DEMOCRATS OF INDIAN RIVER
 

TONIGHT!
Democratic Club of Indian River

 

Meeting September 15^th at 6 p.m. at the Heritage Center, 2140 14^th Ave., in Downtown Vero Beach.

We will be organizing committees to support Cynthia Gibbs for School Board Phase 2 - Gibbs vs Rosario.

We will also be exploring NPA's (aka Independents) outreach strategies. 

 

Democrats of Indian River Voter Protection Team

 

POLL WATCHERS are STILL NEEDED!
The Democrats of Indian River 2022 Voter Protection Team needs poll watchers for the November Midterm election. Poll watchers are needed for early voting Oct. 24 - Nov. 5 from 7:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. and for the general election Nov. 8 from 7:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.

Training is conducted by the Florida Democratic Party. Various days and times are offered. If you are interested in helping ensure that every legitimate vote counts, please click on this link to sign up for the Zoom training:

https://floridadems.typeform.com/to/eB1DoQhN

For more information contact Claudia Martino at [email protected]

Democratic Women’s Club
 

 

 

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

 

Indian River School Board District 2
Editorial Board recommendation
  

Jacqueline "Jackie" Rosario comes into the November election as the clear favorite.

An incumbent who earned 46.81% of the vote in the August primary, she was among 25 candidates statewide backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis who won or are headed to a runoff. Five lost, according to The Associated Press.

“(DeSantis) built a roster of school board candidates starting with a questionnaire in which he asked them to sign a certificate to pledge their support to him,” the AP reported.

DeSantis’ effort was unusual. After all, Florida voters changed their constitution in 1998 to make school races nonpartisan. Even Charlie Crist, DeSantis' opponent in the November gubernatorial election, perhaps in as slipshod a fashion, endorsed seven candidates. Two won and three are headed to runoffs. One of those is Cynthia "Cindy" Gibbs, who, with 26.38% of the vote, finished a distant second to Rosario in the primary. LaDonna Corbin (17.47%) and Josh Post (9.35%) filled out the field.

Rosario also benefited from political fliers sent by out-of-state political action committee.

She and Gibbs both have education backgrounds.

Rosario started teaching in 1992 in New York City, earning two master’s degrees and becoming an assistant principal before spending three years as a teacher and administrator in St. Lucie County schools, starting in 2009. She joined Indian River County’s Storm Grove Middle School in 2012, serving less than a year before taking a medical leave. She then worked in private education, home-schooling her child, and joining the school board in 2018.

Gibbs started teaching in Pennsylvania in 2002. She earned a master’s degree before working in Indian River County’s Thompson, Beachland and Sebastian elementary schools 2005- 2018. She left for a higher-paying job working from home, she said. She has two children in county public schools.

Gibbs also was a Moonshot educator for The Learning Alliance of Indian River County. The nonprofit has helped the district improve third-grade reading scores, a predictor of future success.

At school board meetings the past two years, Rosario often has been the consistent, sometimes lone, board member supporting citizen complaints about non-academic issues, from questionable books to dealing with an LGBTQ+ resource guide. Even after Sheriff Eric Flowers, like law enforcement officers elsewhere in the state, determined school officials committed no crime by keeping what Rosario and others called pornographic books in school libraries, she continued to claim the board violated state law. Like one or two other past board members, Rosario has occasionally rambled in meetings. Sometimes, as when she questioned a past superintendent and various policies and procedures, she made mountains out of molehills.

While she has gained important experience on the board, she sometimes appears to enter meetings with her mind made up rather than listening to people, including fellow board members and staff, who might disagree. She often has been ineffective in persuading fellow board members.

We wonder about Rosario’s attention to detail. Earlier this year in a TCPalm questionnaire, she answered “NA” when asked about bankruptcy. She agreed to restate her answer after we asked why she told us four years ago she had filed for bankruptcy. Also, in 2018, she failed to report a mortgage on her state financial disclosure form.

Gibbs, who often speaks at board meetings, has articulately discussed the district’s challenges when it comes to student performance, including teacher retention. She appears to think on her own and work well with others, important skills to help the district become one of the top in the state.

After all, only 58% of third-graders (5% above the state average) in Indian River County read at grade level on state tests. That’s up from 53% in 2015, the seventh-best improvement among 67 districts statewide, but down from 60% before the pandemic. The 58% is tied for 12th best in the state.

Perhaps no district metric is as important. It is difficult to catch up after third grade. Many students who don’t will not have a chance at succeeding academically.
 

Because of her clarity and focus on excellence, we recommend Gibbs.
 

TCPalm’s candidate recommendations are decided collectively by its Editorial Board. Recommendations are based on nonpartisan criteria that prioritize the best candidates for our local community.

 

Letters to the Editor links: 


TCPalm:
https://static.tcpalm.com/forms/?wid=q1jkscld1v7h87e

 

Hometown News:
https://www.hometownnewsirc.com/site/forms/online_services/letter_editor/


Vero News.com:

https://www.veronews.com/site/forms/online_services/letter/

or via email:

Vero Beach 32963, Vero News & Sebastian River:
[email protected]


 

FEDERAL



Rubio cosponsors Graham's Bill Banning Abortions After 15 Weeks Nationwide
 

STATE

 

 

Report finds sharp increase in white power and anti-Semitic incidents

Florida saw a sharp increase in anti-Semitic incidents last year, according to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League, the New York-based organization that tracks anti-Semitic incidents and other extremist activity across the country.

