​September 12, 2017
 
The City of Vero Beach has resumed normal garbage collection on your regular scheduled days.  We will do normal yard debris pickup on Wednesday but only items bagged, bundled or containerized.  We will advise the pickup of hurricane debris as soon as possible.  Please be sure to place the debris at the roadside (not in the road).  Please be mindful not to place any debris on water meters, storm drains, fire hydrants, mail boxes or near phone/electric boxes.  It is important to keep yard trash separate from construction and demolition debris, fences, electronics, etc. 
 
Commercial businesses are back to their normal schedule pickups.
 
If you have any questions concerning this matter, please call our office at (772) 978-5300.
 
 
Vero Beach Solid Waste Division

​The STEP program meeting for Bethel Creek Basin Homeowners’ on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 at 6:30 p.m. located at Bethel Creek House, 4405 Highway A1A has been CANCELED.

Please check back on www.covb.org for the rescheduling. For more STEP information, see here: COVB STEP System.

​​Hurricane IRMA EOC Updates
 
Media release: September 6, 2017
 
The Indian River County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) would like to make you aware of the following:

• The EOC will conduct the following scheduled media briefings:
  • Thursday, September 7 at 2:00 PM at the EOC briefing room.
  • Friday, September 8, at 2:00 PM and 8:00 PM at the EOC briefing room.
  • Saturday, September 9, at 8:00 AM, 2:00 PM, and 8:00 PM at the EOC briefing room.
  • All media is encouraged and welcome to attend these briefings.
• All City of Vero Beach Recreation facilities and activities/programs held at Leisure Square, the Vero Beach Community Center, Riverside Racquet Complex and the fountains at Royal Palm Pointe will be closed beginning Friday, September 8th until further notice. In addition, City beaches including Jaycee Beach, Humiston Beach and South Beach will be unguarded beginning Friday, September 8th until further notice. Please visit www.covb.org for updates.
•  The Office of the Clerk to the Board and the Value Adjustment Board will be closed on Thursday, September 7, 2017 and Friday, September 8, 2017. The deadline to file a Petition with the Indian River County Value Adjustment Board has been extended to Wednesday, September 13th due to Hurricane Irma.
• The Mental Health Collaborative will be closed on Thursday, September 7 and Friday, September 8. Executive Director Brett Hall will be on call should a community need arise.
• The City of Sebastian will be open until noon on Friday, September 8. The Sebastian City Clerk's Office will be staffed until 4:30 PM on Friday for elections qualifications.
• The Indian River County Property Appraiser's Office will be closed at noon on Thursday, September 7th, and all day Friday, September 8th.
• Indian River County Traffic Operations is reducing the number of signal heads at all span wire intersection in preparation for Hurricane Irma. There will be only one signal head for each direction at most intersections, we are requesting that the public take extra care at these intersections.
• Waste Management will continue normal garbage and recycling service until Saturday morning.
• The following Indian River County Facilities will be closed beginning Friday:
  • Beaches
  • Parks
  • Shooting Range
  • Aquatic Centers
  • Libraries*
  • Intergenerational Center
  • Campgrounds
  • Sandridge Golf Course**

                    *The Brackett Library will also be closed on Thursday
                    **Sandridge will provide tee times until noon on Friday.
 
###
 
All press releases will be posted to social media.
 
For press inquiries please contact:



Major Eric S. Flowers, M.S.,
Bureau of Administration
Indian River County Sheriff's Office
4055 41st Avenue, Vero Beach, FL 32960
(772) 473-8181

CLOSURE ANNOUNCEMENTS for SENIOR RESOURCE ASSOCIATION and INDIAN RIVER
TRANSIT due to HURRICANE IRMA
Due to the high potential threat of Hurricane Irma to Indian River County and because safety is of the utmost importance to our clients and staff, Senior Resource Association (SRA) and Indian River Transit will be operating on the following schedule:

As we value our employees and their families’ safety, as well as those we serve, the above closures are necessary. Please be safe during this time. To stay up-to-date on openings and closures for any of the above services, please contact 772-569-0903, 772-473-2935 or 772-559-2284. Schedules will also be posted to SeniorResourceAssociation.org.

For community information and weather updates, contact the Indian River County  Emergency Operations Center at 772-226-3900

The 4th of July is upon us!! Did you also know that weekends & holiday's are also big days for ATM Fraud? While you may think you know what card skimmers look like, did you also know that some of these devices cover the WHOLE ATM?!?!  There are also devices out there that actually "trap" money as it is deposited or dispensed.

If you are a business operator that may have an ATM on your site, this document is very helpful for you to spot a compromised device. As a consumer, it is also good to know what these devices look like and how they work.

REMEMBER: The best defense against most of these devices is to simply cover/hide the PIN pad as you enter the PIN since most depend on a camera catching what numbers you press. While there are skimmers out there that mimic the PIN pad, these are much more expensive for the crooks to use themselves and are not as common.

Check out the document or images below for examples! This information will remain in our "Fraud/Scams" section of our page.

A team of assessors from the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation (CFA) will arrive August 22, 2017 to examine all aspects of the Vero Beach Police Department’s policies and procedures, management, operations, and support services, Chief David E. Currey announced today.  The Vero Beach Police Department has to comply with approximately 238 standards in order to receive accredited status.  Many of the standards are critical to life, health and safety issues. 

