is leaving the local economy.
Florida Blue Says It Never Dropped 300,000 Customers, Only Their Current Insurance Plans
It’s a distinction that some Florida Blue members have a hard time seeing — especially when the new plan costs more and offers benefits they don’t necessarily want. Older, sicker people who had a harder time finding health insurance in the past because of pre-existing conditions welcome the change.
Liberty County Sheriff Nick Finch Acquitted in Ideology-Fraught Gun Case
The criminal charges and suspension came after a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation concluded that the sheriff released a local man, Floyd Eugene Parrish, who had been arrested for carrying a concealed weapon, and that Finch destroyed or altered records of the arrest.
Record 769 Manatee Deaths So Far This Year Represent 15% of Endangered Population
With two months to go in the year, 769 manatee deaths have bee recorded in Florida waters, breaking the previous record of 766 set in 2010. Deaths are blamed mostly on a red tide bloom that started in southwest Florida in September 2012 and that only recently dissipated. Four manatees have died in Flagler so far this year.
Four Flagler Men Sought in Kidnapping and Gang Rape of a Woman at Cowart Hunting Camp
The Flagler County Sheriff is looking for four men accused of kidnapping a woman they’d encountered at Finn’s bar in Flagler Beach and gang-raping her at the Cowart Hunting Camp in western Flagler County on March 20. The men are Charles L. Cowart of west Bunnell, Daniel and Frank Goggans, and Kurt Benjamin, of Palm Coast.
Too Young for Medicare, Too Old for Medicaid, and Neglected By Affordable Health Act
While most of the uninsured will be able to get subsidized health coverage Jan. 1 under the Affordable Care Act, the poorest adults under 65 will be out of luck in many states, including Florida. Many are women in their 50s and 60s, too old to have children still at home so they can’t qualify for Medicaid. But they’re not yet 65 so they don’t qualify for Medicare, either.
Sen. Thrasher Headlining Lunch Celebrating Chamber’s Leadership Flagler Graduation on Nov. 15
State Sen. John Thrasher will join the Flagler County Chamber of Commerce and the county’s economic development department as special guest and speaker at the “Think Flagler First” lunch on Friday, November 15 at Pine Lakes Country Club in Palm Coast.
Florida’s Stand Your Ground Deconstructed Before US Senate Panel on Civil and Human Rights
The unusual Senate hearing focused almost exclusively on Florida, featured the mothers of two 17 year olds killed in its name–Trayvon martin and Jordan Russell Davis–and drew a rebuke from Ranking Republican Ted Cruz of Texas, who questioned whether the scrutiny of “stand your ground” was part of a broader “political agenda.”
Learning To Love Flagler’s IB Program: Students Turn Myth-Busters For 400 People
A pair of introductory meetings about FPC’s IB program, for students from 5th grade and up, drew more than 400 people who heard from IB students eager to demolish false impressions and stereotypes about the program and encourage more parents to sign up their children for Flagler County schools’ crown jewel.
Florida Highway Patrol Warns Halloween Revelers of Drunk Driving Ticketing Campaign Oct. 31-Nov. 3
This week, the Florida Highway Patrol is again participating in the national campaign, Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over. The campaign, from Oct. 31 through Nov. 3, is designed to discourage drunk or drugged individuals from driving as police will conduct a combination of targeted enforcement and increase visibility on roadways.
Don Fleming: Private Dick, Scott’s Millions, California’s Excellent Marijuana Adventure
Ex-Sheriff Don Fleming turns private investigator, Rick Scott Rakes in the re-election millions, California’s medicinal pot legalization is working wonders, a Saudi comic drives Bob Marley through the Saudi ban on women drivers, Suzanne Somers on Obamacare, and West Virginia’s red turn.
Palm Coast Man, 35, Accused of Lascivious Acts After Attacking A Woman in Flagler Beach
The 52-year-old victim was taking in the sea air at a picnic table at North 5th Street on A1A in Flagler Beach when Alexander Paler of Willow Drive in Palm Coast accosted her and began allegedly molesting her and restraining her every time she tried to leave. The victim was able to use her skills in dealing with mentally disabled people to diffuse the situation.
Unearned Audacity: On Economic Development, Flagler Tells Voters to Drop Dead
State law requires Flagler County to ask voters permission in a referendum, every 10 years, to give new companies tax subsidies. The Flagler County Commission wants to trash that law and let a supermajority of four commissioners make the decision for voters instead. It’s the latest example of a commission more enamored of its power than in tune with voters.
