WOKC Local News – December 31, 2025, 7:40 AM
Transcript
WOKC News. All eyes on Capitol. With WOKC News, I’m Charles Murphy. Next month, the legislature will look at a variety of proposals designed to expand homestead property exemptions and cut into property tax revenue for local governments. Okeechobee City Council had a discussion about the concern about losing this type of revenue. Council member David McCauley says some of the things being proposed are scary. He wonders if there will be a city if they go ahead with these plans. They’re not going to tell us whether we can be here or not. They’re going to make it financially impossible for some to survive. The OUA could be looking for an executive director in the next 24 months. Chairman Steve Nelson suggests they look at hiring an outside firm to lead the search. OUA current executive director John Hayford announced in November he would retire well within two years. He agrees with the idea of this search. I do agree with you that there are several options open to the board, and I do concur with you that the best choice is to hire an outside firm to do the search. The search would be within OUA, within the city, the community, and to other areas and see what comes available. The OUA honored Ben Latham for 25 years of service. January 14, St. Lucie County Commissioners and Port St. Lucie City Councilmen will sit down and see where they can collaborate and improve services and maybe save taxpayers money. Councilwoman Stephanie Morgan of Port St. Lucie says they’ve tried this before and it hasn’t worked. But nothing ever seems to get done, and I need to hear from their side why, or what is, what is, it’s, we’re constantly pushing, and they’re pulling, or we’re pulling, and they’re pushing. City officials have been critical of St. Lucie County and how they handle roads. Port St. Lucie, though, is causing most of the growth stress on St. Lucie County. Flying cars in Florida is the future, according to FDOT Secretary Jared Perdue. The state expanded the FDOT SunTrax testing facility in Auburndale that’s designed for autonomous vehicle testing. The state has new technology as well on the roads that alert FHP about wrong-way drivers now. Perdue says the state wants to help all it can in an industry called advanced air mobility. We want to make sure these companies have a business climate where they can have speed to market and become profitable as quickly as possible. That way it will bring a new service. He says it is no longer a pipe dream. So these are electric vehicles, they take off vertically, they fly horizontally, they have a shorter distance, and they are intended to move people and goods. There are multiple companies developing prototypes right now, flying those prototypes, and there has been billions of market capital raised for this industry. It is coming. Cold weather coming to South Florida. The cold front should be felt tonight into Wednesday and even Thursday morning. National Weather Service lead meteorologist Chuck Karikosa says further south they’ll get into the mid-40s. We’ll see temperatures tomorrow night plummet pretty much, and the metro areas here will be down, wind chill values down into the mid-40s starting into tomorrow night. Temperatures in North Florida could dip into the 20s. Oogachibbe County will have a warming center open tonight at Wright Life Services at 202 Northeast 2nd Street. They’ll open at 6 p.m. I’m Charles Murphy, WOKC News.
Recorded from the WOKC daily newscast (Glades Media).