TC Sentinel — Opinion

Book's 11th Walk in My Shoes Battles Child Abuse Across Florida

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 09:52:25 +0000

Opinion | TC Sentinel Editorial Board

Each April, a 1,500-mile procession moves across Florida with a purpose that no resident — here on the Treasure Coast or anywhere else in the state — should be able to ignore. For the 11th consecutive year, Lauren Book, former state senator and founder of the nonprofit Lauren's Kids, is leading her "Walk in My Shoes" journey from Key West to the steps of the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee, arriving May 1.

The numbers that frame this walk are not abstractions. One in three girls and one in five boys will experience sexual abuse before age 18, according to the organization. There are more than 42 million survivors of child sexual abuse in the United States. Every day, new cases are reported in Florida — including, without question, in Martin, St. Lucie, and Indian River counties, where the Martin County School District, St. Lucie Public Schools, and the Indian River County School District together serve tens of thousands of children who are statistically not immune to this crisis.

Book, a survivor herself, has built Lauren's Kids around the conviction — backed by her organization's own research — that 95 percent of child sexual abuse is preventable through education and awareness. Her foundation's Safer, Smarter Kids and Safer, Smarter Teens curricula are taught in schools across Florida. Whether those programs are currently embedded in Treasure Coast classrooms is a question parents, school board members, and superintendents in all three counties should be prepared to answer publicly.

New this year is The Voices Project, a survivor oral history initiative launching alongside the walk. A mobile recording unit will travel the route, collecting anonymous testimonials. Survivors unable to join in person may submit audio recordings of up to five minutes via email, with contributions becoming part of a permanent digital archive focused on awareness and empowerment. Silence is the abuser's greatest ally, and this meaningful expansion of a movement recognizes that truth.

The walk's published route does not include a named Treasure Coast stop — a gap this community should consider addressing in future years by inviting the walk through Stuart, Fort Pierce, or Vero Beach. The absence from the itinerary does not excuse local institutions from the conversation.

We urge Treasure Coast school boards and superintendents to disclose publicly whether Lauren's Kids' prevention curricula are in use in their districts — and, if not, why not. We urge local law enforcement agencies and state attorneys' offices in the 19th Judicial Circuit to use this month to publicize available resources for survivors. And we urge any Treasure Coast resident who is a survivor and wishes to be heard to know that The Voices Project exists for them, regardless of geography.

This article was generated with AI assistance using publicly available information. It was reviewed and approved by a human editor before publication. TC Sentinel uses AI writing tools in accordance with FTC guidelines.

Thousands Flood Treasure Coast Streets in 'No Kings' Rallies

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 22:01:44 +0000

Opinion | TC Sentinel Editorial Board

Thousands of Treasure Coast residents did not stay home.

That is the fact that should anchor every conversation that follows. Rallies held under the banner of "No Kings" drew significant crowds across Martin, St. Lucie, and Indian River counties — part of a broader wave of demonstrations that swept the country in recent weeks, according to available information. The turnout here was not a footnote. It was a statement, made by people who live on these streets, pay these taxes, and vote in these precincts.

The sheer scale of local participation — thousands, by multiple accounts, across a region that routinely gets dismissed as politically homogenous — is itself a verifiable data point that our elected officials in all three counties should not be permitted to quietly file away. According to available information,

The question this editorial board is asking is not whether the protesters were right or wrong on any particular federal policy. That debate belongs to the opinion columns of individual writers, and we will publish those perspectives. The question we are asking is harder and more local: What does it mean when thousands of your neighbors — your constituents — feel compelled to stand in the June heat on a Treasure Coast sidewalk to make a point about executive power and democratic accountability?

It means something. It means elected officials from the Martin County Commission to the St. Lucie County School Board to the Indian River County Commission have a civic obligation to acknowledge the sentiment, even if they do not share it. Silence from local government in the face of mass constituent engagement is not neutrality. It is a choice.

