Sailfish City - Stuart Florida Community Site

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

The Jensen Beach Chamber of Commerce will again host the 3rd Annual Frances Langford Memorial Fishing Tournament to be held May 1^st – 3rd, 2008. This event will award over $65,000.00 in cash and prizes. The tournament site will again be located at Four Fish Marina in Jensen Beach, Florida. This tournament and associated events is a community-wide tribute, honoring a special woman, who loved her community and her fishing. Frances Langford loved Rio and Jensen Beach and generously blessed the community in many ways before her passing. The Chambers establishment of this tournament in 2006 assures that her memory, her love for the community and her passion for fishing is forever celebrated. 

The fishing tournament, which will include both offshore and inshore division’s will be the center piece of a festival of events that will be a tribute to good old fashion family fun and values which Frances believed in. Plenty of food, drinks and activities for the whole family are featured at the tournament site. 

The offshore tournament will include cash and prize award categories for the Largest Kingfish, the Largest Dolphin and the Largest Wahoo and a bottom fish cash prize as well, going to the lucky angler that weighs the highest aggregate weight for Grouper, Red Snapper and Cobia. 

The inshore tournament participants can fish from a boat or from the shore and will include cash and prize awards for the Largest Snook, the Largest Redfish and the Largest Trout. Both the offshore and inshore tournaments will award the top Lady Angler, Top Junior, and Top Senior Anglers for their efforts and the Frances Langford Perpetual Trophy will be presented to a team or angler that is selected by the tournament committee for their accomplishments during the tournament. 

Entry forms can be obtained  from the Jensen Beach Chamber of Commerce, from the Snook-Nook Bait and Tackle in Jensen Beach, Four Fish Marina, Sundance Marine or visit our web site at www.langfordska.com. Sponsorship opportunities are also available. Additional information and the schedule of events can be found on the website as well. 

This event is sanctioned by the Southern Kingfish Association and once again is host to the second of five tournaments in the SKA’s Pro Division. As a member of the SKA, you can compete for points in the Kingfish category of this tournament that may qualify you and your crew to attend the National Competition in Biloxi, MS in November, 2008. But you do not have to be a member of the SKA to fish this event.  Local fishermen are encouraged to join the organization, but they can still fish the event and take home any of the prizes given away. SKA representatives will be at the tournament site during the event to answer any questions or accept new members. You can also visit the SKA website at www.fishska.com. 

Spectators are also encouraged to attend the event. The Captains meeting on Thursday night hosted at Four Fish Marina offer’s great food, drinks and local entertainment. The tournament conducts a raffle during the Captains Meeting with lots of great prizes to be given away. The weigh in activities, Friday from 2 – 5 pm and Saturday from Noon – 5 pm are a great time for local residents to come out and watch the fishermen as they bring the fish they caught to the dock to be weighed. There is plenty of free parking at the Marina for the event and Four Fish Marina has slips available for anyone wishing to dock there boat during the event, with free boat trailer parking for all fishermen registered in the tournament. The awards ceremony is immediately following the Saturday weigh –in.

The Martin County

  Defender

The e-newsletter for aware citizens – No. 48

Commission’s $50,000 giveaway to “friends”

This is the county-owned old library building at 1900 NE Ricou Terrace in Jensen Beach, 4,536 sq. ft. with loading dock. As noted in Defender No. 36, if it rented out to a commercial tenant, it would bring in roughly $50,000.00/yr. However, the County Commission extended its lease term for most of the building to 2010 for the Jensen Beach Chamber of Commerce, a private organization … with free rent!  Do Chamber members contribute to commissioner political campaigns? Do bears live in the woods?

During the current period of reduced public services, likely layoffs, tax cuts and increasing fees, every Martin County citizen should be outraged at this waste of public funds. The lease allows for county cancellation. If commissioners continue with this sweetheart deal, and do not cancel, folks may well wonder if commissioners  and the County Administrator are breaching their fiduciary responsibility.

