Monday, July 13, 2026

SJC'S CAPTIVE "THREE STOOGES": -- LOUCHE LAPDOGS FOR DEVELOPERS? ST. JOHNS COUNTY COMMISSIONERS: ROY ALAIMO, JR., SARAH ARNOLD & CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST

UPDATE JULY 9, 2026:  "TIME WOUNDS ALL HEELS," as my Mother said it best. ARNOLD and WHITEHURST facing criminal charges for election fraud on phony GOP voting mailing. 

Update of March 9, 2023 post: On July 10, 2024, Senior United States District Court Judge Harvey E. Schlesinger found that their effort to criminalize Commissioner Krista Keating-Joseph's free speech rights was unconstitutional.  Judge Schelessinger issued an injunction against any criminal prosecution for speaking her mind in Commission meetings.  The three stooges, and compliant Commissioner Isaac Henry Dean did not respond.when I asked if they had read Judge Schlessinger's injunction.  They did not apologize for their censure vote on December 5, 2023.  Instead, they doubled down, once again, at their July 16, 2023 meeting, Unjust stewards. Developer lapdogs.  Retaliatory reprobates. Vote them out!/div>


TEDIOUS TERMAGANT TRAVIS HUTSON TEAM PLAYERS?
TRAVI$ HUT$ON AND OTHER DEVELOPER-PIGS' THREE SOCK PUPPETS?: 
ROY ALAIMO, JR. (appointed by DeSANTIS term up 2024)
$ARAH ARNOLD (appointed by DeSANTIS, she then used HUTSON keiretsu money and won closed Republican Primary in 2022, term up 2026), 
CHRI$TIAN (sic) WHITEHUR$T, (supported by developer-Senator HUTSON, term up 2024)
a/k/a "The Three Stooges" or "Three Little Pigs"

Like TRUMP, TRAVIS JAMES HUTSON loves the uneducated. 
Neither ARNOLD nor WHITEHURST are college-educated.
Manchurian candidates without critical thinking skills?
Pals of HUTSON.
Uneducated, unsophisticated, uncouth and unkind.
The kind of people you don't want in public office.







Owner of one of the fastest-growing real estate firms in the Nation, conflicted Developer-Senator 
TRAVIS JAMES HUTSON with newly elected cat's paw Commissioner, now Commission Chairman 
 CHRI$TIAN WHITEHUR$T and conflicted Republican Executive Committee Chair and DeSANTIS appointee as Clerk of Courts and Comptroller BRANDON J. PATTY, on election night 2020.
https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2023/01/travis-hutson-family-real-estate.html

Senator-developer TRAVIS JAMES HUTSON is "blessed" to have financed with dark money campaign contributions the "regulatory capture" of St. Johns County Commissioners like DeSANTIS appointee SARAH ARNOLD and current Commission Chairman CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST.
Was developer-Senator HUTSON "born on third base and thinks he hit a triple," in the words of the late Texas Governor Ann Richards about George W. Bush?  

Above is HUTSON with two of his estimable pals: Clerk of Courts BRANDON J. PATTY and St. Johns County Commission Chairman CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST. Below is HUTSON with another porcine prostitute, HUNTER SINCLAIR CONRAD.
County Administrator HUNTER SINCLAIR CONRAD, then a candidate for Clerk of Courts and Comptroller, with Senator-developer TRAVIS JAMES HUTSON in 2016.  Developers, Sheriff DAVID SHOAR and their keiretsu contributed to CONRAD"s 2016, campaign, including $8000 "intended as a bribe" from PENN CREDIT CORP. and its owner, DONALD DONAGHER, JR, as alleged in a 2019 federal criminal indictment in Chicago.  

Our putative once-local newspaper, owned by GANNETT, never reported that CONRAD was "Clerk E," an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal criminal indictment for bribery, although GANNETT's Palm Beach Post reported that the Palm Beach County Clerk of Courts was one of the clerks receiving alleged bribes.  St. Johns County residents did not know this when, on November 19, 2019, County Commissioners fired County Administrator MICHAEL DAVID WANCHICK, and named CONRAD the County Administrator Ad Interim.  Without a background investigation, national search or even bothering to consider any other candidates, Jim Crow County Commissioners hired CONRAD, who did not meet the minimum eligibility requirements for the position.  CONRAD is the privileged son of the pastor of a Baptist megachurch.  With his position as County Administrator renewed March 7, 2023 by vote of craven County Commissioners, CONRAD now has a sinecure until 2026.

