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

SOLID WASTE WORKSHOP ALSO ON TUESDAY AGENDA ...more

June 15, 2008

One month after a controversial RV resort in Hernando Beach was pulled from a Land Use Hearing Agenda, a similar proposal finds its way back on - this time from a different developer and more than 30 miles eastward. ...more

June 10, 2008

Land use hearing is Wednesday. ...more

June 9, 2008

COUNTY DEPARTMENTS SUBMIT ANNUAL PLAN ...more

June 7, 2008

Brooksville Wesleyan Church is seeking permission to build a new place of worship along State Road 50. ...more

June 7, 2008

BROOKSVILLE WESLEYAN ON P&Z AGENDA ...more

June 6, 2008

SEBRING – Impact fees are likely to rise by 5 percent effective New Year's Day. But the people paying the impact fees on new homes and new commercial buildings might get a break on how they pay these fees, imposed to guarantee population growth won't outstrip dollars for infrastructure. It's possible that a committee may recommend, and the Highlands County commissioners would adopt, an installment payment plan so that impact fee payments could be stretched out over several years. On June 23, the Impact Fees Advisory Committee will vote to recommend to county commissioners changes in impact fees for 2009. ...more

June 5, 2008

During the unprecedented 2004 hurricane season, Capt. Joe Eckstein wasn't always happy with the response times from Tallahassee. ...more

May 20, 2008

Incorporating emergency management cuts response times, eliminates redundancies ...more

May 19, 2008