Kiss Your Tax-Free Amazon Orders Goodbye: Company’s I-4 Warehouses On the Way
The confirmation by Amazon.com that it will build a pair of massive “fulfillment” centers along the Interstate 4 corridor means that sometime in the next two years Floridians will have to start paying sales taxes on purchases from the online retail giant.
Sparks, Nevada
Today, a DUI not only can earn you prison time, but also can thwart your education options and permanently alter your career aspirations. Drunken drivers are punished by a torrent of national condemnation. Why can we not summon the same collective rage when it comes to guns?
School Board Members Don Aprons and Wait Tables in All-Day Fundraiser at Bob Evans Today
Until 9 tonight, 15 percent of sales attached to the Flagler school district’s fundraiser at Bob Evans in Palm Coast will go to a special fund for needy students. School board members, the superintendent and other top district staffers are participating in hopes of drawing patrons.
Hurricane Marco Rubio: How To Protect Yourself
2012 was the hottest year on record in the United States, and 10 of the past 15 years have been the hottest on record globally. A minority of climate-change deniers nevertheless have a disproportionate hold on Congress, explaining virtual inaction on that score. Here’s a solution next time a hurricane hits.
Beyond Rebecca Sedwick’s Suicide: Colleen Conklin Campaigns for More Cyberbullying Awareness
More laws, mandates and prohibitions won’t work, Flagler County School Board member Colleen Conklin says, but more current awareness of the variety of online apps and social sites, where cyberbullying thrives, and more responsibility from both teens and their parents, are more likely to stem a pattern of bullying-induced teen suicides.
Under Pressure from Sheriff and Fire Chiefs, County Heralds Emergency Management Changes
Troy Harper, Flagler County’s emergency management director for the past four years, has resigned and will be replaced by Ken Guthrie, who was hired in September, leading to speculation at the time that Harper was on his way out. Harper denied it then.
Palm Coast Slams Tree Lawsuit, Citing “False, Misleading and Unsupported Allegations”
Palm Coast’w response to Dennis McDonald’s attempt to stop the alleged “impending” tree removal around the Palm Harbor Shopping Center is that no such removal is imminent, but that even if it were–and there are indications that it will soon be–McDonald should be suing the center’s developer, not the city.
Fish and Wildlife Commission’s Lionfish Summit Will Explore Threats to Florida’s Ecology
As the linfish populations’ expansion threatens marine ecosystems in Florida, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) is hosting a Lionfish Summit Oct. 22-24 at the Hilton Cocoa Beach Oceanfront hotel in Cocoa Beach, to determine research and management gaps and to bring together leaders in the lionfish issue.
Your Policy Is Cancelled: Insurers End Coverage That Falls Short of Affordable Care Act
The main reason insurers are cancelling policies offer is that they fall short of what the Affordable Care Act requires starting Jan. 1. By all accounts, the new policies will offer consumers better coverage, in some cases, for comparable cost — especially after the inclusion of federal subsidies for those who qualify.
Congressman Ron DeSantis: A Tea Party Fanatic Who’s Earned His Walking Papers
Ron DeSantis, who represents Flagler County, is not interested in governance. A standard-issue tea party reactionary, he’s a saboteur. He derails, with self-righteous bombast and distortions. He is part of the suicidal extremists willing to plunge the country in default over Obamacare, rather than fight to amend it legislatively. He should pay the price of his recklessness.
A 2-Year-Old’s Life Saved and a Murder Suspect’s Arrest Headline Sheriff’s 3rd Quarter Awards
Communications Supervisor Genice Caccavale was one of three department employees to win Employee of the Quarter awards, Sheriff Jim Manfre announced this week. Also winning were Detective Mark Moy and Detention Deputy Randy Vickers.
Favoring Defense Industry Over Human Rights, Obama Loosens Restrictions on Arms Exports
The United States is loosening controls over military exports, in a shift that former U.S. officials and human rights advocates say could increase the flow of American-made military parts to the world’s conflicts and make it harder to enforce arms sanctions. In 2011, the U.S. concluded $66 billion in arms sales agreements, nearly 80 percent of the global market.
Florida’s U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young, Immoderate Only in Longevity, Is Dead at 82
U.S. Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young of Pinellas County, the longest serving Republican in Congress, was a political icon in the Tampa Bay area and a moderate who had only announced earlier this month that he wouldn’t seek a 23rd term in Congress next year.
Taking Competition Seriously, FPC Focuses Its Own Promotional Video on Economic Impact
An eight-minute promotional and marketing video about Flagler Palm Coast High School, produced by students, reflects the intense competition even public schools now face to stay relevant, and is catching the eye of economic development officials, who see it as a means of broadening the county’s story and potential to prospective residents and businesses.