Stet NewsGood morning, Stetters, on this last day of the month! The news sure didn’t stop in August. Here is your month in review while we all catch our breath.
We’ll be back tomorrow with the first newsletter of a shiny new September.
🆕 Rebirth in the heart of Riviera Beach
Riviera Beach and its partners are developing two mixed-use buildings designed to turn a nondescript corner in the heart of the city into a destination.
Driving the news: Riviera Gateway is envisioned as a residential community on two pieces of public land on the north side of Blue Heron Boulevard at Broadway, on the gateway to and from Singer Island.
– Carolyn DiPaolo
🔎 Exclusive: Mayor Sara Baxter’s trips to The Breakers
Palm Beach County Mayor Sara Baxter has spent $10,700 in campaign cash on at least eight stays over the past two years at The Breakers in Palm Beach and the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, state records show.
The money for the resorts, along with $3,450 spent on trips to Washington, D.C., came from her state political committee, Friends of Sara Baxter.
Why it matters: Baxter, who lives 17 miles from The Breakers, wouldn’t explain the expenses, making it impossible to know if she had important campaign meetings that required overnight stays or she merely took advantage of a $362,980 war chest to get some time off.
– Jane Musgrave
🎬 Project Tango Take 2
Another high-profile hearing could be in the offing for the Project Tango AI hyperscale data center proposed at Palm Beach Aggregates.
PBA Holdings, the longtime landowner of the site, has filed an appeal of the County Commission’s July 15 rejection of its rezoning request under the Florida Land Use and Environmental Dispute Resolution Act.
Why it matters: With an estimated value of $34.5 billion, the data center and warehouse complex proposed by PBA promises a huge boost to the county tax base. But residents in neighboring Arden and elsewhere fear a data center could create noise, vibrations, heat, lighting and potential water contaminants that could sicken their children and destroy their property values.
– Joel Engelhardt
⚖️ Disturbing charges against Mr. Nice Guy
The reputation Mike Caruso, the suspended county clerk and seven-year state House member, built as a genial politician blew apart last week when he was accused of five felonies, including child molestation involving assault on a kindergarten-age relative in Orlando in 2024 and 2025.
Yes, but: Allegations of sexual misconduct were not new to Caruso. They are referenced in his divorce file, a file maintained by the very office he headed before his arrest.
– Jane Musgrave
🏆 Other top stories in August
Old Twin City Mall: Major project hinges on court fight
‘I am caught in their net.’ Lanier appeals for attorney fees
Lake Park concedes Sunshine Law violations
Another tower rising in downtown West Palm Beach
ICYMI: What we learned this summer
This summer, five student journalists took stories about Riviera Beach that they reported for Stet, such as the city’s new water plant and its Youth Council, and turned them into videos made for people their own age.
- They chose the stories and decided how to tell them, in their own voices.
Why it matters: Riviera Beach has deep civic energy but historically thin local coverage. Stet’s teen journalism program, Community Voices, trains and pays high school students from Inlet Grove High School in Riviera Beach to cover their own city. During the school break, we challenged those teens to reimagine reporting in a way that would appeal to their peers and make local news relevant.
Every student rebuilt a text story as a video, learning to script, shoot and edit along the way. The young journalists quickly learned to reframe a story for a new audience without losing what mattered. For some students, the question was what to keep, for others, what to cut.
What we learned: We were challenged by the natural rhythms of summer break; vacations, jobs and family obligations meant deadlines became fluid. Nonetheless, all five students turned text reporting into video, a transition none had made before. With guidance and editorial feedback, they quickly grasped such skills as scripting and framing the story for a different audience.
The bigger takeaway showed us something worth exploring: that student-made video could help Stet fill a gap in our news coverage.
What’s next: We’re working with the students on how video fits for Community Voices — and Stet — in the future.
As we kick off our second year of Community Voices, we’re more committed than ever to bringing young people into news coverage.
Watch their work: Watch the videos here. Please comment and share!
— Liz Capozzi and C.B. Hanif
The Community Voices summer project was supported by the API-Knight Youth Engagement Fund, part of the American Press Institute’s Local News Summit on Youth Trust and Civic Resilience.