To be fair to the counterargument: elected officials are not required to endorse every rally, and participation in a demonstration is not a policy mandate. Crowds are not ballots. A noisy afternoon in downtown Stuart does not automatically translate into a governing directive, and it would be a mistake to treat protest as a substitute for the slower, harder work of local civic engagement — attending commission meetings, running for office, filing public records requests.

We hold that view. And we hold the other one simultaneously: that dismissing this moment because it echoes national rhetoric would be an equal mistake.

This editorial board calls on every county commission and municipality across Martin, St. Lucie, and Indian River counties to hold open, public town halls before the end of summer recess — no invitation list, no pre-screened questions — where residents can speak directly to their representatives about the issues that drove them into the streets. That is not a radical ask. It is the minimum a representative democracy owes the people who showed up.

Rural Families in Western Treasure Coast Need Community Bonds Over Government Aid

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 09:55:17 +0000

Opinion | TC Sentinel Editorial Board

Drive west on Kanner Highway past the last stoplight in Stuart, or push inland from Fort Pierce along Okeechobee Road, and you enter a Florida that coastal residents rarely see. The pastures and groves of western Martin County and the agricultural stretches of western St. Lucie County are home to families who live long distances from pediatricians, licensed child care, and social services — the same families who often do not show up in policy conversations until something has already gone wrong.

That gap between "struggling" and "in crisis" is exactly where this community needs to focus.

Florida's child welfare system logged more than 67,000 reports of alleged abuse or neglect statewide in fiscal year 2022-23, with rural and semi-rural counties disproportionately represented in caseloads relative to their populations, according to public records. The Treasure Coast's own Community Based Care provider, Families First of Florida — which oversees child welfare services in Martin, St. Lucie, and Indian River counties — has consistently cited workforce shortages and geographic barriers as compounding factors in case complexity here.

The argument being made by child welfare advocates at the state level deserves a local hearing: the formal system is not failing because its workers are indifferent. It is strained because the informal safety net that once absorbed early-stage family stress — neighbors, church communities, civic networks — has thinned considerably in rural and exurban areas. When that buffer disappears, a manageable problem becomes a DCF referral.

Volunteer-driven models like temporary child hosting, transportation assistance, and peer mentorship have demonstrated real results in other parts of Florida when paired with coordination infrastructure: training, background checks, and local staff who guide the process. These are not replacements for government services. They are pressure-relief valves that allow professional caseworkers to focus on cases that genuinely require their attention.

Opponents of this framing will argue — not unreasonably — that relying on volunteer networks risks creating an uneven patchwork, where families in some ZIP codes receive robust support and others receive none. That concern is legitimate. Community-based solutions must be resourced, not simply celebrated and then left to operate on goodwill alone.

But that critique is an argument for doing this right, not for dismissing it. Martin County alone has seen its western communities absorb significant population growth over the past decade with minimal corresponding expansion of human services infrastructure.

The TC Sentinel Editorial Board calls on Martin County, St. Lucie County, and Indian River County commissioners to request a formal briefing from Families First of Florida on the current state of community-based prevention programming in their jurisdictions — including what funding exists, what gaps remain, and what a meaningful local investment would require. Residents deserve to know whether the connective tissue holding rural families together is being maintained or quietly unraveling.

Martin Chamber CEO Apologizes for Post Suggesting Animal Tests on Democrats

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 22:02:01 +0000

Opinion | TC Sentinel Editorial Board

The Stuart-Martin County Chamber of Commerce exists to serve every business owner and entrepreneur on this end of the Treasure Coast — Democrat, Republican, independent, and everything in between. That is not a platitude. It is the core premise of what a chamber of commerce is. So when the organization's chief executive uses a public social media platform to suggest that Democrats should be subjected to animal experimentation, the chamber's foundational promise breaks down, and the community deserves more than a phone apology that leaves the offending post still visible online.

