WOKC Local News – April 14, 2026, 7:41 AM
Transcript
WOKC News. The message was clear. With WOKC News, I’m Charles Murphy. Six speakers addressed the Okeechobee County Commission last week on the possible Okie One data center at the former boys’ school. It’s a project being headed by Indian River State College. All were opposed to the facility and had different concerns, mostly related to the amount of electric it’ll use, possibly heating the ground around it, and the heavy use of fresh water. There’s something deeply wrong about sacrificing a small community so that a massive, faceless corporation can expand without limits. That’s Corrine Raymond Curran, one of the speakers. She says there’s just not enough positives for Okeechobee to approve this. They hum constantly, they generate heat, and they often require large-scale infrastructure changes that permanently alter the character of a place like ours. And what do we get in return? A handful of jobs, temporary construction work, and then very long-term, and few very long-term positions. County Commissioner Mike Sumner pointed out the county has little to say about the Okee One project, and the Indian River State College Board of Trustees needs to be addressed. This is their project. You hear a hundred different things, one of which is that it’s going to be a campus for teaching. So that makes it their project and something that’s not even really under our purview. Unemployment rates went up in Okeechobee, the state lagging several months behind on their reporting due to the federal government shutdown. The Okeechobee December rate was 5.2% and it goes up to 5.9% in January. Around the region, Osceola County at 5.1%, St. Lucie County 5.7%, and Highlands County 7% even. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will have a prescribed burn this week in the Chansey Bay Marsh that’s on the northeast side of Lake Okeechobee. It will be authorized by the Florida Forest Service. They plan to burn about 2,295 acres. The FWC does plan to conduct the burn under wind and weather conditions that will minimize the smoke impacts in nearby towns and to motorists. U.S. Senator Rick Scott came to the area last week hearing from farmers and ranchers impacted by the freeze we had in February. Temperatures got into the 20s in Okeechobee and even colder in certain outlying areas. Sugar farmers saw a lot of damage. The amount of damage across the state for agriculture as a whole was over $3.1 billion according to the Department of Agriculture. This farmer described the damage done to his property. One of our southernmost properties was actually 19 degrees and it was 31 in Belle Glade. I heard many years ago the government ought to do for the people what the people can’t do for themselves. And this is something that we as farmers, we can’t do for ourselves this time. The long-term effects on these cows is going to be tough. Luckily, unlike everybody else in here, we didn’t lose any cows to the freeze. You know, they walk around with fur coats. Ranchers were also impacted. This rancher says it was expensive to feed his stock this winter. For feeding cattle through the winter, it’s normally about $120 to $150 a head, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but you put it on $7,500 a head and that’s a pretty good number. This year, to date, I looked at it yesterday actually to tell Senator Moody, and we’re at about $360 a head. I’m Charles Murphy, WOKC News.
Recorded from the WOKC daily newscast (Glades Media).