South Florida farmers cash in on farm-to-table movement

A growing number of farmers making a living in South Florida are capitalizing on the farm-to-table trend. Some are taking their fruits and veggies to markets, others are opening the doors of their fields for people to pick their own.

Jerry Sanchez grew up planting seeds and harvesting vegetables in the farms of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

On his way to the farms in Florida, he passed in front of the schools in Leisure City and watched the children carrying their books and bags.

“I would think all these kids were lucky, so I would say, ‘One day, when I grow up, I am going to get my kids to school,’ ” said Sanchez, 42, who didn’t have a chance to finish high school. “And I did.”

He now owns a farm in South Miami-Dade and runs Jerry’s Here, which sells the farm’s fresh vegetables and fruits to an expanding list of farmers’ markets throughout South Florida.

On weekends, Sanchez, his wife Natalia and their three children — along with nieces, nephews and cousins — fan out to farmers markets, selling their tomatoes, strawberries, peppers, zucchini, eggplant, corn and onions from their Krome Avenue farm. On Saturday, they’re at the Coral Gables and Delray Beach markets, on Sunday, the Pinecrest Gardens market. On Monday and Thursdays, they’re at the market at Ocean Reef. On Tuesday, they’re at Palmetto Elementary and Miami Children’s Hospital on Wednesday.

The Sanchezes are one of a growing number of farmers making a living in South Florida, capitalizing on the farm-to-table trend. While the Sanchezes take their fruits and veggies to markets, others open the doors of their strawberry fields or vegetable gardens for people to pick their own.

As children, Kathy Magee and Charles Burr Jr. helped their father, Charles Burr, grow his strawberries, even if that meant waking up at 2 a.m. to irrigate the fruits to save them from freezing.

Magee, 61, and Burr Jr., 69, started helping their mother, Mary, 90, at Burr’s Berry Farm in Goulds after their father died in 2001. Last year, they adopted the hydroponic system, growing the strawberries in vertical structures, and they opened the farm for u-pick.

“We want to encourage our people to know where our food comes from because it’s coming from farther and farther away, from out of the country, and there are very few local farms left,” said Magee, who lives in Orlando with her husband, David, and drives the farm every strawberry season from December to May.

For Miguel Brito, 21, a visual designer who recently went u-picking for the first time with his father and sister, the best part was finding a perfect strawberry.

“I found this one,” said Brito, proudly holding up a round and red strawberry. “I found it from a distance and it was just dangling. I checked both sides and then snip, in my basket. I’m going take it home, wash it, eat it fresh and save it for a shake or a smoothie.”

The Burrs also have u-pick for carrots, onions, beats and turnips. They also grow mangoes, lychee, tomatoes, peppers, avocados, cucumbers and sunflowers.

Burr Jr. grows the strawberries with farmer Antonio Diaz, while Magee works in the stand, making milkshakes and canning the homemade jams, jellies and salsa.

Mary also helps the customers and makes most of the business decisions.

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Tori Spelling Slams Divorce Report

Tori Spelling "isn't gonna take" false reports about her marriage sitting down. The reality star/mother-of-four took to her blog on Thursday to slam a report that she and husband Dean McDermott are on the outs.

Star magazine's recent cover featured a headline that claimed the Beverly Hills, 90210 star and her spouse, 46, were on the brink of a divorce, a claim Spelling, 39, says is completely false. "This time I had to comment because this time I'm answering not as a celebrity but as a mom," Spelling wrote, adding that her five-year-old son Liam's "proudest achievement" so far in life was learning to read, but that "pride turned to sorrow thanks to Star magazine."

"I've built up a pretty thick skin to the lies and trash talking at this point, but my children are another story. Keep them out of it!" Spelling continues, explaining how her kids discovered the magazine in the supermarket. "[Liam] first spotted me on the cover, then dad, and then a picture of himself and his three younger siblings. He was able to read two things out loud, the word DIVORCE (which he proudly sounded out) and the caption above his picture which read 'Who will get the kids?' He became terrified."

