Stet News
💰 An unlocked version of The Wall Street Journal’s take on billionaire Stephen Ross’ near $10 billion spree to reshape West Palm Beach. Ross opens up about his plans for the city that has become his primary focus. “Turning a profit is not the priority,” Ross said. “To create a city where the best and brightest want to live, work and play — it gets your juices going.” (Realtor.com)
🌊 How coastal communities in Palm Beach County gird against nature to keep their beaches full of sand. (The Coastal Star)
🪧 Despite student protests, the Florida Board of Governors confirmed former south county lawmaker and GEO executive Adam Hasner as the school’s next president. (University Press)
📸 A photo tour of this year’s Kips Bay Decorator Show House, a 1937 mansion on North Flagler Drive in the Providencia Park neighborhood. (Galerie Magazine)
🌀 While Florida insurers claimed to be losing money in the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Michael, their parent companies and affiliates were making billions, a never-before-seen study shows. (Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times $$$)
📝 From WLRN environmental reporter Jenny Staletovich’s weekly newsletter, Field Notes. (Note: Old-timers will remember Jenny as The Palm Beach Post’s ace police reporter in the 1990s.):
The Trump administration continued cuts to the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service and the Interior Department in the name of efficiency, dealing yet more blows to agencies chronically understaffed and tasked with protecting the nation’s natural resources. The Associated Press reported this week that at least 1,000 workers for the National Park Service were laid off.
In Florida, that included a 10-member team of archeologists who cover the southeast, according to the Tallahassee Democrat. The Interior Department, which oversees the park service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and others, has lost at least 2,300 employees, The New York Times reports.
According to NPR, 400 staffers were cut from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, while the National Science Foundation laid off 10% of its staff. Many, the journal Science says, were probationary workers and early career scientists who acted as foot soldiers for the government’s science and health agencies. (Sign up for Field Notes here)
