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This is it.

The final two. We asked you to narrow down 16 burger spots across the Space Coast to find out which should hold the title of Brevard's Best Burger 2025. Last week, we had a tie between two spots known for their own take on a hamburger. That led us to a final five instead of a final four. But there is a tie no more.

About 2025 Brevard's Best Burgers

For the third year in a row, we've put together our bracket of some of Brevard's favorite spots for burgers. We took a sample of the most recommended sites over the past year from our 321 Flavor: Where Brevard Eats Facebook group and from FLORIDA TODAY team members. Once we compiled our list, we used the super scientific Number Picker Wheel to determine the match-ups for the first battle round.

You can find the round three results and the final round ballot below. When voting, be sure to leave a comment telling us which restaurant you voted for and why. Please include your first and last name. We may use your comments in next week's story.

Voting will remain open until noon Tuesday. We'll post the final results next Thursday.

BurgerRob's vs. Burger Inn

Last week, Titusville's BurgerRob's and Cocoa Village's Pub Americana were deadlocked in a heated battle for the final four spot. Since both got an exact tie in the number of votes, we thought it was only right to move both forward to face off against Cocoa Beach's Salty Sisters. BurgerRob's took the top spot in the final bracket pulling 40.37 percent of the vote. Salty Sisters put up a good fight in the quest for the spot with 35.82 percent and Pub Americana wrapped up the competition with 23.81 percent.

BurgerRob's will now move forward to face off in the final round again Eau Gallie's Burger Inn. Burger Inn toppled its competitor, Rockledge's Twisted Birch. The U.S. 1 drive-up Burger Inn pulled 69.91 percent of the vote this week.

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NEWS

Students are feeling the impact of U.S. Department of Education cuts and Trump's executive orders.

Florida Today

This article has been updated to include additional information about IDEA funds and to correct an incorrect quote.

It's a national issue with a broad local impact: With half of the U.S. Department of Education's staff cut, what does that mean for Brevard students?

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced that about half the DOE workforce would be slashed, with the Federal Student Aid Office and Office for Civil Rights being most impacted. The Federal Student Aid Office handles student loan and financial aid distribution, while the Office for Civil Rights protects students and teachers from discrimination.

The move was part of the Trump administration's goal to shut down the agency to cut federal bureaucracy, a mission Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has vowed to carry out.

"We have a dream. And you know what the dream is? We're going to move the Department of Education," Trump said during a bilateral meeting with Ireland Prime Minister Michael Martin Wednesday. "We're going to move education into the states, so that the states — instead of bureaucrats working in Washington — can run education."

But some see major risks with the effort, which has potential to affect everything from VPK programs to how Brevard students receive, or pay, student loans.

That's because the Department of Education handles funds that go to districts, students and universities for numerous purposes, such as providing equal education for students from poor communities, loaning college students money to complete a degree, ensuring disabled students receive access to education and helping young kids from low-income households receive a VPK education through programs like Head Start. Without the department, those funds would instead go to states to divvy up. It would be up to each state how the money would be used.

Andrew Spar, president of Florida Education Association, raised concerns about how each state might decide to use those funds.

"In a state like Florida, where we already woefully underfund our public schools, and where we divert dollars away from our public schools on a daily basis, that's a concern for schools and for districts that they all of a sudden can find themselves significantly short of resources to serve our most at-risk student populations," Spar said. "That, I think, is the biggest concern that anyone in Florida would have, is ... what happens with those dollars?"

Here's a glance at different areas in which federal funds are utilized by pre-K through post-secondary Space Coast students.

Title I

Title I is a program that provides supplemental financial assistance to school districts for kids from low-income families. Ultimately, it should help these students receive a fair education and close educational achievement gaps, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics.

In Brevard, Title I funding goes toward helping unhoused students, providing services to migrant children, engaging families in their children's schooling, staff development and Step FOUR ward VPK and Head Start. Funding comes from the federal department of education, and it's also generated by the number of low-income students who live in Title I school attendance areas but attend private school.