Our gullible County Commissioners

DEVELOPERS THREATEN:

        Give us time extension … or else we’ll build!

The construction industry is in bad shape. Sometimes we forget why. It’s Economics 101: Supply and demand. When too many houses are offered to too few buyers, the market collapses. In time, housing demand will increase again, and developers will go on to the next construction binge. Say hello to another boom and bust cycle.

The question is what to do in the interim about the projects in the pipeline. It is for good reason that growth rules set a deadline on completion. Developments do not exist apart from their dependence on infrastructure. It takes years to achieve effective forward planning, gaining funds from taxes and impact fees, and finally building roads, schools, police, fire rescue, recreation and library facilities. So allowing projects to drag on and on is no way to run a county. If there is a long delay, the developer should re-apply to make the project compatible with conditions then in effect.

But that is not what has happened. On March 11, developers persuaded the County Commission (except for clear-eyed Commissioner Sarah Heard) to extend required completion dates by three years. The twin argument by developers for time extension is astoundingly self-contradictory:

1-     Commissioners, you must help an ailing industry and workers in need of jobs now. Give us the extension. (NOTE: The extension will not result in any more new jobs or houses. The market is not there, and the inventory is glutted.)

2-     If you do not grant us the extension, you will “force us to put more supply on the market” (actual quote by a leading developer). In the vernacular it would be: Gimme time or I’ll shoot myself.

Yeah, right. Who is gullible enough to believe that a sane developer would borrow money to build even more spec houses that can not be sold? The four unthinking commissioners, that’s who! They buckled under the pressure to, well, do something that pleases their campaign contributors in the year ahead. Bad planning at the top.

Highlights of Growth Management Forum

The theme of the Eighth Annual Growth Management Forum held on March 15 was “Martin County at the Crossroad.” Slow-growth speakers covered a wide range of topics for a receptive audience.

Environmental Attorney Richard Grosso advised that activists be portrayed as community leaders, not persecuted outsiders, and that they focus as a team to communicate and document their positions.

Charles Pattison, President of 1,000 Friends of Florida, said there was a 60-40 favorable chance that the Citizen Bill of Rights would pass the legislature because Department of Community Affairs Secretary Tom Pelham was pushing it. Also, there was concern that if legislators failed to do so, the Hometown Democracy Amendment so feared by developers would pass in 2010.

Former Commissioner Maggy Hurchalla pointed to statistics that, contrary to negative comments by some faster-growth business leaders, Martin County is better off than other counties in many important ways. This includes low population density, top schools, low crime, high per capita income, low taxes and high wages.

Attorney Virginia Sherlock pointed up the need for transparency in county dealings with development applicants. Presently, the name of a trust or attorney is used to hide who is really behind the application. This omission works to the advantage of Pay-to-Play officials seeking political contributions. She also reported that proposed anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) legislation had not yet gained a sponsor, so it will go over to the next session.

The secret of investing (in environmental land)

Two words: BUY LOW. Yes, now is a good time for public funds, such as the $300 million annual environmental land buying program, Florida Forever, to step up its purchases. The 16-year old program expires in two years. Many prices are down, and bond rates are highly favorable.

In Martin County, Florida Forever funds the Save Our Rivers program, and provides matching funds for parks under the Florida Communities Trust. These state programs have helped pay for the Savannas, beach strips, Pal-Mar, Atlantic Ridge, Three Rivers Park and Loblolly Park.

Why not drop The Guv a note to encourage his efforts to continue this most valuable Florida Forever program. And send copies to the legislature leaders:

Charlie.Crist@MyFlorida.com

Pruitt.Ken.Web@flsenate.gov

Marco.Rubio@myfloridahouse.gov

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Al

Al Forman, Editor                                  3/18/08

The Martin County Defender is published and Copyright 2008 by WordsmithAmerica, Box 1828, Palm City, FL 34991. All rights reserved. No part of this issue may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording for public or private use, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. NOTICE:  All correspondence not bearing legal copyright notice which is sent to the Defender or its editor is subject to being edited and published.

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