WOKC Local News – May 05, 2026, 7:41 AM
Transcript
WOKC News. The latest employment news with WOKC News. I’m Charles Murphy. Okeechobee’s unemployment dropped three tenths of a point in February in the latest report released by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. Nine hundred and twenty nine were out of work in February compared to nine hundred and sixty six in January. The rate in Okeechobee was five point six percent in February and the state rate was four point eight percent. Around the area, Indian River had five point eight percent, Osceola four point nine percent and Glades County five point eight percent unemployment. Okeechobee schools will not follow another heartland area, DeSoto County, who has privatized their food service. Superintendent Dylan Tedder says they studied privatization about ten years ago. They challenged the food services department to improve and they’ve done so. We put the challenge on our food service department to just continue to build, you know, build their things and now they have a budget where they can sustain themselves. So our employees did not want that and they have done things to be able to keep that food service program thriving. The school board expelled three more kids in drug possession cases. An eighth grader had three drug incidents, a senior also three drug possessions and an eighth grader at Okeechobee Achievement Academy had two drug offenses in a ten day period. An Okeechobee jury convicts an alleged child molester of a second degree misdemeanor. David Kasich of Jupiter went on trial last week. He’d originally been charged with lewd and lascivious molestation on a child under 12. They deliberate about two and a half hours before returning the verdict. Kasich was originally charged in April of last year. He was immediately sentenced to 60 days in jail and over a thousand dollars in court costs for the misdemeanor charge of committing unnatural or lascivious acts. The Indiantown Village Council has heard a lot from residents concerned about data centers. Last week the Silver Fox 606 data center plan was withdrawn. It would have brought a two million square foot facility to Indiantown. But Village staff says there are others in bringing a data center. Linda Visco says there will be a lot of data floating around Indiantown. The detriments that come with the data center, they don’t just start with one. All over the country they cluster. We have a lot of open land here and right now 43% of Indiantown is industrial. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission starting today will conduct aquatic plant management on Lake Okeechobee. They plan to manage 1,300 acres of dense torpedo grass, mostly in portions of the northern and western marshes. They’ll be applying these treatments by helicopter. They don’t expect any kind of restrictions on fishing. Earlier we said swimming, but if you’re swimming out there, good luck. A 37-year-old Oogachooee man was charged last month in a sting in Orlando area of being a predator trying to have sex with a 14-year-old child. More details came out Friday. We got the report from the Port Orange Police Department on Nice Foro Rendon. He allegedly had contacted the 14-year-old girl on social media and later his cell phone. And said he was driving from Titusville to meet the girl when he was intercepted by police. He also agreed to take a polygraph examination where he failed the test. Charges include solicitation of a minor via computer, obscene communication, traveling to meet a minor for sex, unlawful use of a two-way communication device, and attempted lewd and lascivious battery. I’m Charles Murphy, WOKC News.
Recorded from the WOKC daily newscast (Glades Media).