If Palm Beach County Commissioner Jess Santamaria decides to run for reelection despite his complaints that half his job is a “waste of time,” he could face a Democratic primary challenge from Indian Trail Improvement District President Michelle Damone.

Damone was among the elected officials who attended last week’s Tallahassee meeting on cancer concerns in The Acreage — a meeting Santamaria skipped because it didn’t include face time with Gov. Charlie Crist.

“He should have been here. It was disappointing,” Damone said of Santamaria.

Read more in this week’s Politics column.

TALLAHASSEE — Palm Beach County Commissioner Jess Santamaria won’t be here this afternoon to talk with Gov. Charlie Crist’s staff about elevated childhood cancer rates in his commission district.

Santamaria said he wanted an extended sit-down with the governor himself to discuss the cancer cluster in The Acreage. Instead Santamaria was told he’d be one of several people talking to Crist aides with the possibility the governor might briefly drop by.

“There’s going to be eight or nine people in the room with the assistants of Gov. Crist and sometime in the 20 or 30 minutes, he’s going to drop in. That’s not the type of meeting I hoped to have,” Santamaria said this morning.

Instead, Santamaria said he’s been working with Sen. Bill Nelson’s office to try to assure more testing in The Acreage.

(more…)

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.”

PALM BEACH GARDENS — Gov. Charlie Crist, attending a biosciences powwow at Palm Beach Community College this morning, said he’s aware of the concerns of residents of The Acreage about a potential cancer cluster in their community.

“I am aware of it and naturally I’m concerned about it,” Crist said in response to a question from reporters. He noted the state Department of Health is looking into the matter.

After Acreage residents tallied 46 cases of people with malignant or benign brain tumors or cysts in the brain in three zip codes (33470, 33412 and 33411), Sen. Bill Nelson held a public forum and DOH said it will determine by next month whether the incidence rate for the disease is greater than it should be. If the numbers exceed what would be expected, the agency could launch an investigation.

Crist, a Republican who’s running for U.S. Senate in 2010, voiced some doubts about the massive health care reform effort being pushed by President Obama and congressional Democrats.

(more…)