News Cast for July 5th:
Expanding our food options
The Okeechobee City Council approved food truck regulations.
They can operate after 9 am in any zoning district that allows brick and mortar restaurants.
Councilman Bob Jarriel supported limiting them only to industrial areas.
“I think we have an obligation to our mom and pop restaurants in town. When we had COVID, those people paid rent, insurance, and taxes all the way through that.”
Okeechobee County has allowed food trucks for some time.
Okeechobee deputies said a suspect improperly touched a woman in a local home.
Stephen Scott was charged with sexual battery and held on $250 thousand dollars on June 29.
He allegedly confessed to touching the woman. He claimed he was discipling her.
In the courts, Joseph Lee of Okeechobee pled no contest to charges he improperly touched two children, ages five and nine.
The incidents dated back to 2015.
He was sentenced to six years in prison and 10 years of sex offender probation.
The Glades County sheriff administration will stay at the Glades Development Corrections Center until at least the end of September.
They approved a $13,000 per month rent agreement with the GCDC.
They are looking for a permanent location and are requesting the state to provide funding.
Commissioner Donna Storter Long wants the county to hire more dispatchers and to give them more training.
“There is no way until you have been in an emergency you realize how critical it is to have trained dispatchers. I can’t fault the person because she is not a medical dispatcher. She hasn’t had the training and we don’t have the tools. We have to serve our people better.”
The state requires the county to have two dispatchers on duty at all times. That would mean an additional five dispatchers for the small county. The estimated cost for salaries and benefits would be at least $250,000 annually.
A 16 year old Moore Haven boy was charged with attempted murder and armed burglary.
Its alleged he was interested in a 22 year old female clerk at the Family Dollar. He went to her home, talked with her on the porch, then let himself into the home uninvited while she was on the phone.
The arrest report said the two had words, wrestled and he stuck a knife in her throat.
She was flown to a regional hospital and has since recovered.
Video from the store gave detectives a lead.
The victim said it they didn’t catch the teen, he would kill someone.