The Palm Bayer

Palm Bay, FL -- Palm Bay’s fiscal year 2027 budget cycle opened Wednesday night with a single number on the board: $15 million. That is the size of the cut Deputy City Manager Brian Robinson told the City Council the administration is now targeting, walking back from an initial blanket “20% across the board” reduction order that, by his own accounting, would have produced only about $3 million in...

Brevard Schools Disables Canvas After Cyberattack; Parents Told to Watch for Phishing Brevard Public Schools shut off student access to Canvas this week after Instructure, the company that owns the platform, confirmed a cybersecurity incident perpetrated by a criminal threat actor between May 1 and May 6. The criminal group calling itself ShinyHunters claims data on roughly 275 million users acros...

Palm Bay, FL -- The City Council passed a citywide ban on new cannabis dispensaries, cleared the path for a 1,198-acre residential development on the city's western edge, and approved a rezoning that overrode the Planning and Zoning Board's 4-1 denial, all at the same meeting Thursday night. The votes on the Everlands West development package and the Centerpointe Church rezoning split 3-2 and 4-1...

Palm Bay, FL -- The Planning and Zoning Board on May 6 voted unanimously to recommend denial of a proposed gas station at the northwest corner of Emerson Drive NW and Glen Cove Avenue NW, then voted 5-2 to send a citywide ban on new medical marijuana dispensing facilities to the City Council with a favorable recommendation. A staff-initiated comprehensive plan amendment to set fire and police leve...

Palm Bay, FL -- The City of Palm Bay has formally noticed a municipal primary election for August 18, 2026. Two council seats are on the ballot. The qualifying window opens June 8 and closes June 12 at noon. Five candidates have announced. The notice was posted May 4 and signed by Terese M. Jones, CMC, City Clerk. It sets the schedule the candidates, the Supervisor of Elections, and the voters now...

Palm Bay, FL -- Three consecutive days of brushfires inside The Compound forced six homes to evacuate by reverse 9-1-1 on April 30 and brought in mutual aid from three outside agencies. The Florida Forest Service is now staging bulldozers on the property as a precaution. The week ahead brings nightly I-95 ramp closures at Malabar Road, a Brevard County Commission meeting that certifies Palm Bay as...

Palm Bay, FL -- The May 7 Regular Council Meeting carries one of the heaviest agendas of the year. A citywide cannabis dispensary ban hits first reading. A 33-home subdivision returns for final adoption after the Planning and Zoning Board voted to deny it. The 1,198-acre Palm Vista Everlands West package is back from a continuance. The first South Regional Water Reclamation Facility status update...

Palm Bay, FL -- The Planning and Zoning Board meets Wednesday, May 6 at 6:00 PM in City Hall Council Chambers, 120 Malabar Road SE. The board has four items: a proposed ordinance to ban new cannabis dispensaries citywide, a conditional use request for a gas station and drive-through restaurant in northwest Palm Bay, a Comprehensive Plan amendment establishing measurable public safety response-time...

Palm Bay, FL -- A Palm Bay man is sitting in the Brevard County jail without bond after investigators say he spent months using a dead acquaintance's government benefits cards, charging the man's credit cards, and using the man's personal identity. The victim, identified by surname as Berry, was reported missing last year. His remains were found in a wooded area off Santo Domingo Ave SW near Jupit...

Palm Bay, FL -- Two parks close tomorrow for long-planned renovation work, utility billing shifts to monthly after years on a quarterly schedule, and Saturday is packed with community events. Here is what you need to know for the week of April 27. Parks Closures: Starting Monday Two city parks go offline tomorrow, Monday, April 27, for renovation work funded through CDBG, the federal Community Dev...

Fortune 500 Takes Over Palm Bay’s Harley-Davidson Dealership Palm Bay, FL -- Space Coast Harley-Davidson, Palm Bay’s only Harley-Davidson dealership, changed hands April 21, 2026. Sonic Automotive, a Fortune 500 chain with $15.2 billion in 2025 revenue, closed on a five-dealership acquisition that ends more than fourteen years of local ownership at 1440 Sportsman Lane NE. The Sale Sonic Automotive...

Palm Bay, FL -- Today is the last day the city will mail a quarterly utility bill. The Utilities Department cut its final quarterly invoice on April 23, 2026, closing the book on a billing cycle that has been in place for decades. For about 12,000 households, the next bill will not arrive in July as a three-month lump. It will arrive July 23 as a single monthly charge, and it will be the first of...

