Breeze, banned books and Brightline topped the news in Indian River County in 2023

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — It's been quite an eventful year for the county: A new airline arrived, Brightline became a reality, new leaders emerged at the city and county levels and growth across the county had residents looking towards the future.

As 2023 turns into 2024, TCPalm's staff looks back at the year coming to a close and offers these stories as just some of the top news stories of the year in Indian River County:

Breeze Airways flies into Vero Beach

In February Breeze Airways kicked off service to Vero Beach Regional Airport, in part filling the void left by the mysterious departure of Elite Airways in 2022.

Initial flights were to Hartford, Connecticut; Westchester, New York; and Norfolk, Virginia. That route eventually was discontinued.

As Breeze established itself and demand increased, service was added in early November to Providence, Rhode Island.

Seasonal flights to Islip, New York, were to begin Dec. 21.

Book challenges, removals

Hundreds of books were removed from school libraries after they were challenged by parents, community members and by Moms for Liberty, a national parent-advocacy group with its roots here.

James Patterson, Jodi Picoult and even Anne Frank were among the authors and subjects removed from local school libraries as districts waded through hundreds of book challenges.

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Almost 200 books were removed from Indian River County school libraries.

Four books were removed in March, including a graphic adaptation of Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl. An additional 59 were removed or discarded during the state-mandated weeding out of library inventory.

In August, Moms for Liberty members and supporters crowded the School Board meeting, ready to read aloud passages from books they considered pornographic and inappropriate for children younger than 18. About 57 passages were read, causing then-Chair Peggy Jones to stop about 20 of them.

The group counted on a 2023 state law that requires school districts remove books when someone is prohibited from reading them during a public meeting.

"Every other time we've read (the books), we've been shut down immediately," said Jennifer Pippin, president of the local Moms For Liberty chapter, in August. "We did the most inflammatory passages to be respectful of time."

The district removed 128 books that the School Board deemed inappropriate to be read during the meeting. Among them were Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Color Purple": and "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison. New York Times best-selling author Jodi Picoult no longer comes up in a search of books available in the district's libraries, as 20 of her 30 novels made the list of challenged books to review.

One of the speakers at the meeting, North Carolina pastor John Amanchukwu, was removed from the School Board meeting by sheriff's deputies after he failed to stop reading the passage after instructed to do so by Jones. In the days that followed the meeting, Jones and other board members were inundated with threatening phone calls and emails. Jones said she received death threats.

Brightline becomes a reality

Many thought it never would happen. Indian River and Martin counties spent millions of dollars trying to keep it from happening.

But 11 years and $6 billion later, Brightline began running its higher-speed passenger railroad through the Treasure Coast on Sept. 22.

After beginning service in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties in 2018, Brightline’s colorful trains quickly became a staple along the corridor between downtown Miami and Orlando International Airport, running 32 times a day through rural and residential neighborhoods and downtowns such as Vero Beach.

And just as critics had warned, it didn’t take long for the railroad to experience its first fatality on the Treasure Coast. On its seventh day of full operation, Sept. 28, a northbound Brightline train hit and killed a 25-year-old homeless man just north of Midway Road in St. Lucie County, the Sheriff’s Office said.

St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara cited “strong evidence to suggest that he may potentially have committed suicide.”

There also was news from Brightline this year about a future station on the Treasure Coast. In October, officials announced they had begun a site-selection process for a station in either St. Lucie or Martin county. The railroad is bound to locating in those counties, rather than in Indian River, by a 2018 lawsuit settlement with Brightline. The new station is to be open by early 2028, Brightline said.

Indian River County grows, and development follows

After 20-years of discussion and debate, an interchange finally is being built at Interstate 95 and Oslo Road. County and state officials came together in August to commemorate the occasion. The main driver of the $95.8 million project is the need for expanded evacuation routes and to bring a connection to the interstate to the southern portion of the county.

Vero Beach City Council spent the year studying plans for how to improve State Road 60 between Sixth and 20th avenues, known as Twin Pairs. The final decision, made in December, was to leave the stretch substantially unchanged, only widening bike lanes, reducing lane width, reducing speed and making safety improvements between 14th and 16th avenues.

The $385,000 proposal will be forwarded to the Florida Department of Transportation.

Construction on the Alma Lee Loy Bridge — or the 17th Street Bridge — began in August, and despite Vero Beach City Council voting to keep it open, Florida Department of Transportation opted to close it for three days. It reduced lanes from four to two, and initial closures were delayed due to Hurricane Idalia concerns. Despite initial concerns of traffic, delays were minimal.

Sebastian signed a new contract with Waste Management in March. The new contract, which covers all residents of the city, saw a 35% increase in fees, but a 50% cut in service. The new contract passed 3-2 in the City Council.

New leaders come on the scene

New leaders were tapped in 2023 to lead the county and cities in the coming years.

It began at the end of 2022 when former County Administrator Jason Brown stepped down for a job in the Clerk of Courts. His replacement — John Titkanich — was appointed in March and began his tenure in April. Titkanich came from St. Lucie County, where he had served as director of the performance and innovation division for the previous two years.

Following former Sebastian City Manager Paul Carlisle's sudden resignation amid poor evaluations, Leisure services Director Brian Benton was hired as interim city manager and promoted in August to the permanent post.

Municipal elections were held in Sebastian and Vero Beach in November.

In Vero Beach, John Cotugno ran successfully for reelection and was again elected mayor. Taylor Dingle was elected to the council, becoming the youngest City Council member in Vero Beach history.

In Sebastian, three incumbents — Fred Jones, Bob McPartlan and Chris Nunn — were reelected. Coming in fifth in the six-way race was former Councilman Damien Gilliams, who found himself in the Indian River County Jail on Election Day for for Sunshine Law violations in 2021.

Trump on trial in Fort Pierce

Former President Donald Trump’s federal criminal trial began to unfold in Fort Pierce earlier this summer, with the first pretrial hearing taking place July 18. Other hearings took place throughout the summer at the Alto Lee Adams Sr. U.S. Courthouse in the case of United States v. Donald Trump and Waltine “Walt” Nauta.

Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, who worked for Trump, are codefendants.

Trump and his codefendants are charged with mishandling federal documents uncovered on Aug. 8, 2022, at Trump’s Palm Beach County Mar-a-Lago property.

Trump hasn't yet attended a hearing here, but he is expected to appear in Fort Pierce once the trial kicks off in 2024. It's slated to begin May 20, although Trump has asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to delay it until after the Nov. 5 presidential election.

Staff writers Will Greenlee, Gianna Montesano, Arnie Rosenberg and Colleen Wixon contributed to this report.

Nick Slater is TCPalm's Indian River County Watchdog reporter. You can reach him at Nick.Slater@tcpalm.com and 224-830-2875.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Indian River County top stories of 2023, take a look at the year in review