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I had to hurry him and his confused 4-year-old sister Stella out of the grocery store and into our car. By the time he was fastening himself into his car seat he was asking, 'Why is someone getting us? Where are you and Dad going?' He was anxiously biting his lower lip and his big blue eyes were filled with tears. My heart sank. How would I explain to my children that what these three writers who have never even met us but who claim to know the ins and outs of our relationship and have proudly put their names on this article are flat out writing lies?"

Spelling said she continually had to reassure her children, saying, "'That magazine doesn't know us. Daddy and I are very happy and in love. There will be no divorce and all of us will remain together as a family.' I'm lucky my two oldest are only five and four and couldn't read the fine details of the article where horrific claims were made against my husband, their dad."

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The actress concluded her post by gushing over her husband, saying, "He has stood by me during the good times and held my hand through the darkest moments of my life. I'm so blessed to have him as my partner in life and love and he is the best father to our four children."

In addition to Stella and Liam, the couple are also parents to Hattie, 16 months, and son Finn, 7 months.

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Odds against him, Obama still betting on big deal

AFP/Getty Images

The US Capitol in Washington, DC on Thursday night.

WASHINGTON — President Obama met with congressional leaders at the White House Friday, hours before a series of mandatory budget cuts start to kick in, for intense talks where Democrats and Republicans were most likely to stake out fiscal positions with the threat of a government shutdown looming.

With no expectations of a breakthrough, Obama was to once again argue for a big fiscal deal that would raise taxes and trim billions from expensive and ever-growing entitlement programs. But with automatic federal spending cuts ready to start taking their toll, the path toward that grand bargain Obama campaigned on last year has significantly narrowed.

Arriving separately in their black SUVs, House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi entered the West Wing shortly after 10 a.m. EST. The White House said the meeting was underway by 10:18.

"I'm happy to discuss other ideas to keep our commitment to reducing Washington spending at today's meeting," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement ahead of the session. "But there will be no last-minute, back-room deal and absolutely no agreement to increase taxes."

For Obama, Friday's session would be his first opportunity to spell out his 10-year, $1.5 trillion deficit reduction plan in a face-to-face meeting with congressional allies and adversaries.

His chances are squeezed by anti-tax conservatives, by liberals unwilling to cut into Medicare and Social Security, and by a Republican leadership that has dug in against any new revenue after ceding to Obama's demands two months ago for a higher tax rate for top income earners.

On Thursday, two ill-fated proposals aimed at blunting the blame over the cuts — one Democratic and the other Republican — failed to overcome procedural hurdles in the Senate. Obama placed the responsibility on Republicans.

"They voted to let the entire burden of deficit reduction fall squarely on the middle class," he said.

The White House is still betting that once the public begins to experience the effects of the $85 billion in across-the-board cuts the pain will be unbearable enough to force lawmakers to reconsider and negotiate. But the consequences of the cuts —the so called sequester — will likely be a slow boil. Obama this week said the effect "is not a cliff, but it is a tumble downward."

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Florida class-action case takes aim at Citizens’ reinspection program

Thousands of Florida homeowners buffeted by higher windstorm premiums have sued state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to recover potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in “back-door” rate increases driven by “arbitrary” reinspections of their residences.

The proposed class-action lawsuit, filed in Broward Circuit Wednesday, aims to halt Citizens’ reinspection program, claiming it has illegally stripped discounts from homeowners who had earned them under a 2007 inspection program approved by the Florida Legislature. Their original inspections were supposed to be valid for five years.

But in 2010, Citizens violated the due-process rights of homeowners, who had submitted official inspection forms, by arbitrarily reinspecting their properties to boost lost revenue that the agency could not generate lawfully through premium hikes, the suit said.

Lawyers who filed the suit, whose class representative is a Broward homeowner, said Citizens violated the due-process rights of its policyholders, costing each higher premiums averaging upwards of $1,000 — and possibly more — a year.

The collective cost to homeowners throughout Florida exceeds more than $100 million, said attorney Todd Stabinksi, whose Miami law firm, Stabinksi & Funt, filed the suit with Farmer, Jaffe of Fort Lauderdale and Kula & Samson of Aventura. They gathered Thursday for a press conference outside the West Broward County Courthouse in Plantation.

“Citizens got the benefit of lowering their risks, but Citizens’ policyholders did not get the benefit of lower premiums,” Stabinski said. “It should have been a mutually beneficial bargain.”