Editor’s note: Heads up for regular readers — I’m in surgery Monday morning for a reverse total shoulder arthroplasty (replacement) at Palm Bay Hospital. Yes, the same hospital this article is about. Expect a slower publishing pace for about a week. Prayers and well wishes are appreciated. — TG Palm Bay, FL -- Health First has formally filed its Palm Bay Hospital expansion package with the city. T...

Watch the newscast: YouTube (16:9) | Short Palm Bay, FL -- Two civic workstreams move forward this week, a new oversight body holds its organizational meeting, and summer camp registration opens Sunday at palmbayfl.gov/daycamps . Meetings This Week Monday, April 21 at 4 PM: LDC Workshop 4 The fourth and final Land Development Code workshop takes up processes and transparency. This closes out Phase...

Editor's note: Substack's email edition limits the length of our detailed reports. The complete article — including full documentation and all visuals — is available at news.thepalmbayer.com: Palm Bay Council’s $2.4M emergency wastewater vote . Palm Bay, FL -- The City Council on April 16 authorized roughly $2.4 million in emergency procurement to finish the South Regional Water Reclamation Facili...

Here's what you need to know for the week of April 13. Council Meeting Thursday: Everlands West is Back Thursday is the big one. City Council meets at 6 PM for a regular meeting that includes three public hearings. The headline item: Everlands West. The proposal calls for 2,360 units on nearly 1,200 acres near Saint Johns Heritage Parkway. Council denied it in 2023. The Planning and Zoning Board a...

Palm Bay, FL -- On May 6, the Space Coast Transportation Planning Organization will celebrate Bike & Roll to School Day. Schools across Brevard County are invited to participate. Kids ride their bikes, parents cheer, everyone posts photos. They celebrate biking to school one day a year on roads they've designated too dangerous to walk on the other 179. That is not a rhetorical flourish. It is what...

Palm Bay, FL -- Starting Sunday, April 12, the two median openings on Malabar Road between San Filippo Boulevard and I-95 will be closed. For the next 12 months, drivers who normally cut across traffic at those gaps will have to find another route. The change is not a detour. It is an experiment. And the results will determine whether those turn options come back at all. The Florida Department of...

Palm Bay, FL -- The Planning and Zoning Board approved Everlands West 4-1 on April 1. Every news outlet that covered the vote treated it as a green light. It is not. The conditions the board attached to that approval on police staffing, fire response, and transportation may be harder to satisfy than the vote itself was to get. And council will take it up on April 16 without the enforcement tools i...

Palm Bay, FL -- The city’s Recreation Advisory Board met Tuesday evening and spent the better part of two hours navigating a familiar tension: programs that are working, projects that aren’t, and a growing frustration that approved initiatives keep stalling while the city keeps growing. The frustration wasn’t politely implied. It was stated directly. Pickleball: 21 Months and Counting The city cou...

Palm Bay, FL -- Two elementary schools serving southwest Palm Bay are already above 100% capacity. The middle school serving that same area lacks sufficient capacity to absorb projected students. Bayside High is at 90% and projected to cross 100% by 2027. And development proposals for thousands of additional homes in those attendance zones keep arriving at City Hall. School concurrency is Florida’...

Here’s what you need to know for the week of April 6. Recap The Jones compound case took a major turn last week. Prosecutors upgraded the charge to second-degree murder under Florida Statute 782.04.2-Y, dangerous depraved without premeditation. Jones was re-arrested April 1 and remanded April 2 with no bond. Five search warrants have been executed. The April 21 arraignment has been cancelled per t...

Palm Bay, FL -- The construction boom that reshaped Palm Bay’s neighborhoods, taxed its roads, and strained its water and sewer systems has been cooling off since mid-2024. The Palm Bayer analyzed 39,187 building permits pulled from the city’s Integrated Management System (IMS) between March 2024 and March 2026. The data tells a clear story: permits peaked in May 2024 and have been falling since,...

Palm Bay, FL -- If your yard waste pile has been sitting at the curb longer than usual, you’re not imagining it. The city posted a notice on April 3 explaining what’s going on, and the numbers are significant. The volume of yard waste collected this March was 61% higher than the same period last year. The cause is the recent freeze, which killed or damaged vegetation across Palm Bay on a scale tha...

Palm Bay, FL -- The City Council passed three ordinances Thursday night that restructure how Palm Bay’s government is organized, approved a $2,054,397.93 payment to the IRS for excess bond interest earnings, and heard from residents frustrated by unreliable bus service and a three-and-a-half-year property access dispute. The April 2 Regular Council Meeting also brought an update showing the city’s...