Stet NewsRise and shine, Stet nation! For you today: How fit is our sheriff? A judge rules in the battle over Jupiter’s fire department. Hello, Florida Atlantic. Goodbye to a Palm Beach Gardens landmark. And a cinema celebration.
❤️ Heart health at heart of campaign
Republican Mike Gauger insists that his Democratic opponent for sheriff and former boss, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, suffers from a weak heart.
While Bradshaw will not confirm it, Gauger said the sheriff acknowledged in a private conversation a year ago that he has a pump that runs his heart. Others have told Gauger and Stet News that he had been fitted with a left ventricular assist device, known as an LVAD, when he was hospitalized for three months in 2022.
- An external battery-operated LVAD is implanted when someone is experiencing severe or what is described as “end stage” heart failure, according to multiple online medical publications. It helps pump blood from the lower chambers of the heart to the rest of the body.
- In some cases, it is used to buy time so a patient can get a heart transplant. For those ineligible for heart transplants, the device simply extends the patient’s lifespan.
The sheriff’s spokesperson pointed to the 76-year-old sheriff’s recent spate of public appearances to show that he has the stamina to do the job for another four years.
Bradshaw gave live interviews and appeared at news conferences throughout the run-up and response to Hurricane Milton and appeared at several nationally televised news conferences to explain his agency’s steps to protect former President Donald Trump after the Sept. 15 attempt on Trump’s life.
Yes, but. Bradshaw, who is seeking a record sixth term, collapsed at his local Publix in July and spent three days in the hospital.
In an interview with WPBF Channel 25’s Terri Parker, Bradshaw described having a monitor implanted in his chest that lets him know if his heart is beating too fast.
“They put one of the implants in you that monitors your heart, and it monitors the number of beats and when it gets too high, and they think I’m in jeopardy, it will jolt me a little bit just to let me know that I need to call the doctor and go to the emergency room,” he said.
He has never disclosed details of his May 2022 surgery and three-month hospitalization.
For the rest of the story, click here.
— Jane Musgrave and Joel Engelhardt
🧯 Judge douses Jupiter fire department referendum
Jupiter residents are unlikely to get a chance to vote on town plans to create a fire department after a Palm Beach County Circuit judge ruled last week against a proposed referendum question.
Why it’s important: The judge’s ruling supports the town’s decision to reject a petition from firefighters, who argued that the town illegally refused to put the question before voters.
Catch up quick: Circuit Judge Reid Scott said the town acted within the law because the firefighters’ question gave power to the voters at the Town Council’s expense.
- The ballot language would have prohibited the creation of a town fire department “until the town’s voters approve the creation and operation of a town fire rescue department at a future referendum.”
From the ruling: That’s not acceptable, the judge wrote, citing a 1992 ruling that said “The electorate has no power … to enact a charter amendment” that restricts future council action.
Jupiter Residents to Keep Palm Beach County Firefighters, a political action committee supported by firefighters, submitted signatures in October 2023 to place the charter change proposal on the town ballot.
Yes, but. The town refused. After the firefighters challenged the town’s decision in court in December 2023, the town countersued.
What they’re saying: “(The court’s decision) was something that we always expected, so we’re grateful that it finally has been issued,” Jupiter Mayor Jim Kuretski told Stet News.
“It’s sad to me that residents didn’t get to have their say,” said Jeff Newsome, president of the Professional Firefighters/Paramedics of Palm Beach County Local 2928.
The union has not decided whether to appeal, draft a new petition or merely support alternative candidates for Town Council in March, he said.
For more behind the judge’s ruling, click here.
— Laurie Mermet and Joel Engelhardt
🎓 Then: FAU. Now: Florida Atlantic.
Florida Atlantic University is no more.
Forget FAU, too.
It’s now Florida Atlantic.
Why it’s important: The state-operated Boca Raton-based school gained national media exposure during its basketball team’s 2023 run to the NCAA Final Four and officials don’t want the public confusing it with nearby Florida International University, the student-run University Press reported last week.
What they’re saying: The refresh is “the best-kept secret in America,” bookstore general merchandise market leader Marc Bernstein told the UP reporters Laurie Mermet and Michael Cook.
- The university calls it a “strategic adjustment.”
It will “capitalize on the national attention received by Florida Atlantic in recent years as the institution continues its upward trajectory in academic excellence, research innovation, community engagement and athletic success,” an FAU (or is that FA?) newsletter informed employees.
For the first time, the university will have a single primary logo. It features a standalone owl head that represents a burrowing owl.
Yes, but: Remnants of the old logo are visible across campus.
“The old logo using ‘FAU’ is prevalent on most logo wear that faculty, staff, students, alumni and donors currently wear,” said Ann Root, a Florida Atlantic marketing professor. “So, it is not going to disappear. And there will be a cost to the organizations on campus who now have to purchase new logo items.”
The university has no plans to replace stadium seats bearing the “FAU” lettering, the UP reported.
Another challenge, said bookstore merchandise manager Bernstein, is how people refer to the school. Bernstein himself admitted he still sometimes calls it “FAU.”
“I try to say ‘Florida Atlantic’ all the time,” he said.
Read more on the UP website here.