More on CONRAD:































Like all of the world's kleptocrats, HUTSON needs kakistocrats to help him do his dirty work.

Does he have three on St. Johns County Commission-- ROY ALAIMO, JR., SARAH ARNOLD and CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST, part of a small secretive group of arachnid apparatchiks, sometimes called (or calling themselves) the "rat pack?"

They're more like the "Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight," as demonstrated by their self-defeating pattern of contempt for democracy and our republican form of government.

Their pal JEREMIAH RAY BLOCKER managed to get elected Commissioner, be a reliable developer toady, but offend LGBTQ people by blocking a Pride Proclamation, leading to his loss to Krista Keating-Joseph in the August 23, 2022 closed Republican Primary.
 
Recent DeSANTIS Commission appointee ROY ALAIMO, JR. was so maladroit that he doubled down on BLOCKER's blockage the Pride Proclamation. BLOCKER never publicly discussed his reasons. But ideological ally, ROY ALAIMO, JR. as REC Chair, sent an anti-Gay fundraising e-mail angry at the Pride Proclamation lawsuit, brandishing animus in another fundraising letter at the idea that any Democrat should ever serve on any local government board. 

We shall call them "The Three Stooges."




ROY ALAIMO, JR., then Republican Executive Committee Chair, with State Representative and former County Commissioner CYNDI STATEVENSON, recently kicked to the curb by Senator-developer HUTSON, who has endorsed TOM LEEK.  

ALAIMO is a vituperative right-wing partisan who sent hateful fundraising letters excoriating "The Left" and "Gays" over a simple request for a Pride Proclamation, ALAIMO was subject of a no confidence vote in the REC, but two days later, Governor RONALD DION DeSANTIS named his former District aide to a seat on County Commission, where he can use his long experience as a developer puppet on the Planning and Zoning Agency to help developers destroy what we know and love in St. Johns County.  Notice the resemblance between ALAIMO's face and a hog? This pompous parvenu recently listed his ex parte meetings with developers taking place in the office of DOUGLAS NELSON BURNETT, owner of St. Johns Law Group, one of two understudies of the late corrupt developer lawyer GEORGE MORRIS McCLURE.  I told Commissioners it us an appearance of improperly for a Commissioner to make a pilgrimage to a corporate law firm's office for a meeting.

You can't put lipstick on this pig.  Like my grandmother would say, "some people want to be somebody -- anybody!"  ALAIMO is such a slavish devotee of St. Johns County's deforestation machine that he actually praised a developer for successful capitalism, in voting for a project. What a ninny.

ALAIMO has never explained the business of his putative business, listed by Governor DeSANTIS's press release appointing ALAIMO to County Commission.  It was founded shortly before DeSANTIS appointed him. 






ARNOLD ZIFFEL


Commissioner Sarah S. Arnold







SARAH ARNOLD 


Speaking of hogs, there's haughty, heartless, hypocritical Vice Chair of County Commission SARAH ARNOLD.  No college education.  No significant work experience.  No sign of learning of scholarship.  In the words of Gertrude Stein, "There's no "there' there." 

Ornery ARNOLD's campaign manager was controversial former Alachua County Republican Chair, devious Dark Money ogre WILLIAM STAFFORD JONES.

She's a Know Nothing.  

Nothing on her Commissioner's page -- no background at all.  

Boy Governor RONALD DION DeSANTIS named this superficial Stepford Wife to St. Johns County Commission, at the recommendation of HUTSON, corporations and their attorneys.  No sense having Commissioners with a lick of sense when TRAVIS HUTSON and his cronies are busy clearcutting our forests, killing our wildlife, and building shoddy tract homes.  In the words of as Sesame of a 1971 Sesame Street song, "A pig is a pig is a pig."

From this blog:

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Who Gave St. Johns County Commissioner SARAH ARNOLD $177,300.00, and why??


  • SARAH ARNOLD is the preferred candidate of a pack of secretive dark money PACs, real state developers, lawyers, liquor, gambling and   industrial interests, who have contributed $177,300.00?   So what do the wealthy and those who serve them see in SARAH ARNOLD, who:
  • has little education or work experience?
  • wrote an insulting letter to a respected local environmentalist opposed to SilverLeaf?
  • refused to meet or speak with SilverLeaf opponents as a newly appointed Commissioner?  (County staff refused to share her contact information or to help arrange a meeting with constituents, while she was busily meeting with developer DAVID HUTSON and SilverLeaf lawyers). 
  • THEN cast her very first vote as a County Commissioner on December 21, 2021 -- a Christmas present for a generous devious developer, corrupt State Senator TRAVIS HUTSON & FAMILY?