This year, Brevard has 41 public and charter Title I schools and 33 private schools, according to BPS' website.

FLORIDA TODAY reached out to Brevard Public Schools' communication department, Superintendent Mark Rendell and the school board for comment on how they would approach the potential loss of Title I funds. Board member Katye Campbell was the only one to respond via email, saying she believes that those who believe that the dissolution of the Department of Education will mean the end of Title I or IDEA are misinformed or being purposefully inflammatory.

"Both streams of funding are federal law, and the DOE is basically a pass through of those funds to the states," she said. "In the unlikely event that those funding sources go away, it will be up to the state of Florida, not the individual school boards, to find a way to comply with federal law for students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students."

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, is a law governing special education in the United States. It guarantees a free, appropriate public education for disabled children and ensures they'll receive special education and related services such as early intervention, according to DOE.

The law authorizes formula grants to state and discretionary grants to applicants such as state educational agencies, institutions of higher education and nonprofit organizations.

State formula grants are sent to states annually for early intervention services and special education. These grants go to state programs, preschool programs and infants and families programs.

Discretionary grants are awarded through a competitive process. There are six possible grant programs for which agencies, educational institutions and nonprofit organizations can apply.

Special education in Florida is called Exceptional Student Education, or ESE. In her email to FLORIDA TODAY, Campbell said the district does not receive full federal funding for ESE students. The funding they do receive is enough cover about 13% of necessary services, she said, adding that IDEA was supposed to cover 40% originally.

During the 2024 fiscal year, the approved budget showed that the district received revenue funds for IDEA that amounted to $28,316,964.

Lindsay Kubatzky, director of policy and advocacy at the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said the staffing cuts will impact the more than 7 million public school students with disabilities.

"The primary role of the Department of Education is to protect and uphold the rights of students and their families," she said, adding that in the 2023 fiscal year, the Office of Civil Rights handled 6,749 disability-related complaints and resolved about 6,400 of them.

"Slashing the number of committed public servants who work at OCR leaves our students vulnerable to discrimination, harassment, bullying and a lack of a free and appropriate education as codified under law 50 years ago," Kubatzky said.

"These cuts are not 'focused on unnecessary or reductive teams,' as reported. The Department laid off nearly 250 attorneys, many of whom work in states across the country to protect the rights of students with disabilities. This is fundamentally about rolling back hard-fought protections for our most vulnerable and disenfranchised youth."

Student loans

How student loans will be handled — and who will handle them — is up in the air. Both Trump and McMahon have said DOE will likely not handle loans in the future, but rather the Small Business Administration or another agency.

"(Student loans) will likely be brought into either Treasury or Small Business Administration or Commerce," Trump told reporters earlier this month. "I don't think the education should be handling the loans, that's not their business."

McMahon told NewsNation that loans, as well as Pell grants — funds awarded to students who display "exceptional financial need" and generally haven't earned a degree, according to DOE — "might be best served in another department."

A March 7 executive order will also make it harder to achieve loan forgiveness through public service, with Trump ordering that individuals not have their loans forgiven if they worked with organizations that "engage in activities that have a substantial illegal purpose."

The list of the type of activities organizations couldn't take part in focused on work with migrants, transgender children and protests, with the order laying out that loan forgiveness would not be available to those who aided in the violation of immigration laws, supported terrorism or took part in violence to influence federal government policy, engaged in the "chemical and surgical castration or mutilation" of children or the "trafficking" of children to transgender sanctuary states, took part in "aiding and abetting illegal discrimination" or engaged in violating state state tort laws like obstructing highways or being a public nuisance.

Research grants for university students, faculty

On his first day in office, Trump begun slashing funding for research, starting with threatening grants related to DEI and later cutting funds to the National Institute of Health.

The reimbursement rate from NIH to universities for indirect costs of research would be capped at 15%, the Trump administration said, according to a post by NIH to X. This would be down from an average of about 27% to 28% and would save the government about $4 billion a year.

On March 5, a judge blocked Trump's administration from carrying out the cuts to federal funding for NIH research. But universities are still bracing for the impact.

