It's great that our county commissioners will be discussing ways to stimulate the local economy. As I look around my neighborhood and as I drive around Sebring, I see many "For Sale" signs in front of residential properties. Many of these signs are turning into "For Rent" signs as builders, Realtors and private sellers know very well that residential property is not selling. The idea of suspending impact fees and building permit fees seems absurd in today's market. Construction trades are experiencing a longer period of inactivity because builders of spec homes chose to continue building long after it was clear to those of us without crystal balls that sales and prices were dropping. How about discussing ways to attract industry to this area or to rebuild infrastructure where needed? About the last thing we need is building more residential property to further drive prices down when they don't sell. ...more

February 24, 2008

The Port of Tampa's proposed master and strategic plans, two years in the making and 551 pages in all, were released to the public Monday night on the port's Web site, tampaport.com. ...more

February 20, 2008

Highlands County Commissioner Guy Maxcy wants his fellow commissioners to consider an economic stimulus package for the local business community. We like that idea, and are game for anything that eases the desperate situation a growing number of businesses are in. We fear, though, that there is little that can be done on this level. Let's hope that isn't the case. ...more

February 20, 2008

Forming a committee of 11 people from varying fields is the best way to monitor and consider impact fees for Highlands County. With the right mix of people, from varying fields of expertise, they can de-politicize the debate about the fees. The 11 positions include representatives from retail business, banking, homeowners associates, environmental community, real estate, builders, education, etc. It's a great cross-section of the population and should serve the county well. ...more

February 7, 2008

The best bang for the buck is to "stop the bleeding, stop the war." Bring the troops home from all nations. We can no longer be the world's policeman. We have bases all over the world that we can no longer support, short of borrowing millions of dollars a day, which is destroying us financially. The best that America can do for the entire world is to stabilize our financial institutions. The entire world's economy is tied to the American economy. America must re-build its own industries and its infrastructure, not of other nations with the American tax dollar, as well as borrowing money from other nations at huge interest. We must also work toward energy independence, which is the biggest cause of a failed economy. The many regulations that were put in place to regulate financial institutions for the last two decades have been ignored and have created criminal lending practices. These have happened under the watch of both political parties. This illegal lending will create a huge tax bill for all Americans. ...more

February 1, 2008

Century Communications has filed a motion to dismiss a breach-of-contract lawsuit brought by Live Oak Preserve's homeowners association. ...more

January 30, 2008

By next month, the city plans to hire a contractor to maintain its nearly 13,000 fire hydrants. ...more

January 26, 2008

LIVE OAK PRESERVE - Century Communications has filed a motion to dismiss a breach-of-contract lawsuit brought by Live Oak Preserve's homeowners association. Attorneys for the developer-owned cable company said the association never specified how Century breached the contract. They said Century held up its end of the deal by making "a substantial investment of installing the infrastructure required to perform the agreed upon services." ...more

January 25, 2008

Impact fees are an important pay-as-you-use tax/fee, and recent concern about raising them in a real estate market slump is unjustified. ...more

January 19, 2008

SEBRING — Downtown businesses continue to try to lure people to the City on the Circle, and now the Community Redevelopment Agency is considering hiring a marketing coordinator to help with these efforts. Linda Kegley, owner of LK Artworks Gallery and Graphics, submitted a proposal to CRA members to create the position of a marketing coordinator to advertise downtown as a destination and coordinate events to generate traffic downtown. Kegley, who has more than 25 years of advertising and marketing experience, said she would like to be considered for this position, at a rate of $24 per hour or about $24,000 per year for 20 hours of work per week. ...more

January 16, 2008