🌅 🏥 PSL’s $200M upgrade

It’s Wednesday! And the week is flying! By the time we blink it will be next week!

Just a quick reminder to share the newsletter with someone you know could use it. Maybe it’s a friend or family member who’s always saying they don’t know what’s going on or asking what to do this weekend. Send it their way.

Alright…

☀️ Day: High of 89°F | Partly cloudy morning turning overcast with a stray shower
🌙 Night: Low of 74°F | Mostly cloudy skies. Winds W at 5-10 mph. Rain chance 24%.
🌅 Sunrise: 7:01 AM | 🌇 Sunset: 7:39 PM
🌙 Moonrise: 5:08 PM | 🌙 Moonset: 2:35 AM
🎶 Sounds like: "Before I Let Go" — Maze featuring Frankie Beverly

TL;DR Florida Coast Medical Center opens September 9 in Port St. Lucie with 54 beds and full emergency services, hopefully solving the problem of residents having to travel outside the area for hospital care and catching up with the city's explosive growth.

How We Got Here: If you've driven to West Palm recently or even Stuart on the turnpike, you've definitely seen the new hospital going up. Port St. Lucie can't seem to stop growing, and things like new hospitals are needed.

The city is the fifth fastest-growing in America for populations over 20,000. That growth created a medical gap where residents needing serious care had to leave the area to find it.

Tenet Healthcare's Palm Beach Health Network spent $200 million on the 180,000-square-foot facility along Becker Road in southwest Port St. Lucie. They recruited 330 staff members and hit 100% staffing for launch. Most physicians are community partners who've practiced locally for 20 to 30 years.

What It Means: Residents get 24-hour emergency care, advanced cardiac services, general surgery, neurosciences, orthopedics, and robotic surgery without leaving town. The emergency department has 26 beds designed for quick patient flow.

The timing is interesting because IRSC just announced plans for what could be the first medical school at a community college in the country. New hospital, potential medical school, all happening right here.

Plans for expansion are already in place on the 26-acre site as the city keeps growing.

Read the full story at Hometown News TC 📖

An internal audit found Indian River County Administrator John Titkanich improperly approved his own $15,000 pay increase without commissioner approval. The audit called it a "breakdown in internal control procedures," though Titkanich says he consulted with each commissioner individually and acted transparently.

👉 Read more

The city launched a community survey asking residents what qualities they want in their next police chief, with responses due September 22. The nationwide search seeks a leader with 10+ years of experience and offers a salary up to $212,000, plus the requirement to live within city limits.

👉 Read more

The Sunshine State came in 6th overall in WalletHub's 2025 rankings and claimed the top spot for restaurants per capita. Florida also ranked 3rd for income growth, though Massachusetts took the overall crown for its healthcare system and education quality.

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We're not the first to tell you there was a meeting, but we're the ones who'll actually explain what happened in a way that makes sense. We read the full agenda, sit through the boring parts, and figure out what actually matters to your daily life.

Merle gets it. She supports us because she wants the real story - not just the headlines, but not a dissertation either. Just the important parts, explained straight up.

That's what your support makes possible. We do the homework so you don't have to. We sit through the two-hour meetings, read the detailed reports, and give you the "here's what you need to know" version. No fluff, just the stuff that actually affects your world.

Want more events? Go here

"Hey! Where's your camera? You're taking pictures, right?" My stomach fluttered a little when my cousin asked me this at my uncle's party this past weekend. Partly from embarrassment that I didn't have my camera with me (I always have my camera with me), but mostly because it brought me back to the beginning of Sunland News. Granted, it's only been a year, but sometimes it seems so long ago.

Part of why I wanted to do this, my desire, was documenting my community, the community, really grounding what this place I call home is. I'm learning the hard way just how difficult it is to stay focused on why you started something, how easy it is to get pulled away from it. And I want to make sure Sunland always stays true to the mission.

I pulled out my phone immediately and shot this image. Not my best work, lol, but a reminder of how we got here. Alright... See you tomorrow!

With Love,
Ja'Min

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