Chamber CEO Joseph Catrambone posted a comment on LinkedIn beneath an announcement about the Trump administration's FDA moves to end testing on beagles, chimpanzees, monkeys, and rabbits. His reply: "Allow it on Dems." The comment drew swift community criticism, with at least one viewer characterizing it as hate speech and a developer of local youth programs calling it unbecoming of a civic leader. Catrambone, reached by phone, acknowledged the comment, said "shame on me," and promised to remove it. As of the time this editorial was prepared, the post remained live.

We take Catrambone at his word that the remark was a lapse in judgment rather than a statement of genuine belief. People say stupid things online. That is a universal human failing in the social media era, and it does not automatically disqualify someone from leadership. But a lapse in judgment by a private citizen and a lapse in judgment by the CEO of Martin County's most prominent business advocacy organization are two very different things. The chamber represents hundreds of member businesses that depend on its credibility and its ability to open doors across the political spectrum in Tallahassee and Washington.

Incoming Board Chairman Eric Kiehn told us the matter will be taken up at the chamber's next board meeting. That is the right instinct. The board owes its members — and the broader business community of Stuart and Martin County — a transparent accounting of what standards apply to the chamber's top executive and what accountability looks like when those standards are breached.

The chamber should not be a casualty of one poorly chosen comment. But it cannot simply wait for the news cycle to turn. The board should convene that discussion promptly, make its findings public, and affirm in plain terms that the Stuart-Martin County Chamber of Commerce represents every business owner in this county — full stop. Anything less asks half the community to trust an institution that has not yet made clear it trusts them back.

Treasure Coast Must Reckon With Doctor's Call for Migrant Drug Tests

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 19:15:42 +0000

Opinion | TC Sentinel Editorial Board

A Florida physician is drawing sharp criticism after reportedly suggesting that migrants should be subjected to drug testing — comments that, whatever their intent, carry serious consequences for the communities most affected by immigration policy on the Treasure Coast. This editorial board believes the moment demands a direct response, not a shrug.

Martin, St. Lucie, and Indian River counties are home to one of Florida's most significant agricultural migrant worker populations. St. Lucie County alone serves thousands of seasonal farmworkers annually through federally qualified health centers, including the Treasure Coast Community Health network, according to the Florida Department of Health's most recent community health needs data. These are the residents — largely uninsured, largely essential to our economy — who would be most directly chilled by rhetoric that links immigration status to presumed drug use.

Let us be precise about what is at stake. Mandatory or targeted drug testing of migrants, absent individualized suspicion, raises immediate Fourth Amendment concerns under established federal case law. Beyond the constitutional question, the practical effect of such proposals is documented: public health research consistently shows that stigmatizing rhetoric reduces clinic utilization among immigrant communities, which drives up emergency room costs and worsens communicable disease outcomes for everyone — citizen and noncitizen alike.

Some will argue the doctor was simply raising a public safety concern and that critics are being too sensitive. We take that view seriously. Substance use disorder is a genuine public health crisis in all three of our counties, and no population is exempt from its reach. Raising that issue honestly deserves a fair hearing. But there is a clear line between addressing substance use as a population-wide health challenge and singling out migrants as a presumptively suspect class. The latter is not medicine. It is stigma wearing a lab coat.

What should happen now? The Florida Department of Health and the relevant county health departments should issue clear, public statements reaffirming that all residents — regardless of immigration status — are entitled to non-discriminatory access to health services. The Treasure Coast Community Health network's board should consider whether a formal community statement is warranted. Treasure Coast residents should ask their county commissioners directly: does our public health infrastructure have a written non-discrimination policy that covers immigration status, and is it being enforced?

The credibility of our regional health system depends on trust. That trust is not abstract — it is measured in whether a farmworker in Fort Pierce or a migrant family in Indiantown chooses to seek care before a crisis becomes a catastrophe. We cannot let careless rhetoric erode it.