— Reported by Laurie Mermet and Michael Cook of the University Press
🎬 Screenings, workshops and parties at Subtropic Film Festival
The Subtropic Film Festival returns to West Palm Beach this week to celebrate emerging filmmakers in South Florida.
Why it matters: Now in its third year, this show focuses on independent cinema and has grown to include filmmaker conversations, panel discussions, workshops and parties with live music vinyl DJ sets.
- But the most important thing the Subtropic Film Festival does is create a space where filmmakers, screenwriters and cinephiles can connect and engage in meaningful conversations, organizers say.
Noelia Solange Rabino, the festival’s co-director, is brimming with excitement. Rabino learned to run a film festival over several years at the popular Miami Film Festival. She joined forces with Jose Jesus Zaragoza two years ago and last year, they co-founded Subtropic to begin in 2024.
- The event was formerly known as the Subculture Film Festival.
What they’re saying: Rabino thinks the name Subtropic better reflects the South Florida attitude, which she describes as a mix of “swag and humility.”
Details: Opening night is Friday at The Norton Museum of Art, 1450 S. Dixie Hwy. It coincides with Art After Dark, The Norton’s weekly art party.
- Films include “In Collaboration with Nature,” directed by Michael Atwood; “Querido Pequeno Haiti,” directed by Diana Larrea; “Dear Florida,” directed by David W. Hamzik; “I Dream of Skating,” directed by Gregory Pesochin; and “Celluloid Dreams: Early 20th Century Experimental Montage,” directed by Ates Isildak.
- Q&As will be moderated by WLRN’s Wilkine Brutus.
On Saturday, the festival moves to Afflux Studios at G-Star School of the Arts, 2060 S. Congress Ave., Palm Springs. Screenings run from 1:30 to 10 pm.
On Sunday, back at G-Star, guests will find film screenings throughout the day.
If you go: Tickets for Saturday and Sunday are $60 for the public, which includes all screenings and parties, and $80 for an industry pass, which includes screenings and parties plus workshops and panel discussions. Tickets are available here.
For more details on the festival, read Janis’ full story here.
– Janis Fontaine
Festival co-founder Jose Jesus Zaragoza is a member of Stet News’ Community Advisory Board.
🍊 The Juice
Three billionaires who have backed former President Donald Trump put a half-million dollars into the campaign of Republican Sam Stern, running for Palm Beach County state attorney against Democrat Alexcia Cox. They are Thomas Peterffy, $250,000; John Paulson, $125,000; and Steve Wynn, $125,000. (Seeking Rents)
Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies are accompanying County Commissioner Sara Baxter to public and private meetings after her request for added security. The cost to taxpayers was nearly $6,000 for 75 hours of overtime pay from July 1 to Sept. 9, Mike Diamond reported. (Palm Beach Post $$$)
A growing risk in Florida: Flooded electric cars going up in flames. (Miami Herald)
Damage from the EF-3 tornado spawned by Hurricane Milton will force the demolition of a Publix Super Market that was about to open in Avenir. (Palm Beach Post $$$)
Early in-person voting for the Nov. 5 election begins Monday. Palm Beach County registered voters can cast a ballot at any of the 29 early-vote locations. A PDF of the list is here. Early in-person voting ends at 7 pm Sunday, Nov. 3.
- Make an appointment to vote early here.
The supervisor of elections reported this week that the office has received more than 72,000 vote-by-mail ballots.
Request a vote-by-mail ballot until 5 pm Oct. 24 here.
🏗 561 insider: The long goodbye
In the 1990s, before stadium-style seating took moviegoers by storm, Palm Beach Gardens had two cinemas offering 14 screens less than a mile apart along Alternate A1A.
One, the eight-screen United Artist theater, is now a Planet Fitness.
After sitting empty for years, the other, a six-screen theater, is entirely gone.
Workers demolished the PGA Cinema 6 as part of hotelier Drury Development’s plan to level the 41-year-old Loehmann’s Plaza.
Drury forced out tenants of the 14-acre site just southeast of PGA Boulevard and Interstate 95 in May after the city cited the company for a dozen code violations, The Palm Beach Post reported.
- Drury paid $16.5 million for the site in 2019.
In 2021, it pitched a 292-room Drury Plaza Hotel, restaurants, stores, an office building and a 315-unit apartment building. But the St. Louis-based developer withdrew its application and has nothing on file with the city.
How we got here: The original theater operator, General Cinema, shuttered the six-screen theater in 2000. It had a couple of runs as an art house cinema, the most recent in 2016, but has been empty ever since.
The center’s namesake, the Brooklyn-based discount clothing store Loehmann’s, moved in 2005 to neighboring Legacy Place and finally shut down in 2014. A TooJay’s Gourmet Deli left in 2005 for Downtown Palm Beach Gardens, only to be replaced by REI.
- A proposal for a BJ’s Wholesale Club met city opposition and went nowhere in 2012.
More recently: Loehmann’s Plaza housed an auction house, hair salon, a dance studio and a small Brazilian coffee house that survived a year or two next to the vacant movie theater before closing in 2023.
Bottom line: The plaza’s New York discount panache will soon give way to what surely will be a Palm Beach Gardens vibe.
— Joel Engelhardt
