News Cast for July 11th:
A good first impression
About 100 people got to look inside the Okeechobee County Jail.
The sheriff showed off his new jail pod that will house more inmates, help reduce costs, and provide more services for inmates.
Sheriffs Captain Scott Deloney said it will be a fully contained and secure facility. He said there are classrooms for inmates to better themselves. There is also a raised observation area where guards can see all the jail cells at once.
There will be less need to more prisoners around. It will also create space for female inmates.
Sheriff Noel Stephen predicted the facility will be more efficient and affordable.
Eventually they can house up to 499 inmates about doubling the current capacity..
The existing jail has been overcrowded for 19 years.
They opted for the expansions because repairs alone on the 40 year old jail would have cost nearly $10 million dollars.
Jail officials said they expect to move inmates into the new pod in the next 30 days.
The next phase of the project will be a kitchen and laundry facility.
The state provided $7 million towards the cost of the new facility in the 2023-2024 fiscal year budget.
Florida Power and Light said they are ready for the storm season.
The city of Okeechobee is getting a 1$.2 million grant from the state to make city hall stronger for storms.
The city did ask FPL to make solar farming work better on local cattle ranches.
Finance director India Riedel said city employees could be paying $114 more per month for health insurance.
The road off 710 into Booker Park in Indiantown was shut down for about 16 hours after a train derailment around noon on Monday.
Okeechobee County Fire Rescue and Sheriff Deputies worked the scene and kept traffic bottlenecks from occurring.
It did not impact the traffic on 710 much, as neighborhood traffic was rerouted to SW Farms Road.
There was no injuries in the train derailment.
The Florida East Coast Railroad was investigating why the derailment occurred.
The Glades County Board of County Commissioners and the planning board are holding a workshop today on the issue of farm animals in certain residential neighborhoods.
Two acres isn’t big enough for a horse is what some in Indian Hills argue.
Others argue you should not limit smaller farm animals that have less impacts.
Bill Kline works in ranching and has horses.
He said he likes having them close by and it makes it easier to go to work.
He said it is convenient to have the horse near his home so he can get to work in the morning rather than having the horse somewhere else where he can’t watch him.
Indian Hills residents said the vast majority of the neighborhood are opposed to having farm animals.
OCRA –
Thursday night is our Monthly Meeting at 6pm at the Sports Complex.
We have a lot to talk about and get figured out, some of the items on the agenda are: Fall Baseball/Softball and Football & Cheerleading. As always everyone is welcome to attend the regular meeting, we encourage people to attend. We want to hear your feedback, it will help this program continue to grow in a positive direction. Anyone that wants to know how or why things are being done is encouraged to attend and ask. Our board is very motivated to get our program to the next level and we need your continued support to do so.