You tell me. 

https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2022/07/who-gave-commissioner-sara-arnold.html

Tuesday, April 12, 2022

SARAH ARNOLD NEARS $140,000 FUNDRAISING IN FIRST MONTH

"Money is the mother's milk of politics." 
-- Jesse Marvin Unruh, California State Treasurer, 1975-1987 

My late mentor. United States Department of Labor Chief Administrative Law Judge Nahum Litt (1979-1995), advised me: 
"Always ask yourself, 'Cui bono?'  ('Who benefits?')"

Commissioner Sarah S. ArnoldQ: Who's donating to developer puppet SARAH ARNOLD's County Commission campaign?  

A: Rich people, including some who want to mulct and euchre the taxpayers and voters to support a 15% sales tax to reduce developers' responsibility for impact fees and property taxes, which four out of five Commissioners support (Paul Waldron, dissenting), that's who.

  • Developer DAVID HUTSON and five other family members, including conflicted, controversial State Senator TRAVIS HUTSON, a developer who uses his Senatorial position to advance his family's real estate development interests. 
  • Also contributing: Senator TRAVIS HUTSON's father, wife, brothers and other family members and their companies, located at Hartley Rd. address, Nature Walk Parkway address  and Woodmont Investments address on  University Blvd. 
  • Other real estate developers, including dodgy LLCs whose funding source might be foreign. 
  • Political Action Committees with unknown funding sources.
  • Lobbyists, whom backward St. Johns County Commission does not require to register.
  • Attorneys for the rich and powerful. 
  • Alcohol interests. 
  • Republican St. Johns County Commissioners. 
  • Flagler Hospital Board Chair, a former St. Augustine City Commissioner, who once demanded city fund a SLAPP suit against Historic City News editor Michael Gold.
  • The School Board's longtime lawyer, name partner in a 100-year old corporate law firm that bears the surname of St. Augustine's current Mayor and former state representative, whose father and grandfather served in the state legislature before him.  
  • RANDALL RINGHAVER, a half-billioniaire who was in the room and paid $50,000 to hear Presidential candidagte WILLARD MITT ROMNEY's pompous 2012 peroration about "the 47%" and whose RING POWER CORPORATION is being sued for its subjecting a Navy veteran to an intentional race discrimination and a racially hostirle working environment by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). (Case later settled.)

These are the rich and powerful Dull Republican donors funding SARAH ARNOLD's campaign for St. Johns County Commissioner in the wake of her appointment to the Second District County Commission seat (vacated by Hastings farmer Jeb Smith, when he resigned to head the Florida Farm Bureau). 

https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2022/04/sarah-arnold-nears-140000-fundraising.html



Our sweet Ophelia,... - Sarah Arnold for County Commission | Facebook

640 × 363
SASARAH ARNOLD


















Whitehurst family crest -- does the creature at the center vaguely resemble the Looney Tunes' cartoon character, The Tasmanian Devil?


ARNOLD's special friend is Commission Chairman CHRISTIAN WHITEURST,  with a face that's never been lived in, pie-faced, insecure developer cat's paw, also not college educated, with no significant life experience or signs of humility, who spoke before he ran for office to our County Commission in January 2020 opposing a national search for a newCounty Administrator, reading from a prepared text that if we hired an outsider, they might not know the difference between Hastings and Ponte Vedra.   He's a cat's paw for his pals, HUTSON and CONRAD.

WHITEHURST is most noted for his provincial Babbit-like biases and KKK-adjacent prejudices, including threatening and interrupting public. comment speakers, holding secret negotiations for a three year contract with his pal, County Administrator HUNTER SINCLAIR CONRAD, and making prejudiced remarks about "the kind of people" who receive HUD Section 8 housing vouchers, not wanting them in his county, and opposing creation of a Public Housing Agency, subject of my Fair Housing Act complaint to HUD,





https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2023/01/chairman-whitehurst-and-vice-chairman.html

https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2022/10/sunshine-violation-commissioners-deny.html


From this blog:


Monday, January 23, 2023

St. Johns County Commission Chair Christian WHITEHURST Cries, "Danger, Danger!" re: Proposed St. Johns County PHA (WJXT)






Lost In Space Danger GIF - Lost In Space Danger Robot GIFs



It happened in America, on the day after we honored the birthday of Rev. Dr.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

St. Johns County Commission Chairman CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST figuratively flailed his arms as he pronounced "DANGER, DANGER" if Commissioners adopt a Public Housing Authority (PHA) in the midst of an affordable housing crisis.  St. Johns County, Florida is one of the few counties without a PHA. 