Indian River County Approves 3,400 Homes Without Growth Limits

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 13:54:32 +0000

Opinion | TC Sentinel Editorial Board

Indian River County has approved more than 3,400 new residential units in unincorporated areas since 2020, according to county planning records. The development pipeline shows no sign of emptying. The pressure on Vero Beach's suburban fringe — State Road 60 west of the city, Oslo Road, the corridors pushing toward the St. Johns River water management boundary — is not a future problem. It is arriving now, project by project, variance by variance, at Planning and Zoning Commission meetings where the public gallery is rarely full and the stakes are almost always underestimated.

The pattern is familiar to anyone who has watched Florida's coastal counties absorb growth for the past two decades. Individual projects are approved on their individual merits. Each one is arguably reasonable in isolation, yet none are evaluated against the cumulative cost to roads, school capacity, or the aquifer recharge zones that Indian River County's own comprehensive plan is supposed to protect. The result is infrastructure that lags a full development cycle behind demand.

Indian River County School District is already operating several elementary schools above 100 percent rated capacity, a data point the county commission is required to weigh under Florida's school concurrency statute, Section 163.3180, Florida Statutes. Whether that weighing is happening with sufficient rigor at the project-approval stage is a question the board of county commissioners has not answered publicly.

Supporters of continued growth make a legitimate argument: housing supply constraints drive up prices, and Indian River County's workforce — teachers, nurses, the county's own employees — cannot afford to live where they work. That tension is real, and dismissing development categorically is neither honest nor helpful. Density done well, near existing infrastructure, is preferable to sprawl done badly at the suburban edge.

But "growth is inevitable" is not a land-use policy. It is a shrug dressed up as pragmatism. The county has a comprehensive plan, a capital improvements schedule, and a concurrency management system precisely so that growth decisions carry defined consequences. Those tools are only as strong as the elected officials willing to enforce them.

The Indian River County Commission should, before approving any residential project exceeding 50 units in the unincorporated areas west and southwest of Vero Beach, publish a plain-language concurrency audit showing current school capacity, road level-of-service ratings on affected corridors, and water-and-sewer system headroom. Make it available at least 30 days before the public hearing. Then let residents decide whether the math works.

Capitol Tour for Sanctioned Russian Lawmakers Outrages Treasure Coast Military Families

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 13:54:32 +0000

Opinion | TC Sentinel Editorial Board

Thirteen American service members have been killed since U.S. combat operations began in the Middle East on Feb. 28. More than 200 have been wounded across seven countries in the region. Those are not abstractions. Some of those families live within driving distance of MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa — home to CENTCOM and SOCOM, the commands directing those very operations — and more than a few have roots on the Treasure Coast.

That context matters when evaluating what happened in Washington this week: sanctioned Russian State Duma lawmakers toured the U.S. Capitol, met with members of Congress, and extended an invitation to visit Moscow. Florida's 13th Congressional District Rep. Anna Paulina Luna organized the visit, provided the delegation a private tour, and publicly defended the meetings.

Vyacheslav Nikonov led the delegation. He is the grandson of Stalin's foreign minister Molotov and one of the most senior foreign policy figures in the Russian government. Every member of the delegation is subject to active U.S. sanctions. Vladimir Putin personally briefed them before they departed Russia. His economic envoy called the visit "historic."

Three weeks ago, confirmed U.S. intelligence revealed that Russia has been supplying Iran with real-time targeting data on American warships and aircraft operating in the Middle East — satellite imagery and location feeds precise enough to help Iranian forces locate U.S. personnel faster. The government whose legislators were welcomed into the Capitol this week is now actively helping the other side identify American forces.

Sanctions are not a symbolic gesture. They are the mechanism by which the United States makes aggression costly without committing additional troops to the field. When sanctioned officials are received without a public agenda, stated preconditions, or announced American objectives — during an active conflict in which their government is actively helping the other side identify U.S. forces — the signal sent is that the price of Russian behavior remains negotiable.

The strongest counterargument is a legitimate one: engagement with adversaries is not inherently weakness. Ronald Reagan sat across from Soviet leaders. History records moments when hard conversations, conducted from genuine strength and with clear demands on the table, produced real results. The principle is sound.

