WOKC Local News – December 04, 2025, 7:42 AM
Transcript
WOKC News. Impressed with crowd? With WOKC News, I’m Charles Murphy. Okeechobee ushered in the Christmas season with the annual Christmas lighting ceremony at Okeechobee City Hall Park. Mayor Dowling Watford was impressed with the size of the crowd. What a Hallmark movie night, huh? What a Hallmark movie night. Santa Claus arrived and they turned on all the lights for the special downtown display. A group of students from South and Seminole Elementary entertained the crowd with Christmas carols. The city still wants to work out issues with Okeechobee Estate’s trailer park to upgrade the facility. The city this year turned down abandoning easements on the property. Administrator Gary Ritter says they still can do things with the park to make improvements. The city is not gonna go in there and displace any homeowners. I mean, he has what he has and basically can, as older mobile homes get taken out of there, he has parcel boundaries that he can put in mobile homes within those boundaries as long as they meet appropriate setbacks and such. A 30-day burn ban in effect in Highlands County. Things are drying out. Fire Chief there, Kelly Dupenthaler, says there’s no rain in sight. Drought conditions are conducive to wildfires and hazardous weather and atmospheric surroundings point towards drought conditions into the foreseeable future. The burn ban prohibits campfires, bonfires, open cooking fires, unpermitted controlled burns, burning of yard and household trash, burning of lumber and trees, and igniting fireworks. The prosecutor who convicted Brian Culpepper of misdemeanor battery had to prove a crime occurred and also overcome any jury sympathy for those that love the American flag, Elise Carney says Culpepper also broke a cell phone or selfie stand of the victim was ordered to pay $180. She had this reaction to the sentence. I think that’s a fair sentence given the defendant’s age and lack of prior criminal history and the circumstances of this case. So there’s no minimum penalty that applies for a battery. It really depends on the person’s criminal history or lack thereof and the fact of the case. Hundreds gathered to honor a fallen Florida deputy in Vero Beach yesterday. Sergeant Terry Sweeting-Mashcow had worked 25 years, but she was killed trying to serve an eviction. Department Chaplain Charles Gibson says it’s hard to understand tragedies like this. A loss like this shakes us at the core. It raises questions that we cannot answer. It forces us to face the cost of the badge and the painful reality of sacrifice. A bill to change Florida’s gun laws moving forward at the state capitol. A house committee voting Tuesday to lower the minimum age for buying a long gun from 21 to 18. It would reverse a law passed after a deadly school shooting in Broward County seven years ago. The measure will go before the full house when the next session begins in January. I’m Charles Murphy, WOKC News.
Recorded from the WOKC daily newscast (Glades Media).