Martin Cares

This is to alert those who are unaware of a program entitled Martin CARES, run very competently by Martin County employees. It takes citizen-taxpayers behind the scenes to get a close-up look at our county government and its enterprises.

Participants get to meet, listen to and ask questions, starting at the County Administrator's office, the library, communications, county attorney and constitutional officers. And that is just the first day of a six day program.

The sessions start at 8 AM – usually at the administration building on Monterey Road, with a light breakfast: coffee, tea, breakfast bars. We then traveled to the airport, field operations, old school house tour and general services.

Another day, environmental concerns were on the agenda: public works, water quality utilities, solid waste, BOCC chambers.

We traveled next to the Fire Rescue with outdoor examples of fire fighting on the Sheriff's compound and a talk by the Sheriff.

Day 5 we visited Information Technology, Community Development and budget management with a daily lunch provided each day.

On the sixth and final day we heard presentations from the Office of Tourism and Marketing, enjoyed a talk and lunch at Sailfish Sands, the restaurant on the county golf course, and an exciting “rescue” at Stuart Beach supervised by the head of the Ocean Rescue Department.

The major criticism of the entire program is that the acoustics are very poor and the retirees (which seemed like most participants) had difficulty hearing speakers who, even if they had a mike did not have familiarity on its use. A major exception was the mike used at the ocean. A purchase of a few more would enhance the entire experience.

In liberty,

Audrey Taggart