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

A turbine generator manufacturer has scored $57,000 in incentives to bring new jobs to Pasco County. ...more

June 2, 2008

Pave Bailey Hill Road As a resident of the Bailey Hill Road area, I am becoming increasingly concerned that Bailey Hill Road will never get paved. An MSBU was informally asked for, but we were told by the county "why pave it under the MSBU when it will be paved with impact fee money." Time has passed and we still see no progress in it being paved. ...more

May 31, 2008

The Hernando County School Board will meet Tuesday for an afternoon workshop and evening meeting. ...more

May 19, 2008

Recently, the county commission decided to dismiss action on a proposed impact fee stimulus package. Charitably, it was not a good policy. A number of factors clearly illustrated that it would have jeopardized the local economy rather than stimulated it. That concept energized the following brief history of how such concepts affected working people in this country. Over a hundred years ago, President Teddy Roosevelt busted the robber barons. They had a stranglehold on workingmen. They dictated the price they paid for labor. Men worked 12 hour days, seven days a week for low wages with no vacations or sick leave. They worked till they dropped, 365 days a year. In the next 100 years, through bloody wars, goon squads and sheer persistence, working conditions improved. The '30s and '40s were pivotal decades in that slow process of working people earning a "piece of the pie," but they had to struggle to maintain the progress so bitterly fought for. The idea of "helping" the developers and construction industry "stimulate" the economy triggered recall of that history. Unions were formed to help workers collectively demand and earn better wages and work conditions. They gained those rights, but had to fight to keep them. In the '50s, the U.S. Congress passed laws to correct a flaw "discovered" in the wages and pension package. ...more

May 2, 2008

The Polk County Commission rejected a pair of efforts to roll back the county's impact fees during a contentious Wednesday afternoon hearing. ...more

February 21, 2008

BARTOW - The Polk County commission rejected a pair of efforts to roll back the county's impact fees during a contentious Wednesday afternoon hearing. ...more

February 20, 2008

At the time we confessed to being at a loss to explain why the Pasco School District decided late last year to apply for a $5 million state grant to build affordable housing for the teachers the district is trying to lure to Pasco. ...more

February 12, 2008

SEBRING — Eleven people will be appointed to Highlands County's first Impact Fees Review Committee. Patterned after a similar advisory committee in Polk County, this committee will make recommendations to the county commissioners on whether the controversial impact fees should be raised, lowered, or kept the same. Commissioners approved the creation and form of this committee, as proposed by Commissioner Don Bates. The commissioners then agreed on the 11 special interests that will have a representative on this committee. ...more

February 6, 2008

Americans who are interested in making a government for the people must vote this year for no one holding public office. This should be a year for starting a campaign to vote everyone from city, county, state and federal officials out of office and start a new slate. It is apparent that they are not representing the people. Once elected, public officials think they have a lifetime job and apparently once in office, they gain so much power and money that it is almost impossible to vote them out of office. That is the reason I am advocating re-elect no one. I will make one exception to that rule. Charles Bryan, the Highlands County tax collector. ...more

February 2, 2008