But this week's visit did not follow that model. One Russian official described it as a "test meeting" — a chance to "feel each other out." That framing benefits Moscow, not Martin County, not St. Lucie County, not the military families up and down this coast who send their own into theaters where Russia is now actively working against American forces.

The TC Sentinel Editorial Board calls on Rep. Luna and every member of Florida's congressional delegation to answer a direct question in public: What were the stated American objectives for this meeting, and how do they square with the 13 service members killed since February? The families watching the news from Port St. Lucie to Vero Beach deserve that answer — not a press release, not a social media post, but a full accounting on the record.

Treasure Coast Demands Brightline Station Details Beyond Renderings

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 13:54:32 +0000

Opinion | TC Sentinel Editorial Board

Brightline's private passenger rail corridor has been operating between Miami and Orlando since 2023, and the company has made no secret of its ambitions to extend service northward along Florida's east coast. For Treasure Coast residents, that means station proposals for Martin and St. Lucie counties are no longer distant speculation — they are live planning conversations, and local officials owe the public far more transparency than they have delivered so far.

Here is the baseline residents deserve to know before any county commission votes on land commitments, zoning variances, or public funding agreements: What is the specific dollar figure of any public subsidy being requested? Brightline received approximately $3.2 billion in private activity bonds — a federally tax-exempt financing mechanism — for its Orlando extension According to available records,, a deal that drew scrutiny from transit advocates who noted that "private" rail can carry substantial public risk. If a similar instrument or any county-level tax increment financing is on the table for a Treasure Coast station, Martin County Commission and St. Lucie County Commission members need to say so clearly, in public, before any agreement is signed.

The promise of economic development around a station is real. Downtown Stuart and the Fort Pierce waterfront corridor are both plausible beneficiaries of increased passenger traffic. Proponents argue, reasonably, that rail access reduces highway congestion and supports the kind of walkable, mixed-use development that younger residents and employers increasingly demand.

We take that argument seriously. But we also note that station-area development projections have a long history of optimism outrunning reality, particularly in markets where automobile dependency is deeply entrenched. The Miami to Orlando corridor draws primarily leisure travelers; whether a Treasure Coast stop generates the daily ridership needed to anchor the land-use vision being sold to commissioners deserves an independent economic analysis, not a developer's pro forma.

There is also the matter of grade crossings. Brightline's existing corridor has been associated with a disproportionate number of pedestrian and vehicle fatalities along its South Florida route According to initial reports,. Any northward expansion through Martin and St. Lucie counties must include a full safety audit of existing at-grade crossings, with required upgrades funded by the operator — not passed to county taxpayers.

The TC Sentinel Editorial Board calls on the Martin County Commission and the St. Lucie County Commission to each schedule a dedicated public hearing on Brightline station proposals before any memoranda of understanding are executed. Those hearings must include disclosed funding mechanisms, independent ridership projections, and a crossing-safety plan with named responsible parties. Treasure Coast residents built this community. They have the right to weigh in before the tracks are set.

Vero Beach Mom Launches Braille Mission After Hunt for Son's Books Fails

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 22:01:54 +0000

# Opinion | TC Sentinel Editorial Board

Janie Desir didn't set out to become an advocate. She set out to find a counting book in Braille for her child.

That search — frustrated, unproductive, and ultimately unsuccessful through official channels — tells Indian River County residents something important about the gaps that persist in early childhood education for families navigating disability. Desir, a Vero Beach mother who is legally blind and is raising a son on the autism spectrum, found herself unable to obtain free early learning materials in Braille despite the fact that such resources are supposed to exist. That gap didn't stop her. It launched her.

Two years after first raising her voice publicly on this issue at a community event in May 2024, Desir has authored a children's book titled "Teaching Your Baby the Numbers in Braille," designed for children from newborn through age five. Her goal, stated plainly: make Braille literacy accessible to every family that needs it, not just those with the time, connections, or resources to navigate a bureaucratic maze.

