The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 29

i ne raim Keacn rosi for Mil See list of agencies to contact to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, 2C Indian Trail Improvement District office manager resigns, 3C SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2005 PaimEeachPost.com An underwater memorial now honors Peter Firehock, killed in 2001, who served Delray Beach Fire-Rescue for 23 years. L.II LUIP.U 1 I I BI I III Emily J. Minor My Marlins can use your help to hit potential If good to be a Marlins fan. I know this because I sit near a Cubs fan, and a guy from Baltimore. Talk about torment ,1 4 11 7'V --z-- r' -1 -A i.l.

I on me omer nana, nave my Marlins. Sure, they underachieve and Dontrelle Willis is prone to choking when his family shows up to watch and not enough people go to the games. The half-dressed Marlin Mermaids are an embarrassment to both baseball and humanity. Teal is not anyone's best color. But when you love the Marlins, you love the Marlins although I do know a guy who threw his transistor radio during a particularly ugly Josh Beckett outing.

We're getting to the point in the season where we must consider the end and it may, or may not, go our way. The ESPN gods once predicted the Marlins were a good World Series bet Now, they're growing impatient making cracks about the team's potential. From my experience, when someone looks you in the eye and starts talking about your potential, it's not going to be a pleasant conversation. The Marlins play the Mets at home this weekend, and there's still a good chance of October baseball in South Flori- -da. So for you late-bloomers and there are about a zillion of you who continue to arrive late to the season here is what you must know to love my team: Miguel Cabrera, left field, possibly the most adorable human on earth, next to third baseman Mike Lowell.

Cabrera, 22, and his wife, Rosangel, just had a baby girl Thursday. (They induced on a Marlins' off day.) Get used to looking at his sweet face. Hell probably be in every All-Star Game from here to eternity, no matter what team he's with. W. Lowell, third base, my favorite player.

A Miami boy whose parents are from Cuba, he's married to his high school BRUCE R. BENNETTStaff Photographer A crane submerges a memorial southeast of Palm Beach Inlet for Peter Firehock, who helped establish Delray Beach Fire-Rescue's dive-rescue team. Mirers Die irembeir(d By RON HAYES Palm Beach Post Staff Writer A good measure of the enduring friendship and devotion that professional firefighters and paramedics share can be found on the wrm I Mi lit ifi il fcwniW-iiiB I ocean's floor today, a mile and a half southeast of Palm Beach Inlet 90 feet below the waves. In Loving Memory Peter Firehock 1953-2001. A 23-year veteran of Delray Beach Fire-Rescue, Firehock had helped establish the department's dive-rescue team, then went on to train rescue-divers and compete Where the waves are calm The water is clear And the marine life is plentiful A fiery orange sun was just rising over the barrel-tile roofs of Palm Beach when about 25 of Firehock's friends and colleagues began gathering Friday morning at the Riviera Beach Marina.

By 7, when a barge bearing the memorial statue slipped past Peanut Island and out to sea, the sun was full and the crowd smiling, greeting old friends, admiring the diver sculpted on the memorial, never mentioning the crime that had brought them all to the barge. Firehock, 48, was struck and killed on Quantum Boulevard in Boynton Beach on Dec. 22, 2001. Police believe he had happened on Oc-tavio Berrera III disposing of the body of Beth Nowell, 34, a prostitute whom he'd earlier struck and killed, See REEF, 6C Firehock in diving competitions and safety events throughout the state. Peter was the ultimate professional who always gave more of himself than he expected in return.

May he rest in peace BRUCE R. BENNETTStafl Ptiotographef Allison Lytle (front) and sister Tammy watch as flowers they scattered are swept away. Their mother, Debbie, was Peter Firehock's girlfriend. Corbett flood blamed on blocked canal As charters mushroom, so do pleas for controls Mecca Farms releases were not the problem, a county engineering study says. the storm from draining quickly out of Corbett's youth campground.

