WOKC Local News – November 10, 2025, 7:40 AM
Transcript
WOKC News. Light them up with WOKC News. I’m Charles Murphy. City fathers agreed to allow the Christmas lights go on early this year. They’re putting in a special winter wonderland show in Flagler Park, and they’ll officially light those or most of them on November 13th. City will still have their annual Christmas light ceremony on December 2nd in City Hall Park. Denise Whitehead with the county confirmed many of the lights will go on next week. We look forward to the initial preliminary lighting on November 13th. That’s going to just kind of get everyone excited. And then the full tree lighting and additional lighting will happen on December 2nd, I believe, with the tree lighting ceremony. Resident Christy Colbert says a lot of residents will be helped by these lights. I know there are a lot of people waiting for the lights in the park to go up. I think it brings a lot of joy to a lot of people that are dealing with a lot of difficult things in their life during the holidays. And there’s something about the lights that bring magic. Congressman Scott Franklin says he sees improvement in the economy coming. He thinks Florida tourism will get a boost once the Trump Library is built and opened in Miami. The government shutdown continues, but experts say it should end soon. The Rural and Family Lands program gaining in popularity. 428 projects will be up for purchase across the state this year. The State Department of Agriculture requested in the state budget 250 million. Tracy Dean says many ranchers are facing decisions on their future. Florida is losing tens of thousands of acres of natural and agricultural land every single year. And if we lose these lands, we lose our wildlife corridor. And if we lose the wildlife corridor, we lose the connective tissue that keeps Florida’s wildlife alive, our water clean, and our rural communities strong. She says more and more acreage is at risk for development in rural Florida. Highlands County has decided to require cat and dog boarders to have records of vaccinations and registrations on those pets. County Commissioner Scott Kerouac has complained about a large number of adoptions at local shelters. He says this might help the situation. We’re kind of restrictive on what we can do here. We want to make sure when we develop an ordinance like this, it’s something that we can actually make a difference in some of the issues that are coming in front of you and your staff and animal control. Governor DeSantis broke ground on the pump station on the south end of the lake, the EAA Reservoir in South Bay Thursday. The reservoir is scheduled to store 78 billion gallons of water. DeSantis says the state didn’t take no for an answer, even though the Biden administration did nothing to help the Everglades. Yeah, to be honest, this isn’t a partisan thing. It just languished under Biden. The project completions were pushed out and they basically said the Southern Reservoir was going to take till 2034, which was not acceptable for us. He says they’ve already tripled South Florida’s water storage by 176 billion gallons. I’m Charles Murphy, WOKC News.
Recorded from the WOKC daily newscast (Glades Media).