When Assistant County Engineer Gregg Sutton put out a call for excavation contracting firms interested in hauling away contaminated soil at the old public works site in downtown Brooksville, he wasn't quite prepared for the flood of responses. ...more

July 17, 2008

Local municipalities and the county are scrambling to comply with a 2002 state mandate that might cost thousands of county public water customers at least $300 each. ...more

July 16, 2008

When Highlands County had an opening for a clerical assistant at Emergency Medical Services recently, at $9.29 per hour, on the low end of the pay range, 63 people applied. ...more

July 10, 2008

SEBRING - When Highlands County had an opening for a clerical assistant at Emergency Medical Services recently, at $9.29 per hour, on the low end of the pay range, 63 people applied. Seventy-five people applied for one opening in the county road and bridge department for a laborer's job. The pay scale for this job starts at $8.88 per hour and runs up to a maximum of $14.38 per hour. "We have had, it seems, a big increase in the number of job applicants since I've been here," said Don Kesterson, a county human resources specialist who took his job 18 months ago following a 20-year career in the Air Force. ...more

July 9, 2008

SEBRING – The land acquisition manager for the Highlands County Engineer's office was fired for what county officials described as inappropriate use of her county e-mail account. Kathy Avirett, 32, a county employee since November 2003, was fired June 30 by her boss, county Engineer Ramon Gavarrete. ...more

July 7, 2008

A coalition of residents who oppose the site the county has selected to store material dredged from the bottom of the channel here wants more time to file for a hearing with the state. ...more

July 3, 2008

THEY SEEK 60 DAYS ...more

July 2, 2008

WOULD ALLOW COUNTY TO MOVE AHEAD WITH EFFORT ...more

June 22, 2008

SEBRING — The formal legal process for the appeals of two county employees for exchanging inappropriate and often sexually explicit instant-messages will begin in six days, on Monday. Jim McCollum, the attorney for ex-county employees Jared Lee and Treasa Handley, will take sworn statements, recorded verbatim by a legal stenographer, from four people, starting at 9 a.m. in a conference room at the Highlands County Government Center. Handley and Lee were dismissed more than five months ago for sending thousands of personal instant messages to each other, and others, on their county computers during working hours. Many of the messages were sexually explicit, and all of them are public record, accessible to anyone, with a request to either the county's public information officer or the Highlands County Clerk of Courts office. ...more

June 16, 2008

City of Brooksville Vice Mayor Frankie Burnett set the tone of Tuesday's neighborhood meeting in South Brooksville by urging residents to focus on future improvements and not getting too caught up in past mistakes of the county. ...more

June 11, 2008