Like the fictional space-exploring Robinson family's robot on the 1960s television show, "Lost in Space," CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST figuratively flailed his arms.  

CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST emoted. 

CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST hemhawed.

CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST heehawed. 

CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST (a/k/a CHRISTIAN WHITE HOOD), indulged bigotry with open, notorious hostility against poor people.

CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST never matriculated.  Two of five Commissioners did not go to college.

CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST is exactly the sort of uneducated, classist, no-class tabula rasa that the Ruling Classes want in a politician -- other-directed, narrow-minded nuisance.

WHITEHURST said he did not want "those kind of people" in his County who receive HUD Section 8 Housing vouchers. Some 65% of the people receiving HUD Section 8 housing vouchers are Black or Hispanic. That makes St. Johns County likely to lose in the event HUD and USDOJ investigate.  

WHITEHURST appealed to hatred.  

There's no excusing his venality. 

As Senator Robert Kennedy said in 1967, "it is not enough to allow dissent, We must demand it, for there is much to dissent from."

CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST has a sordid record of ignorance about constitutional rights, leading to my sending him a cease and desist letter on January 10, 2023, here.

In 1968, when Dr. King was murdered in Memphis, Senator Robert Kennedy said in the Indianapolis ghetto: 

"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.  So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, that's true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love--a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.

We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; we've had difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land."

Ugly, stark and raw, WHITEHURST's outrageous outburst was like a throwback to Alabama Governor George Corley Wallace, a rebarbative racist who ran as a third-party candidate in 1968, helping elect corrupt Republican President Richard Milhous Nixon.  Like the Dixiecrats in 1948, Wallace drew substantial support in Florida, including winning 41.4% of the vote in St. Johns County in 1968 -- a plurality of the 11,310 voters at the time -- more than either Nixon (34.31) or Hubert Horatio Humphrey (24.3%).

In Lincoln's words, "we must disenthrall ourselves." We must appeal to the "better angels of [WHITEHURST's] nature." 

We must demand that Commissioners in the three-vote majority move to reconsider the Commission's racist vote.  Otherwise, we must have a civil, criminal and administrative investigation of St. Johns County for violations of the Fair Housing Act and 1871 Civil Rights Act (Ku Klux Klan Act).

Never again should St. Johns County elect such an uneducated bumptious bigot to public office.

Developers and their cat's paws are a stench in the nostrils of our Nation.

Former County Commission Chairman Ben Rich, Sr. told Folio Weekly in 2008 that St. Johns County is "one of the last bastions of the Ku Klux Klan."  

Dr. King said St. Johns County is one of "the most lawless" places in America. 

The effrontery of CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST (a/k/a CHRISTIAN WHITE HOOD), makes me ashamed of our County's louche leadership,

Enough flummery, dupery and nincompoopery.

We in the reality-based community expect better. 

Last year, I was the first to file to run for St. Johns County Commission in 2024.  





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SJC Smirky Turkey Society's "Titanic Trio" -- TRAVIS HUTSON, CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST & BRANDON PATTY --- WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

"The love of money is the root of all evil."  1 Timothy 6:10.

Pray for them.  Pray for the vultures and vipers, who prey on unsuspecting voters.

Who paid for these illegal misleading mailings?

How much did the tortfeaasing fraudfeasors pay?

Cui bono?  (Who benefits?

Could it be clear-cutting, wetland-destroying, democracy-hating "developers?"

 What rough beasts.

What wickedness,

Who knows what evil  lurks in the twisted hearts and sordid souls of money-hungry apparatchiks?

Will there. be civil, criminal and administrative investigations?

Will Congress hold investigative hearings?

I suggest the witnesses include the "Titanic Trio" of the Smirky Turkey Society.

(They try to steal elections, don't they?)

George Washington, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson warned of "factions."  

