News Cast for February 13th:
The Florida Department of Health is working with Okeechobee County to clean up a property in Treasure Island deemed a public health nuisance.
Commission Chairman David Hazellief said the family has done some work on the property and the county is looking to approve a bid for a firm to do more removal.
He expected the property to be cleaned up this month.
The commission welcomed the new interim director at the health department, Clint Sperver, who is also head over in St. Lucie County.
The county would like to speed up health department permits for things like septic tanks.
Sperver admits they’ve gotten behind and that permits and inspections have been a challenge across the state.
In the courts, Georgianna Rivero Quigg was sentenced to three years in prison and a $50,000 fine for methamphetamine trafficking.
Quigg admitted to selling 29 grams of illegal drugs at a home on NW 160th Street on December 14, 2022.
Quigg scored 61 months in prison and the maximum sentence was 35 years.
The Florida House is working on a bill to limit children under 16 from using social media platforms.
The sponsor is our Senator Erin Grall.
It would impact platforms that track user activity and target content based on that tracking.
Democrat Lauren Book was concerned this might interfere with children’s gaming on the web.
Grall maintains social media companies don’t care about the harm they cause children.
She said they plan to study the impacts of gaming and the amount of time children spend online.
The US Army Corps of Engineers plans to release water out of Lake Okeechobee as the El Nino winter continues.
The lake usually receives under 3 inches of rain in January, but received over 9 inches this year according to the South Florida Water Management District.
They are also sending water down from the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes.
Major Cory Bell said the lake remains higher than they want it to be.
They have no date for the releases but maintain releases will go in all directions not just the west coast.
A large muck wildfire in western Palm Beach County is expected to burn for days.
Winds from the fire were being pushed eastward to the more populated areas of Palm Beach County.
The fire was reported Monday at 11:30 am in the 9000 block of Brown’s Farm Road near Belle Glade.
Palm Beach County Fire Rescue had 18 units on the scene but remained on the scene overnight and reported no injuries and no structure damage.