WOKC Local News – December 12, 2025, 7:40 AM
Transcript
WOKC News. A debate over 70 West with WOKC News. I’m Charles Murphy. The Department of Transportation says their plan to improve sections of 70 West will make things safer. The county and the city even are both questioning those remarks. The plan would include improvements on 70 West from 98 eastward to just west of 8th Avenue. The plan would be to lower the lane widths from 12 to 11 feet, put in a raised median and limit left turns on both sides of the road. County Commissioner Terry Burroughs is concerned about limited access and fewer left turns. To me, when you start shutting off access to some of these side roads, you’re causing us more traffic congestion in other areas. Megan Lerner with the Department of Transportation addressed concerns about narrowing lanes. As part of that project, they are reducing the travel lanes to 11 feet and widening that two-way left turn lane to 16. Construction is starting now and this pavement project is going to be complete prior to our safety improvement project beginning. The county re-elected David Hazelief to serve as chairman for another year and they approved a request from the Historical Society. They’ll be putting up markers on the courthouse to celebrate the building’s 100th birthday next year. They’ll also place markers on the 1926 school campus and auditorium and at City Hall. The U.S. Postal Service expects their postal carriers and post offices to be very busy this year. They set the mailing deadlines for us. It’s next week, December 17th for first-class mail and USPS ground packages to get there for Christmas. December 18th is the deadline for priority mail service and December 20th for priority mail express. The deadline to sign up to help people in need with Operation Santa, sending those needy cards and gifts is December 13th. Post Office Spokesperson Mary Falcon says you want to keep your packages safe and well secured. Make sure they also have clear labels. We do want to make sure that the outside is labeled entire address, name, address, city, state and zip code. And then this year we are recommending that a secondary label go inside the package. That way in case your item, the package gets damaged, the label is not able to be seen, we can go ahead and still get that item to the destination in time for Christmas. Local and state officials are joining forces to protect older Floridians by launching Operation Senior Shield. It’s a free alert system aiming to educate and empower seniors and caregivers about scam phone calls, text emails and pop-up ads. Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins spoke on the new statewide initiative. It gives seniors confidence. It gives them control. It gives them the ability to recognize a scam instantly and shut it down before it even starts. Glades County imposed a burn ban this week. No open burning, no yard debris burning, no recreation fires except for cooking fires. And you can’t have no fireworks that create sparks or flames. It’s in response to the ongoing drought and dry conditions. I’m Charles Murphy, WOKC News.
Recorded from the WOKC daily newscast (Glades Media).