Consumer advocates have accused Citizens of using the reinspection program to impose “massive” rate hikes on homeowners. Citizens has denied the charge, saying that it is simply trying to get accurate information about the homes it insures.

“Since at least 2010, Citizens has used a wind mitigation reinspection program to systemtically deprive policy holders of legitimate wind mitigation credits,” said a nonprofit group, Florida Association for Insurance Reform, which praised the legal action.

A spokesperson for Citizens said the company has been operating under the law, and that the reinspections came after regulators changed the mitigation criteria. “Our position is Citizens’ reinspections were conducted under statutory authority afforded any insurer to verify, at the insurer’s expense, the accuracy of inspection reports submitted for a mitigation discount,” said spokesman Michael Peltier.

Discontent has been widespread among Citizens’ policyholders, who spent large sums of money on roof, window and other upgrades to earn windstorm mitigation discounts while protecting their homes against potential hurricane damage. In response, Citizens unveiled major changes to its home reinspection program last August, after consumers expressed outrage over media reports about a staggering $137 million in premium increases generated by the unpopular program.

Under its new plans, homeowners who lose insurance discounts because of a reinspection can receive a second inspection free of charge. They will have new tools to dispute the findings of the first reinspection. That decision could impact more than 200,000 property owners, who have already seen their premiums go up by an average of about $800 after the initial reinspection.

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Miami-Dade mayor says partnerships, technology will move county forward

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez will deliver his annual speech to the county Thursday, laying out his goals for revving up the local economy, promoting regional cooperation and improving a public transportation system that is, at best, inadequate.

In a wide-ranging interview previewing his state-of-the-county speech, Gimenez told The Miami Herald that he is optimistic about the county’s future, citing improved economic indicators and a record year for business at Miami International Airport and PortMiami, two major economic engines.

“I think we’re a hot commodity, and people are starting to see our potential,” he said. “We just need to keep our eye on the ball.”

Unlike his first speech a year ago, the political pressure is off this time for Gimenez, who in August was elected to his first full term in office. His first year amounted to a red-shirt season, completing the term of former Mayor Carlos Alvarez, who was ousted in a 2011 recall.

In Thursday’s speech, to be delivered at Liberty City’s Joseph Caleb Center, Gimenez will announce the creation of an advisory group to study rising property-insurance rates and make recommendations about how to lobby state lawmakers on the issue. The Florida Legislature regulates Citizens Property Insurance, the state’s insurer of last resort, which recently increased homeowners’ insurance rates and scaled back coverage.

“We’re going to look at why our people here are getting slammed,” Gimenez said.

A similar task force made recommendations last month to improve the county elections process. The county, however, generally has more control over elections than over property insurance.

The mayor will also promote an initiative — begun with Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho and already underway — to prevent youth violence. And he will tout a new partnership announced Wednesday in which the county will take part in technology giant IBM’s Smart cities program, which lets local governments test and use software to better analyze municipal data.

Among his successes in office, Gimenez will mention streamlining permitting at some county agencies — in some cases by three months, he said — posting employee salaries online and providing internships in his office to college students.

Looking to spur entrepreneurship and create local jobs, Gimenez’s administration also has committed $1 million in funding over four years to Launch Pad, in conjunction with the University of Miami. Launch Pad is a public/private partnership that introduces young technology businesses to each other to help them grow.

In his speech, the mayor will also throw his support behind Endeavor, a global nonprofit that works to accelerate entrepreneurship in metropolitan areas. The organization plans to set up shop in Miami after receiving a $2 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Taking the long view, Gimenez said he hopes to make it easier for commuters to take public transportation between Miami Beach and the mainland and from Kendall to the urban core. The mayor said he doesn’t have any specific plans yet — or money to finance them — but said that clogged streets are getting in the way of residents’ productivity.

By way of example, Gimenez said he left County Hall in downtown Miami at 5 p.m. on a recent afternoon for a 6:30 p.m. event at the Hammocks, in West Kendall.

“I didn’t make it,” he said. “I can’t imagine your having to do that every day. We’re wasting time. We’re spending money. We’re spending gas.”