As part of the on-site assessment, agency members and the general public are invited to offer comments to the assessment team.  A copy of the standards is available through The Vero Beach Police Department’s Public Information Officer in Vero Beach  at 772-978-4649.

For more information regarding CFA or for persons wishing to offer written comments about the Vero Beach Police Department’s  ability to meet the standards of accreditation, please write: CFA, P.O. Box 1489, Tallahassee, Florida  32302, or email to info@flaccreditation.org.

The Accreditation Program Manager for the Vero Beach Police Department is Lt. Matthew Monaco.  He said the assessment team is composed of law enforcement practitioners from similar agencies.  The assessors will review written materials; interview individuals; and visit offices and other places where compliance can be witnessed.  The CFA Assessment Team Leader is Lt. John T. Lamb from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.  Other team members are Lt. Nicole Minick from the Collier County Sheriff’s Office and Officer Jill D. Smith from Bay Harbor Island Police Department.

Once the Commission’s assessors complete their review of the agency, they report back to the full Commission, which will then decide if the agency is to receive accredited status.  The Vero Beach Police Department’s accreditation is for 3 years.  Verification by the team that the Vero Beach Police Department meets the Commission’s standards is part of a voluntary process to gain or maintain accreditation--a highly prized recognition of law enforcement professional excellence, Chief David E. Currey said.

Today we had a very special visitor stop by the station to show her gratitude to Sgt. William Offutt. As you may, or may not know each school day officers from the Vero Beach Police Department are on site at each of the school zones within our jurisdiction to make sure everyone's children are safe when arriving and leaving from school.

One student at St. Helen's Catholic school had a project to tell everyone who their Hero is. Maddy choose Sgt. William Offutt because after she asked her parents why an officer was at her school her parents explained that he was there to protect them. 

For the service that Sgt. Offutt does each school day, he was chosen as Maddy's Hero!

Check out her pictures below with the Vero Beach Police Dept on her visit today, and the poster that she made for Sgt. Offutt (who was sadly out this week, but he will see this!)

The City of Vero Beach has issued a precautionary boil water notice for all residents and businesses served by the Vero Beach water system. A power loss occurred at the Water Treatment Plant around 10:00 a.m., April 10, 2017, and as a result the water pressure dropped below 20 pounds per square inch (20 psi). Service has been fully restored, however, as a precaution we advise that all water used for drinking or cooking be boiled. A rolling boil of one minute is sufficient. As an alternative bottled water may be used.
This "Precautionary Boil Water Notice" will remain in effect until bacteriological testing shows that the water is safe to drink. We are unable to provide an exact time for the rescission of this notice. However, we estimate the time to be no more than 72 hours. 
If you have any questions you may contact the 
City of Vero Beach Water & Sewer Department at (772) 978-5220.
​

Small businesses are becoming a more lucrative target for Cyber scams these days, for a myriad of reasons:

• Most companies that are very small, <50, might not have the resources to have a full-time IT specialist.
• Without a dedicated IT person more items are purchases and used in a 'Turn it on and Forget' mentality.
• If they do use an IT Firm for the initial setup, do they have them come back and perform security patches on their devices, etc for new threats?
• They may have a local IT specialist they are using (family friend, someone's relative) that may know how to set things up, but may not be up to date on the recent threats. 
• Your local IT support could get compromised on their personal computers, spilling the details of how they 'remotely' help you!

The Learning Alliance will be hosting the third annual Moonshot Moment Day of Service on November 14th, 2016.  The Indian River County’s Sheriff’s Office is going to show their support by sponsoring the first “Moonshot Book Em” project.  In conjunction with other local law enforcement (Fellsmere Police Department, Sebastian Police Department, Vero Beach Police Department) the Sheriff’s Office will use the Moonshot Moment Bookmobile to deliver free books to families throughout Indian River County on the Day of Service.  This puts a new spin on being ‘booked’ by the police.
 
The goal is to ensure that every family has age-appropriate books in their home.  According to the Children’s literacy Foundation, 60% of low-income families have no age-appropriate books in their homes  Having books in the home has been proven to improve a child’s reading performance; cause children to read more and for longer lengths of time; and produce improved attitudes toward reading and learning among children. Children who live in print-rich environments and who are read to during the first years of life are much more likely to learn to read on schedule.   (Sources: http://clifonline.org/resources/research/ - Reading Literacy in the United States: Findings from the IEA Reading Literacy Study, 1996; and (Source: Reach Out and Read, Reading Aloud to Children: The Evidence, Archives for Disease Control, 2008)
 
If you would like to support this event, donated books can be dropped off at United Way, SignARama, Gifford Youth Achievement Center or the Vero Beach Museum of Art.
 
For more information about The Moonshot Moment Day of Service, please contact Marie O’Brien at 877-548-READ (7323) or send an email to mobrien@thelearningalliance.org. 

With the Holiday season right around the corner there are many events that are scheduled throughout the City that you can participate in and celebrate!!  Here are some that are partially sponsored by the City of Vero Beach....and there will probably be more to announce!!