One "faction," a small group of willful men, control our government and laws here in St. Johns County.

Once they were  Louche Lords of All They Survey.  

Take developer TRAVIS JAMES HUTSON, our estimable former State Senator (please).

Consider the arrogance and hubris (pride that goeth before a fall).

Consider wicked work of his smiling satellites in 2020.

Now CHRISTIAN GERARD WHITEHURST faces criminal charges for election fraud.  

It's called Karma.

To help WHITEHURST defeat his 2024 Republican Primary opponent Ann-Marie Evans, tens of thousands of phony endorsement cards were sent allegedly sent through the United States Mail.

Call them out, ladies and gentlemen  -- the Titanic Trio, charter members of the Smirking Turkey Society (STS).  

Former State Senator, devious developer TRAVIS JAMES HUTSON (left)(now paid $75,000 annually as a louche "government affairs advisor" to CLERK OF COURTS BRANDON JAMES PATTY (right)(wearing the CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST polo shirt). together on election night 2020 with St. Johns County Commissioner CHRISTIAN GERARD WHITEHURST, the man in the middle, has hired the same criminal defense lawyer (Hank Coxe) as Commissioner SARAH SALLEY ARNOLD and the other alleged conspirators.  Not independent counsel.  

Prediction: the defendants will have a "joint defense agreement." 

We, the People need to know. 

Good people of St. Johns County: 

Vote on or before August 18, 2026 in the St. Johons County Universal Primary. Everyone can vote (even Democrats and people with No Party Affiliation).  First time in ten (10) years

Vote like our lives and futures expend on it, because they do.

Help wipe the smiles off their faces, my friends.old

As my Mother told me, "Time wounds all heels."

Celebrate Democracy.

Be Patriotic.

Help extirpate corruption.

Report corruption to FDLE and FBI.

Do your patriotic duty,

Be not afraid.  It's in the Bible some 106 times,

It's our time, our town and our future, 

Meanwhile, FDLE's investigation continues.

What's next?

You tell me

Here they are -- the Titanic Trio.  former State Senator, devious developer TRAVIS JAMES HUTSON (left)(now paid $75,000 annually as a louche government affairs advisor to CLERK OF COURTS BRANDON JAMES PATTY (right)(wearing the CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST polo shirt),  Look at the smirk on their faces,  Note the rictus on WHITEHURST's face,  

Our SJC Clerk of Courts and Comptroller, BRANDON PATTY, with Defendant WHITEHURST and then-Senator TRAVIS JAMES HUTSON on primary election night 2020. We must protect venire and jury selection. Cuo vobis videtor? What do y'all reckon?

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STOP CORRUPTION in St. Johns County: Everyone can vote on or before August 18. 2026

Corruption is the issue. Ask all candidates about their position on some two dozen proposals on government reforms. Ask questions. Expect democracy. 

This County is corrupt. 

Where do candidates stand on civil, criminal and administrative investigations, forensic audit and structural-functional reforms? Where do they stand on deforestation, wetland devastation, bloated budges, no-bid contracts, election fraud,  hiring a conflicted corporate lawyer County Attorney, and a cynical culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation? 

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Florida has a tick problem but state data nowhere to be found (Liz Freeman, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News, April 29, 2026)

From Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News:


Florida has a tick problem but state data nowhere to be found

Portrait of Liz FreemanLiz Freeman
Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News
Updated April 29, 2026, 11:41 a.m. ET
  • Disease-causing tick bites are on the rise in the U.S., with the CDC warning of a bad tick season.
  • Florida's Department of Health does not publicly report Lyme disease case data, leading to concerns about undercounting.
  • Despite official statements, advocacy groups and pest control data suggest ticks are prevalent throughout Florida.

Disease-causing tick bites are on the rise in the U.S. but Floridians are in the dark due to the state Department of Health not reporting case data.

Exposure to ticks through summer hiking, gardening and other outdoor activity is in full swing. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control is warning a bad tick season is expected.

Bites from the black-legged ticks, or deer ticks, can cause debilitating Lyme disease in humans. The deer tick and other types can harm and kill dogs.

The CDC says emergency room visits for tick bites is the highest since 2017, which includes the Southeast.

The CDC advisory does not specify which ticks are causing more ER visits but it points out that May is Lyme disease awareness month. It is the most common of illnesses caused by parasites like mosquitoes, ticks and fleas.

