WOKC Local News – December 16, 2025, 7:40 AM
Transcript
WOKC News. …years for drug trafficking. With WOKC News, I’m Charles Murphy. A Douglas Park man was ordered to pay $100,000 fines and serve six years in prison for two counts of trafficking, ecstasy, and hydromorphone. 64-year-old Tony Jackson had prior convictions of molesting a child, cocaine possession, and other drug charges, and the maximum sentence was 195 years. The Okeechobee Narcotics Task Force and Special Response Team on May 13, 2022 got a warrant and searched a home at 1679 Northeast 5th Street. They found 59 pain pills, 33 grams of ecstasy, and over $2,100 in suspected drug cash. On May 9, Jackson allegedly sold narcotics for $20 near Alderman Park. Okeechobee City Council heard complaints about abandoning rights-of-way on Southwest 18th Street. There has been a fence barn and other buildings on the city right-of-way. One neighbor is upset because dogs bark there. Vice Mayor Monica Clark says things like this need permits. If you have non-permitted structures in our city and we discover them, don’t we require them to pull the permit and have them inspected? The city has been trying to rectify that situation. Congressman Byron Donalds, a candidate for governor, wants to control growth in the state. He says water and sewer will be huge issues, and he vowed to finish the Everglades restoration. He says sewer may be the big issue in the next decade. Nobody likes talking about it, but everybody loves to use it for some reason. Wastewater infrastructure in the state has to be addressed if we’re going to be able to sustain Florida’s economic and environmental beauty going forward. He also wants quicker reviews of development, saying the permits are taking too long to get issued. When it comes to permitting and it comes to planning, we have to get in the game of being efficient with the public’s time. We have to be efficient with the people’s resources. The Florida Department of Transportation five-year work plan for Highlands County includes spending $1.2 million to resurface a section of Arbuckle Creek Road between Bishop Derry and US-98. They also plan to replace the US-98 North Bridge and Fort Bassinger over the Kissimmee River. They’ll spend just over $26.7 million in fiscal year 2028. Okeechobee County Sheriff’s deputies able to locate a man suffering from Alzheimer’s reported missing out of Highlands County and the Lareda community. They spotted the van on 441 and were able to successfully send the man home to his family. He’d been driving alone and had driven off. They didn’t know where he’d gone and had been reported missing. I’m Charles Murphy, WOKC News.
Recorded from the WOKC daily newscast (Glades Media).