Safer train crossings face pushback.
Tensions are rising as the city of Melbourne tangles with Florida East Coast Railway over proposed safety upgrades at local train crossings. The city wants to install additional gates at a number of crossings to enhance safety, but Florida East Coast Railway hasn’t given approval. Melbourne recently worked on a grant proposal to upgrade five crossings from two gates to four gates, making it all but impossible for vehicles, bicyclists, and pedestrians to try and beat a train. The proposed safety upgrades would cost over $4 million. A federal grant is expected to cover 80% of the costs and the city handling the remaining 20%. Florida East Coast Railway and Brightline would incur no initial cost for the upgrades. But Florida East Coast Railway wants the city to close two crossings in South Melbourne (Prospect Avenue and Jernigan Avenue), and that’s a condition Melbourne won’t agree to.
Next rocket launch.
The date for the next rocket launch from the Cape has slipped. SpaceX had scheduled a Falcon 9 mission for this evening. But rough seas in the booster recovery zone off the Carolinas have delayed the mission until Tuesday evening. SpaceX is to launch two Galileo satellites for the European Space Agency. Galileo is a global navigation system, created by the European Union. It’s billed as the “world’s most precise satellite navigation system.”
Condo association insurance costs doubled since 2022.
Property insurance costs in Florida continued to rise between the first and second quarters of the year, and condo associations have been hit hardest during that time. The average cost of a condo association policy — the kind that covers common properties like roofs, structures, and irrigation systems — jumped 6.6% in the second quarter, and over the past two years has more than doubled. The increases are added to the monthly assessments paid by condo unit owners who are also facing higher assessments from inflation, as well as state-mandated requirements to undergo structural inspections and to fund reserves to make repairs. Single family homeowners are still seeing their insurance costs rise also. The average cost of insuring an owner-occupied single-family home increased by 1.3% in the second quarter, the same rate as during the first quarter.
Summer of 2024 hotter and drier than normal.
The National Weather Service in Melbourne has compiled the stats for the summer of 2024. It was much warmer than usual. Melbourne had an average temperature for the season of 83.3 degrees, which was 1.6 degrees above normal. This ranks as the 8th warmest Summer on record, dating back to 1937. It was also much drier than normal. Just over 11 inches of rain fell across the Space Coast over the summer. That’s almost half of what we usually get.
Voters to decide on the ad valorem tax exemption.
One of the measures on the November ballot will be the Brevard County Ad Valorem Tax Abatement Program. The county has used this program for 30 years to attract businesses to Brevard. In an opinion piece in Florida Today, former county commissioner Curt Smith supported the continuation of the ad valorem tax exemptions. Smith claims the partial tax relief offered by the program will bring top quality businesses to the country and provide high wage jobs.