The county's permit with the South Florida Water Management District allows it to release water only when it flows over a weir around a large reservoir on the former orange grove known by the name of its former owner which will become home of a Scripps Research Institute campus. The permit prohibits the county from releasing water through the gate unless the integrity of the weir See CORBETT, 6C County officials Friday. The county's engineering consultant Mock, Roos Associates, determined that only about 30 percent of the water the county is allowed to discharge from Mecca Farms into the C-18 Canal was being released when Hurricane Katrina passed over the area last week. Wildlife officials complained to water managers last week that water was being illegally released through a "screw gate" on Mecca Farms, saying the discharge was preventing inches of rain caused by By JENNIFER SORENTRUE Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Recent flooding at the J.W. Corbett Wildlife Management Area was caused by problems with a nearby drainage canal, not water releases from Mecca Farms, according to a study released by Palm Beach By KIMBERLY MILLER Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Nearly a decade after the first charter schools opened in Florida, lawmakers, school district administrators and even charter school officials are frustrated about a con- BTwoschools tinued lack of con- can 0 trol over the "fran- chise public schools that have grown unfettered in the Sunshine sweetheart Bertha, a tormer Miami Heat dancer.

He survived testicular cancer in 1999, and then missed most of the 2003 post-season with a broken hand. Now he's in the worst batting slump of his career, and might not be back next year which would require me to be medicated for the entire 2006 season. (Oh well.) Todd Jones, closer. Was considering retirement before this season because no one wanted him. Now has 32 saves, 22 in a row.

Writes a column for The Sporting News and also for our Sunday sports page. Also often "miked up" for Fox. Has a funny, self-deprecating sense of humor. Luis Castillo, second base, and Alex Gonzalez, shortstop. These two have have choreographed more than 300 double plays during their eight years together.

Gonzalez likes to hit his home runs into the very corner of Dolphins Stadium, by the yellow foul pole in left field. Castillo is always limping, because he has bad legs. Luis, I like your legs. Willis, left-handed pitcher. Moved into the Seminole Hard Rock Casino hotel in Broward after his place in Miramar was broken into.

Happy, because he doesn't have to clean his room. (Cubs manager) Dusty Baker's wife was at his baby shower when his mom was still pregnant. Listens to rapper Jay-Z on his iPod and plays the movie Troy before every game he starts. Jack McKeon, manager. Not a man you want to anger.

Lives an oxymoron life: Swears like a sailor, but goes to Mass every day. Emily J. Minor, neurotic fan, likes to make signs to take to the games. Has been been try- ing to get on the stadium Jum-botron for 13 years. Worried it might have to do with a lack of cleavage.

Frustrated, but confident of her potential. emilyminotpbpostcom Royal Palm Beach names Romanian town as sister city State. This year, 56 new charter schools opened in Florida, pushing the total number to 338 a 20 percent increase from last school year and with private management firms finding Florida fertile ground, the number of charters is likely to continue to mushroom in coming years. This year alone, -Ohio-based White Hat Management opened six charter schools throughout the state, including one in Palm Beach County. Angered by how the Florida Department of Education has managed the 1996 charter school law, Republican Rep.

Ralph Arza, chairman of the House Education Committee, is asking for an independent government agency to oversee charter schools, but to date, lawmakers have been unsuccessful in tightening charter school rules. The Miami-Dade County See SCHOOLS, 6C By KELLY WOLFE Palm Beach Post Staff Writer ROYAL PALM BEACH Point to Ca-larasi, Romania, on a map. Anyone? Anyone? Well, then, introductions are in order. Because once everything is official, residents of Royal Palm Beach, Calarasi will be your sister city! The idea was initiated by a Calarasi resident here visiting his son Cristian David, who has lived in Bella Terra for three years. Cristian fled to the United States in 1991.

"Romania was hopeless, at least in my opinion," Cristian David said. But his father, Aurel David, 69, still lives there. "He thought of having an exchange of people and ideas between the two places," Cristian David said of his dad. See SISTER, 6C THOMAS CORDYStaff Ptiotographef Hurricane relief PALM BEACH GARDENS Pediatrician Tommy Schecht-man has his head checked Friday by Teal Rafael, 12, of Harahan, La. Teal visited the doctor with his mother, Marion, after they fled Hurricane Katrina.

Schechtman volunteered his services to treat Katrina victims. Story, 7C.