Palm Beach County Administrator Bob Weisman told a roomful of Acreage residents on Thursday that he had cancer and underwent surgery last year to treat it.

It was the first time Weisman has discussed his cancer publicly. The revelation came during a meeting of several hundred residents concerned about a potential brain-cancer cluster in their community, where state environmental regulators plan to draw samples from private drinking water wells.

“I personally suffer from cancer,” Weisman told the crowd. “I had surgery last year. I’m in testing right now. I live in Wellington on public water. My neighbor has a different problem on public water in Wellington right next door from me. I can’t explain it. I don’t know why I got it. But these things just happen.”

Weisman declined to discuss the cancer in more detail Friday.

Some residents at the meeting wanted to know why the county hasn’t done more to connect the community to public utility lines.

Weisman said his daughter lives in The Acreage with her husband.

“My daughter is of child-bearing age and she lives in the central north Acreage. She has lived there for a year. She just got married. She is living there right now, but that is not why we do anything here or not. These are all honest people who have their job. This is what they live for. Public health.”

Asked whether he would encourage his daughter to stay in the neighborhood, Weisman said: “Yes, because I don’t know there is a problem that I can identify.”

Tags: Acreage cancer cluster, Bob Weisman

This entry was posted on Friday, July 31st, 2009 at 9:58 pm and is filed under health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.