For those and other big-ticket improvements, including looming, extensive water-and-sewer piping that will have to be replaced soon because it is so antiquated, Gimenez said Miami-Dade won’t be able to count on much state or federal financial aid. Instead, there will be some water-rate hikes in coming years, he said, and future transportation projects might be partnerships involving heavy private-sector investments.

“More and more, it’s likely that we’re going to have to do these things ourselves,” he said.

Better than going at it alone, Gimenez said, would be teaming up with counties with similar issues to share ideas and work together for funding and state support. To that end, Gimenez had dinner last year in St. Petersburg with the mayors of Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa. He also has hosted the mayors of Broward and Palm Beach counties to brainstorm ways to work together.

“People have been very good and very successful at dividing us, and we’ve done that to ourselves,” Gimenez said. “We should have a lot more in common than we have differences.”

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Pope Benedict XVI Sends Out Final Tweet

He was the first pope to have a Twitter account, and on Feb. 28, Pope Benedict XVI sent out his final tweet to his 1.5 million followers proceeding his final public address to 150,000 in St. Peter's Square in Rome, Italy. So, what were his final words under 140 characters?

The pope wrote on Thursday: "Thank you for your love and support. May you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ at the centre of your lives."

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Pope Benedict XVI announced earlier this month that he would be stepping down, making him the first living pope to resign in 598 years. Elected in 2005 after the death of Pope John Paul II at age 84, Benedict, 85, said from the onset of his papacy that he anticipated a short reign as the 265th leader of the Catholic Church.

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Pope Benedict addressed the crowds in the small Italian town Castel Gandolfo for the final time on Thursday, sending his blessings to all.

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Still no strip clubs for 'Big Daddy' boss: judge

No lap dances for you!

A former strip club impresario who made his hooker dancers call him "Big Daddy" had a big disappointment today -- a Manhattan judge slapped down his bid to be sprung early from probation, effectively barring him from even setting foot inside a wiggle joint for another two years.

Lou Posner is a model probationer -- but officials still need to keep him on a short leash, a judge ruled.

Probation supervision is the only way the courts can be sure that Posner stays away from the adult entertainment business, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus ruled.

Steven Hirsch

Louis (Big Lou) Posner outside of court.

Under the terms of his probation, Posner can't run a strip joint or even go to one.

"The court's directive excluding defendant from the many facets of the 'adult entertainment' industry is only enforceable as long as defendant remains on probation," the judge wrote.

"I'm disappointed," Posner said as he left court, griping that keeping him on probation is a waste of taxpayers money. Posner has been working as a commercial real estate broker.

Posner had pleaded guilty in a 2010 no-jail deal, admitting to pimping women out of his "Big Daddy Lou's Hot Lap Dance Club on W. 38th St. His probation expires in April, 2015.

A now-disbarred lawyer, he'd repped himself in the failed probation application.

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Don’t get too personal on LinkedIn

Have you ever received a request to connect on LinkedIn from someone you didn’t know or couldn’t remember?

A few weeks ago, Josh Turner encountered this situation. The online request to connect came from a businessman on the opposite coast of the United States. It came with a short introduction that ended with “Let’s go Blues!” a reference to Turner’s favorite hockey team in St. Louis that he had mentioned in his profile. “It was a personal connection … that’s building rapport.”

LinkedIn is known for being the professional social network where members expect you to keep buttoned-down behavior and network online like you would at a business event. With more than 200 million registered users, the site facilitates interaction as a way to boost your stature, gain a potential customer or rub elbows with a future boss.

But unlike most other social networking sites, LinkedIn is all about business — and you need to take special care that you act accordingly. As in any workplace, the right amount of personal information sharing could be the foot in the door, say experts. The wrong amount could slam it closed.

“Anyone in business needs a professional online presence,’’ says Vanessa McGovern, the VP of Business Development for the Global Institute for Travel Entrepreneurs and a consultant to business owners on how to use LinkedIn. But they should also heed LinkedIn etiquette or risk sending the wrong messages.

One of the biggest mistakes, McGovern says is getting too personal — or not personal enough.

Sending a request to connect blindly equates to cold calling and likely will lead nowhere. Instead, it should come with a personal note, an explanation of who you are, where you met, or how the connection can benefit both parties, McGovern explains.