Florida Tech has a contingency plan should they lose funding through NIH, according to Hamid Rassoul, chief research officer and senior associate provost for research at the university.

"Florida Tech Facilities & Administrative costs are broad categories of spending in the name of conducting research," Rassoul said in a statement to FLORIDA TODAY, adding that the school negotiates the rate with the federal government. Right now, the rate for on-campus federal grants and contracts is 44.87%. The proposed reduced rate is 15%.

"With our current F&A rate of approximately 45%, the eight NIH projects generate indirect costs totaling $616,000," Rassoul said. "Under the proposed reduction of the F&A rate to 15%, the overhead would decrease to $215,000, resulting in a difference of just over $400,000."

At this point, Florida Tech holds seven active NIH grants. They also received a small NIH subaward as part of a Vanderbilt University-led NIH project. All research projects and their deliverables will be completed as planned, Rassoul said.

University of Central Florida did not respond to FLORIDA TODAY's request for comment.

Finch Walker is the education reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Walker at fwalker@floridatoday.com. X: @_finchwalker.

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NEWS

The two items were approved at Tuesday's board meeting.

Florida Today

In front of a sparse audience, Brevard's school board moved forward Tuesday night with closing offsite learning facilities for expelled students and approving a revised public comment policy in the wake of a Moms for Liberty-led lawsuit.

"This is a chance for this board and this district to put our money where our mouth is," said Board Chair Gene Trent of the closure of alternative learning centers.

"We say to serve every student with excellence as a standard. That means every student, and students that even run into some trouble, and the more we can keep that student connected to their campus, to their teachers, to their community, it's a better chance for that student to walk across that stage and get their diploma."

The decisions on both the alternative learning centers and the comment policy came after less than two months of development.

At a Jan. 14 offsite work session, the board first proposed the idea of closing alternative learning centers in favor of keeping students at their home campuses for the duration of their expulsion, with students mandated to take part in a diversion program.

Then, an hour and a half before a Jan. 21 board meeting, a federal judge in Orlando issued a temporary restraining order in support of a lawsuit led by Moms for Liberty, stopping the school board from continuing to implement their public comment policy until it could be revised.

In the subsequent weeks, board members heard from district administrators on what a diversion program could look like for students who would otherwise be sent to the ALCs. They also hashed out the details of an updated public comment policy, opting to split comments by agenda- and non-agenda-related comments. Due to concerns about student and staff privacy and obscenity, non-agenda comments won't be broadcast or recorded, according to policy.

Only one member of the public, Bernard Bryan, spoke about both agenda items prior to either move's approval.

"You may lose a lot of valuable input," Bryan said of the public comment policy, looking around the mostly empty board room. "If you look here now, you don't see a lot of participation."

The board unanimously approved both the comment policy and the alternative learning centers' closure.

Alternative learning centers to be replaced with in-school diversion program

Students who would otherwise be expelled from Brevard Public Schools had previously been given the option to attend ALCs, with one center in the northern part of the county and one in the southern part. Now, with the closure of the two centers for the 2025-2026 school year, they'll instead be given the option to participate in a diversion program.

Chief of Schools James Rehmer and Alternative Sites Director Misty Bland laid out what the program could potentially look like at a Feb. 25 work session, adding that 31 staff of the 38 staff members could be reallocated to other schools, while seven staff members would work in various capacities in the diversion program.

The details weren't decided at the February session, but it's likely that the program would involve having students placed in a stipulation agreement that require their attendance at weekly counseling, participation in online coursework, no participation in activities such as sports or clubs, supervision at all times and engaging in a Saturday behavioral modification program. The ultimate goal of the program is to keep students at their home campus.

Bryan, who spoke on behalf of the South Brevard NAACP and the Concerned Citizens Committee of South Brevard, brought up concerns about whether there would be enough staff for schools with students in the diversion program.

"When these students are moved back to their zoned schools, we are concerned about the resources that will be available to support those students," Bryan said. "Will there be enough social workers? Will there be enough counselors to support these schools that have a very tight bandwidth right now?"

