Carrabelle mayor to step down Sunday
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Carrabelle mayor to step down Sunday

In a letter Monday afternoon to City Administrator Courtney Dempsey, Carrabelle Mayor Brenda La Paz said she plans to not see re-election, and will step down this Sunday, March 31. “The reasons for my resignation range from personal, health, family, and financial,” she wrote. “I will not get into specifics as these matters are personal….

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Outdoors Brief

FWC law enforcement achieves highest accreditation level The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Division of Law Enforcement was awarded the Excelsior Status, the most prestigious achievement in Florida accreditation, by the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation at their February 2024 conference.  Excelsior Recognition is reserved for criminal justice agencies that have received accreditation…

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Franklin County voters to weigh millage shift

Money would be earmarked for pay increases Franklin County voters in November’s general election will be asked to decide whether they favor shifting a half-mill in property taxes, now devoted to capital outlay, to operating revenues, where they can be spent on hiking teacher pay. After the school board voted unanimously last month to support…

Florida Democratic Party suspends Franklin County chair
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Florida Democratic Party suspends Franklin County chair

In a sign of the challenges facing Democrats in an ongoing shift among Franklin County voters to the Republican party, the chair of the county Democratic Party was suspended last week. The suspension of Carol Barfield from her post as chair was one of three suspensions announced last week by Nikki Fried, chair of the…

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FWC Report

During the week of Feb. 23 through 29, Officer Lipford was on patrol in Gulf County targeting night hunters when he observed a vehicle displaying a light into an open field in a manner capable of disclosing the presence of deer. He stopped the vehicle and found the driver and passenger were in possession of…

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FWC Report

During the week of Jan. 26 through Feb. 1, Officer Hartzog was patrolling Timber Island in Franklin County and observed a group of individuals fishing from the bridge over Postum Bayou. Hartzog conducted a resource inspection and observed the subjects to be in possession of multiple undersized spotted seatrout. Also, none of the individuals possessed…

Derelict vessel removal not always smooth sailing
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Derelict vessel removal not always smooth sailing

It took over a year to get to the bottom of who was responsible for a derelict vessel that was impeding boat traffic around Pinhook in the Apalachicola River. How long before that it had languished in the water is anybody’s guess. But based on the fact the chains intended to drag it up on…

Rick Scott: ‘This country is in deep trouble’
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Rick Scott: ‘This country is in deep trouble’

If anyone had doubts that Florida Senator Rick Scott has the fight in him to win re-election this fall, Tuesday night’s appearance at the Fort Coombs Armory for the annual Lincoln/Reagan Day Dinner likely dispelled them. In a fiery nearly half-hour speech, Scott, 71, rallied the troops behind a message of better border security and…