Your profile should get a little personal, too, she says. “Talk about yourself in the first person and add a personal flair — your goals, your passion … make yourself seem human.”

Beyond that, keep your LinkedIn posts, invitations, comments and photos professional, McGovern says.

If you had a hard day at the office or your child just won an award, you may want to share it with your personal network elsewhere — but not on LinkedIn.

“This is not Facebook. Only share what you would share at a professional networking event,” she says.

Another etiquette pitfall on LinkedIn is the hit and run — making a connection and not following up.

At least once a week, Ari Rollnick, a principal in kabookaboo, an integrated marketing agency in Coral Gables, gets a request to connect with someone on LinkedIn that he has never met or heard of before. The person will have no connections in common and share no information about why they want to build a rapport.

“I won’t accept. That’s a lost opportunity for them,” Rollnick says.

He approaches it differently. When Rollnick graduated from Emory with an MBA in 2001, he had a good idea that his classmates would excel in the business world. Now, Rollnick wanted to find out just where they went and reestablish a connection.

With a few clicks, he tracked down dozens of them on LinkedIn, requested a connection, and was back on their radar. Then came the follow-up — letting them know through emails, phone calls and posts that he was creating a two-way street for business exchange. “Rather than make that connection and disappearing , I let them know I wanted to open the door to conversation.”

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Two charged with taking protected live sharks from the Keys

For the second time in weeks, federal prosecutors have ordered the arrest of people for illegally taking live sharks out of the Florida Keys.

Two officials of Idaho Aquarium Inc. in Boise were indicted on federal charges of conspiracy and illegally purchasing four spotted eagle rays and two lemon sharks, all protected species and all from Keys waters.

Ammon Covino, 39, president of Idaho Aquarium, and corporate secretary Christopher Conk, 40, were arraigned late last week in Idaho and ordered to appear in U.S. District Court in Key West on March 15.

The Idaho Aquarium is a display facility covering 10,000 square feet operating in a converted Boise warehouse. Listed as a nonprofit educational center, the aquarium opened in late 2011. It claims to offer "over 250 different species of animals and marine life" for the $9 adult admission fee.

The indictment from November was unsealed this month.

On Feb. 7, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami unsealed a separate indictment against two Broward County aquarium suppliers. They were charged with conspiracy to acquire and resell juvenile nurse sharks without a required permit, and angelfish larger than the maximum size allowed. Those fish from the Keys allegedly were sold to a Michigan buyer.

"While both cases relate to the marine living resources of the Florida Keys and involve violations of the Lacey Act, predicated in part on [Florida law], there is no public record material to suggest there is any other relationship between the cases," said Alicia Valle, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office.

In the indictment against Idaho Aquarium and its officials, prosecutor Thomas Watts-Fitzgerald wrote that the defendants knowingly conspired with fish collectors in the Keys to have the rays and sharks captured without permits and shipped north.

After being offered $1,250 for each live eagle ray, an unnamed fish collector eventually told Covino that permits needed to take the rays could not be obtained. Covino reportedly answered, "Just start doing it.... Who gives a ...".

The collector reportedly shipped three eagle rays in May 2012 and another in June 2012. All were sent to Covino at the Idaho Aquarium.

A second unnamed collector reportedly was solicited by Conk in June for two lemon sharks. The collector said no capture permits for lemon sharks are being issued so "the transaction would have to be conducted on the 'down low,' " the indictment says.

In a later conversation, Covino is accused of saying the lack of permits for the lemon sharks was "no big deal." The lemon sharks were purchased for $650 each and sent to Idaho in October.

Neither collector was named in the indictment.

According to the U.S. District Court documents, Covino and Conk could receive prison terms of up to five years on each of four counts.

The Idaho Aquarium could be fined $500,000. The government is seeking to seize Conk's 2005 Ford pickup truck, reportedly used to transport the fish from an airport.

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Adorable Tots: Celebs and their Cute Kids!

Rachel Zoe

Celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe's little fashionisto Skyler Berman had a playdate with a fellow style-savvy toddler at a park in Beverly Hills on Feb. 26, 2013. These could be the tiniest hipsters we've ever seen!

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