Campbell was reassuring that the district will provide extra support to schools with multiple kids in the program.

"We're not just going to leave schools hanging," she said, adding that most schools won't have more than one or two students in the program at a time.

Ultimately, she said, the program should work better in terms of helping students graduate.

"I believe this will allow more students the opportunity, if they are serious about making it right, the opportunity to stay on target with their graduation class," Campbell said.

"It has the potential to help improve our grad rates, because when they go to the ALC, they aren't able to take all the classes that they would have normally taken if they'd been at their school."

Public comment policy: 'We value the opinion of the people'

The public comment policy has been revisited multiple times since Moms for Liberty members filed a lawsuit in 2021 alleging that Brevard's school board's policy was not implemented fairly based on a speaker's viewpoints.

In October, the Eleventh Circuit court ruled that the policy placed a prohibition on "abusive" speech and was unconstitutional. But it wasn't until January that a temporary restraining order blocked the policy's implementation, with Judge Roy Dalton Jr. saying the policy could cause "irreparable injury."

"Plaintiffs have shown that they are likely to suffer immediate and irreparable harm due to the potential for Defendants to continue enforcing the unconstitutional Policy at the scheduled board meeting tonight," he said in a ruling issued less than two hours before the Jan. 21 board meeting.

At that meeting, the board voted to split public comment, with non-agenda-related comments placed at the end of the meeting. They cut their broadcast before comments were made.

That practice was written into a new version of the policy, which allows speakers to make a comment on camera during the first part of the meeting if it is related to the agenda. Otherwise, they must wait until the end of the meeting, when non-agenda comments will not be filmed.

Bryan also expressed concerns about this policy and why it may deter the public from participating in meetings.

"I know sometimes these public comments are painful, but leadership is not easy," he said. "Sometimes you've got to hear things that you may not want to hear. (I was) a manager for 25 years of my life, and there were a lot of things I didn't want to hear, but I had to hear because I'm a leader."

Trent said even though the second section of public comment won't be broadcast, he doesn't see this as stifling people's voices.

"We value the opinion of the people; they can still come," he said. "I look at it now as they can speak twice, double the amount of time."

Campbell agreed the policy was not meant to block the public from participating.

"I'm going to hear your voice, because I'm sitting right here," she said. "I value that public opinion, but I stand strongly on our decision to cut the cameras off because of the limitations that we now have with the lawsuit and with the 11th Circuit decision."

Finch Walker is the education reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Walker at fwalker@floridatoday.com. X: @_finchwalker.

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LOCAL

Florida Today

A Melbourne doctor's license has been restricted under an emergency order after tests confirmed three of her patients contracted a "very rare strain" of Hepatitis C.

Florida health officials say the three cases may have been caused by unsterilized instruments and/or equipment during procedures at Dr. Li Jin Voepel's interventional pain management office at 4015 N. Harbor City, Blvd., Melbourne.

No specific source of infection has been identified from her office. But if her office was the source, more people may have been exposed, because the three cases were patients that had procedures there within almost a yearlong timeframe. Federal and state protocols dictate that health officials notify those exposed during such circumstances. Florida Department of Health officials said they can not confirm or deny active investigations.

Reached Friday, Dr. Voepel said she still holds an M.D. license and is continuing to see patients but is withholding all procedures for now. "We're fully cooperating with the department of health," Voepel said, declining further comment and referring questions to her Melbourne attorney, Geoffrey Smith.

"Dr. Voepel is fully transparent and cooperating with everything that's been requested of her from the Florida Department of Health," Smith said. "We do not have sufficient information from the department of health to evaluate the accuracy of some of the allegations contained in these emergency orders. We've requested that information but they have not yet provided that information."

Once they receive that information, Smith said they will evaluate it and cooperate fully to correct any possible issue but are "unaware of anything that would indicate that Dr. Voepel has committed any kind of deficient practice."

"She's never had a problem with the department of health," Smith said, adding that she's practiced in Brevard for more than 20 years.

The next step, if the state finds merit, would be an administrative complaint, which Voepel could challenge.