Lyme disease is a reportable disease in Florida but the state health department’s website for reportable diseases does not list it.

The blacklegged tick is widely distributed across the eastern half of the United States and is common in Michigan and can spread multiple diseases, including Lyme disease.

A Google search gives this explanation below from DOH:

“While Lyme disease is a reportable condition in Florida, it may appear absent or undercounted on public-facing reporting sites due to a reliance on ‘passive surveillance,’ where cases rely on voluntary reporting by providers, leading to significant undercounting.”

“Furthermore, Florida health officials often prioritize reporting for more acute, severe diseases over less common ones, and cases are concentrated in specific, mostly northern areas of the state.”

Most Lyme disease cases are concentrated in the Northeast and upper Midwest.

Should Floridians be concerned about tick bites?

While the state DOH says ticks and tickborne illnesses tend to be concentrated in the northern part of the state, the Jacksonville-based Florida Lyme Disease Association says “ticks do not know borders and are prevalent throughout the country.”

The association references the pest control company Terminix in 2024said Florida is second after California among five states with a “tick problem.’  That’s based on the number of tick control companies doing business in the five states.

Lyme disease is the result of being bitten by an infected black-legged tick that is more common in northern states but does occur in Florida

The association says Lyme disease is undercounted in Florida based on various data sources.

“Doctors and patients are falsely told that there is “no Lyme in Florida” or that it is extremely rare,” according to the association.

“As a result of this downplaying of the risk of Lyme and other tick-borne infections, people, especially parents, are less likely to take steps to prevent tick bites. Additionally, those infected are less likely to receive an early diagnosis.”

A hiker applies insect repellent while walking on a wooded trail, a recommended step to help prevent tick bites and reduce the risk of Lyme disease.

According to the CDC, Florida in 2023 had 271 cases of Lyme disease out of the 89,470 cases nationwide that year.

The University of Miami Health System points out that Lyme disease is not common in south Florida but the black-legged tick that causes is common in Florida.

“Because the condition is less common in Florida and its symptoms mimic those of other diseases, it’s easy to overlook,” according to the health system.

Experts at the University of Florida’s Emerging Pathogens Institutelikewise says two species of ticks stands above the rest in the state; the black-legged tick, also called the deer tick that causes Lyme disease, and the Lone Star tick.

What is Lyme disease and the symptoms?

The CDC is urging the public to take steps to protect themselves and their families from tick bites and tick-borne illnesses like Lyme disease.

It is the most common tick-borne illness that is caused by bacteria transmitted by infected black-legged ticks, or deer ticks.

Every year, an estimated 31 million people are bitten by a tick, and an estimated 476,000 people are treated annually for Lyme disease.

The CDC says ER visits from tick bites have been increasing.

Symptoms of Lyme disease include fever, headache, fatigue, and skin rash. If left untreated, infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system.

If left untreated, infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system.

"Tick season is here and these tiny biters can make you seriously sick” Alison Hinckley, epidemiologist and Lyme disease expert with the CDC's Division of Vector-Borne Diseases, said in a news release.

“The good news is you have options to help prevent tick bites when you spend time outdoors,” she said.

The recommendation is to wear EPA-registered insect repellent and permethrin-treated clothing, or long sleeves and pants, and do tick checks. If you do find a tick attached to your skin, remove it as soon as possible, within 24 hours, to help prevent Lyme disease.

Ticks must usually be attached for 36 to 48 hours to transmit the bacteria.

But nymph-stage ticks,  the primary transmitters of Lyme disease, are the size of a poppy seed and their bites are painless. They are found in shady, moist areas, leaf litter, and tall grass.

“These simple steps can go a long way in protecting you and your family from diseases spread by ticks,” Hinckleysaid. “And if you develop a rash or fever in the days to weeks after a bite, or after being in an area with ticks, seek medical care promptly."

Do you have an opinion about this topic? Write a letter to the editor and send it toletters@naplesnews.com and/or mailbag@news-press.com. Keep it to 250 words or fewer and include your contact info. Have more to say: Send a guest column of no more than 600 words.

Liz Freeman is a health care reporter. Reach her by emailing lfreeman@naplesnews.com 

Please support local community journalism and stay informed about Southwest Florida news by subscribing to The News-Press and Naples Daily News; download the free News-Press or Naples Daily News app, and sign up for daily briefing email newsletter, food & dining and growth & development newsletters here and here.   




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