The state saw a 50% increase in anti-Semitic incidents in 2021 compared to the year before, and Florida had the third most anti-Semitic incidents of any state in the country, behind only New York and California, according to the report. Nationally, 2021 saw a 34% increase in anti-Semitic incidents across the country.

The Anti-Defamation League found that Florida is home to an overlapping network of white supremacists and anti-Semitic groups responsible for organizing numerous rallies and distributing hateful propaganda. All told, the League’s Center on Extremism found more than 400 instances of white supremacist propaganda being distributed between January 2020 and August 2022. The report also notes that Florida is home to the most people charged in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection, including members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.

The report highlights national anti-Semitic groups, such as the Goyim Defense League, which has a Florida presence and has organized events in Florida, as well as groups such as the National Socialist Movement — an openly pro-Hitler group — that is led by a Florida man, Burt Colucci, of Kissimmee. The groups organized numerous rallies throughout the year, including demonstrations outside the conservative group Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit in Tampa in July 2022, a May 2022 protest outside Walt Disney World and a February demonstration outside the Daytona 400. The groups displayed signs with anti-Semitic slogans and Nazi imagery, such as swastikas, along with anti-LGBTQ and racist messages.

At a January 2022 rally in Orlando near the University of Central Florida campus, three demonstrators, including Colucci, were charged with assault after allegedly attacking a Jewish student and stealing the phone he was using to record them. The three men are scheduled to go to trial at the end of October. The Goyim Defense League, meanwhile, led a 15-day anti-Semitic tour in Central and South Florida in May 2021, in which the group demonstrated outside Jewish institutions and drove around a van covered in anti-Semitic slurs. Dominic Di Giorgio, a Port St. Lucie member of the group who helped it establish its online presence, drove five other Florida members on a similar “tour” of southeastern Texas later that year during which Di Giorgio was arrested and charged with using a device that allowed him to flip between two different license plates on his van.

The report notes that 11 Florida members of the Proud Boys were among those arrested in connection with the storming of the Capitol, though the group’s then-leader, Enrique Tarrio, of Miami, didn’t participate because he had been arrested two days earlier in connection with the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner stolen from a church in Washington. Tarrio nevertheless faces charges of seditious conspiracy for his alleged role in planning the assault on the Capitol. Tarrio, who has reportedly been a government informant in the past, indicated earlier this year to the Miami New Times that he was stepping down from leadership of the group and would start a new organization. Several members of the Proud Boys hold seats on the Miami-Dade Republican Executive Committee. 

At least seven members of the Oath Keepers arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack are Florida residents. A leak of data from the group showed thousands of Florida residents had signed up for the organization, which specifically targets current and former members of the military and law enforcement for membership, though it isn’t clear how many of those people are active members and still live in Florida.
 

LOCAL
 

Vero Beach eyes 15% water, sewer rate hike in January with more increases in '23, '24 and '25

VERO BEACH — Water and sewer rates here could jump about 15% to pay for an $82 million wastewater-reclamation facility. The increase would go into effect in January and be followed by another three rate hikes: 18% in October 2023; 18% in October 2024 and 2% in October 2025. By that point, according to a city study, combined water and wastewater rates would be about $83 a month for the average customer. The entire cost of the new sewer plant would come from the rate hikes, City Manager Monte Falls said.

The plan, which the City Council appears likely to approve Dec. 6, also would create a single base rate for all customers, including those outside the city limits such as residents of Indian River Shores and the southern part of the barrier island. The city is aiming to relocate its wastewater plant farther from the Indian River Lagoon, site of the current facility, partly due to environmental concerns over effects of phosphorous and nitrogen pollution in the water. The new facility would be at Vero Beach Regional Airport.


Thomas Weber
Treasure Coast Newspapers

COMMUNITY FUN DAY


Saturday September 17 


10:00 a,m. - 2:00 p.m. Gifford Historical Museum & Cultural Center 2880 45th Street

BOUNCE HOUSE and GAMES, FREE FOOD:
Hot Fish, Burgers, Hot Dogs and more!

RAFFLE
Highwaymen Painting and art by Terry Hunter and Angela Corbett. Raffle Tickets are $10 each or 3/$25



Community Volunteers will have voter registration forms and information.



For more information about these events call
Jonnie Perry 772.985.7573
Valerie Brant-Wilson 321.794.8437




 

 

CALENDAR



Thursday, September 15, 2022


6:00 p.m. – Democratic Club of Indian River Monthly Meeting. Heritage Center, 2140 14^th Ave., Downtown Vero Beach


Tuesday, September 20, 2022


9:00 a.m. – Indian River County Commission, County Administration Offices – Council Chambers, 1801 27th Street, Building A, Vero Beach 32960-3388
 
For agenda and meeting information go to
https://ircgov.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx



5:10 p.m. - Vero Beach City Council, 1053 20th Place, Vero Beach, FL 32960 For agenda and meeting information go to https://covb.org/AgendaCenter

You can watch here: https://www.covb.org/341/CTYVB-13---City-of-Vero-Beach-Official-T



Thursday, September 22, 2022

3:30 p.m. - Indian River Shores Town Council Meeting 
5:00 p.m. - Budget Public Hearing
6001 N. State Rd A1A, Indian River Shores, FL 32963 



Friday, September 23, 2022

2:30-4:30 p.m. - DWC Book Group in the first-floor meeting room at the Indian River County Main Library   

For information contact Maryann and Rita at [email protected]