Glitch in Melbourne’s water bill system.
If you’ve been waiting for your June water bill from Melbourne, you’re not alone. The city reports about 24,000 customers haven’t received their June bill. The problem was caused by a glitch in the new water billing system. Your July bill may include charges for both June and July. Melbourne assures customers that late fees will not be charged and water service will not be disconnected as a result of this error. The city has a total of about 57,000 drinking water customers in Melbourne, as well as in Indialantic, Indian Harbour Beach, Melbourne Beach, Melbourne Village, Palm Shores, Satellite Beach and unincorporated areas of Brevard County south of the Pineda Causeway.
New city managers in Cape Canaveral and Titusville.
The cities of Cape Canaveral and Titusville will soon have new city managers. The Titusville City Council has promoted longtime Assistant City Manager Tom Abbate to city manager — after all of the other finalists for the job withdrew their candidacies. The Cape Canaveral City Council also has filled its city manager vacancy, selecting Keith Touchberry for the post. Touchberry had been assistant city manager and police chief of Fellsmere in Indian River County.
SpaceX launch possible today.
Yesterday afternoon, SpaceX's rocket launch countdown clock ticked all the way down to just 11 seconds remaining before crews scrubbed the liftoff attempt. So today, SpaceX will try again to launch a pair of satellites for Luxembourg-based company SES. The launch window opens at 5:12PM today. But the weather forecast is not good: only a 20% chance of favorable conditions.
Meteorologist Megan Borowski from the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network warns of heavy rain and thunderstorms:
“Right so we are watching an upper-level disturbance that is tracking toward the Florida peninsula today, and it will provide the energy needed for numerous thunderstorms to develop. We also have a tropical airmass that is moving in—and this feature will provide plenty of moisture to support heavy rain rates. I do expect storms to fire up during the afternoon, and they could become quite strong during the evening commute. It’s not out of the realm of possibility for storms to produce isolated pockets of rain rates on the order of 1 or 2 inches an hour.
Artemis launch tower coming together.
At Kennedy Space Center, workers have assembled the launch tower for future Artemis missions. The blocks have been stacked 377 feet high. But there’s still more than a year’s worth of work to be done on the launch tower. Whether the tower will ever be used was in question. President Trump’s proposed budget sought to end the Artemis mission. But congress ended up allocating funds for the project.
Ellis Road project underway.
Preliminary work that will pave the way for the widening of Ellis Road has finally begun. It’s been the Space Coast’s No. 1 transportation priority. The planning has taken over 20 years, and the project will take another year or two to complete. Right now vegetation is being cleared from the right-of-way along Ellis Road from west of John Rodes Blvd to west of Wickham. Then there will be a nine-month window for moving utilities before the widening project begins. That’s scheduled for late next year.