"They have to prove their case in court, which they have not done yet," Smith said.

On March 12, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo ordered the emergency restriction of Voepel's medical license. Voepel's office can still practice medicine but can not perform procedures that involve injections or other procedures that could spread the potentially deadly disease.

Hepatitis C can be cured if detected early, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but health officials have not indicated the condition of the three people in question who got the disease. "Safe and highly effective treatments that can cure Hepatitis C have been available since 2014, yet few people receive treatment within a year of diagnosis," CDC's website says.

Ladapo's order described "a blatant disregard" for laws governing the operation of office surgery registrants in Florida.

According to the order:

What is Hepatitis C?

Hepatitis C is a blood-borne virus that infects the liver.

If not treated early, it can result in long-term health problems, even death. The majority of those infected might not be aware they have the disease because symptoms can take years or decades to appear.

According to the Florida Department of Health, most people become infected by sharing needles or other equipment to inject drugs. For some, it's a short-term illness but for 70%–85% of people who become infected with Hepatitis C, it becomes a long-term, chronic infection, according to FDOH.

While curable, there is no vaccine for Hepatitis C. Health officials say the best way to prevent the disease is by avoiding behaviors that can spread the virus, especially injecting drugs.

How many Hepatitis C cases in Brevard?

Through March 16, Florida Department of Health's website shows five cases of acute Hepatitis C in Brevard this year: two in January and three in February. It's unclear whether those cases include the three patients from Voepel's office.

Brevard's 10-year average is about 13 acute Hepatitis C cases a year, according to FDOH, compared with 38 cases over the past year (the timeframe in which Voepel's three patients underwent procedures at her office).

Florida Department of Health's website shows no previous disciplinary actions against Voepel.

Contact Waymer at (321) 261-5903 or jwaymer@floridatoday.com.

Rick Neale

Florida Today

Crews have completed construction of the second NASA Causeway bridge spanning the Indian River six months ahead of schedule, and the new bridge could open to traffic as soon as today.

Work began in December 2021 on the $128 million transportation project. Workers replaced a deteriorating, low-lying causeway and drawbridge dating to 1964 with twin high-rise fixed bridges that reach 65 feet above the water's surface.

Long-discussed, the new 4,025-foot-long bridges connect Titusville and State Road 405 to NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and the KSC Visitor Complex. The Florida Department of Transportation, NASA and Space Florida collaborated to secure a $90 million U.S. Department of Transportation grant to get the project off the drawing board.

"Now that the NASA Causeway bridges are complete, Space Coast communities can expect minimized traffic disruptions, maritime traffic improvements, and enhanced safety and connectivity," FDOT officials said in a Tuesday tweet.

"Furthermore, this corridor can now better accommodate the growing number and size of payloads and space industry vehicles, which will be important as more industry partners find their home in the Sunshine State," the tweet said.

With the opening of the new bridge, traffic will transition to its final configuration. Westbound vehicles will use the newly completed bridge, while eastbound traffic will use the existing bridge that opened in June 2023.

Florida Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez drove across that eastbound span in a motorcade that month during a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Crews completed the first bridge 125 days ahead of schedule.

A 2017 NASA engineering study had warned the old NASA Causeway — which was designed to accommodate passenger vehicles — could become unsafe to support heavy spacecraft and freight loads.

“Florida is committed to building the infrastructure the space industry needs to keep growing, and with these new bridges, Florida is more ready than ever to become home to NASA’s new headquarters," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a press release.

DeSantis publicly raised the idea of moving NASA headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Brevard County during a January speech at KSC. Last week, U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody of Florida introduced a bill that would require NASA to make the geographic move.

Also included in the NASA Causeway project: FDOT widened Space Commerce Way from two to four lanes on Merritt Island. This 2.7-mile roadway leads past Blue Origin's massive rocket manufacturing campus, the Airbus U.S. Space & Defense satellite factory and the KSC Visitor Complex south entrance.

For the latest news and launch schedule from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, visit floridatoday.com/space.

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