Her story deserves more than a feel-good headline. It deserves a hard question directed at Indian River County's early learning infrastructure: Why was a legally blind mother, seeking free tools she was entitled to pursue, unable to find them through official channels in the first place?

Florida's early intervention system, including programs administered locally through the Treasure Coast's Early Steps network, is designed to identify and serve children with developmental and sensory needs before age three. Yet families like Desir's repeatedly report that navigating those systems requires a persistence most exhausted caregivers cannot sustain. The resource exists somewhere in the bureaucracy. The family simply cannot reach it.

The counterpoint worth acknowledging is real: state and county agencies operate under genuine resource constraints, and caseworkers are often doing their best within underfunded systems. No one is the villain here. But good intentions inside a broken process still produce the same result — a mother sitting at a table with no Braille book and a child who needed one.

What Desir has built in response — a network of parents, a library of shared resources, a community of people who meet regularly to help one another — is, in effect, a public service the county has not fully provided. That deserves recognition, and it demands a response.

Indian River County's Early Learning Coalition and the School District of Indian River County should formally document and publicize a clear, plain-language pathway for families seeking Braille and other adaptive early literacy materials — and they should invite Janie Desir to help them build it.

Treasure Coast Urges Drivers to Savor Florida's Roadside Oddities

Sat, 04 Apr 2026 22:01:54 +0000

# Opinion | TC Sentinel Editorial Board

There is a particular kind of forgetting that happens when we optimize everything. We choose the fastest route, the highest-rated restaurant, the most-reviewed attraction — and in doing so, we drive past the strange, the handmade and the genuinely unforgettable without ever knowing they were there.

Florida, of all places, should resist that impulse. This state has always trafficked in the bizarre and the spectacular, often in the same ditch on the same county road. Yet, as hyper-scheduled travel culture tightens its grip, even Floridians are becoming strangers to their own backyard.

Consider what remains within a day's drive of the Treasure Coast. Along U.S. 41 near the Everglades — a corridor well-known to anyone who has made the cross-state trek from Martin County toward Naples — the Skunk Ape Headquarters has spent decades leaning joyfully into Florida folklore, inviting travelers to engage with the kind of local legend that no algorithm will ever recommend. Farther south in Homestead, Robert Is Here fruit stand has grown from a single roadside table set up in 1959 into a regional institution celebrated for its milkshakes and its improbable staying power. In Ona, Solomon's Castle stands as a monument to one man's eccentric vision and Florida's generous tolerance for the unconventional.

Up near Orlando, Jungle Adventures in Christmas, Florida, anchors its appeal around Swampy, billed as the world's largest alligator, alongside airboat tours and real wildlife encounters. The Bubble Room on Captiva, open since 1979, still dazzles with its vintage trains, custom bubble lights and maximalist décor — the kind of place that impresses even teenagers determined not to be impressed.

Some of these stops are gone. The Airstream Ranch near Orlando has closed. The Magic Time Machine, a Houston-to-Austin institution that shaped the childhood memories of many transplanted Floridians now living along this coast, no longer operates at its original location. Loss is part of the roadside attraction story, which is precisely why the ones that survive deserve our attention and, frankly, our business.

The counterargument is easy enough: we are busy, gas is expensive, and the interstate exists for a reason. Fair enough. But the Treasure Coast — a region that has watched rapid development reshape its character county by county — understands better than most what happens when the distinctive gives way to the efficient. Once it's gone, it's gone.

Tools like the Roadside America app make discovery easier than ever. There is no excuse for ignorance, only for indifference.

This editorial board's ask is simple: the next time you drive south on U.S. 1 or cut west on State Road 70, pull over. Read the historical marker. Buy the milkshake. Walk into the weird museum. The Treasure Coast's own identity — its fish houses, its river festivals, its roadside fruit stands on Kanner Highway — is worth defending precisely because it is not like everywhere else. Start by noticing what is still there.