It appears that Highlands County Administrator Michael Wright and Purchasing Director Jed Secory have come up with a winning proposal for county commissioners to consider on Tuesday. Their plan is a well thought-out policy that gives local companies an edge when it comes to doing business with the county. ...more

September 21, 2008

Seven months ago, Rudy Crew's peers named him the nation's top school superintendent, bolstering a long-standing reputation as an education innovator. Student achievement in Miami-Dade County's schools has improved during his four-year tenure and the district is consistently a finalist for the prestigious Broad Prize for Urban Education. ...more

September 12, 2008

In seven years of selling school supplies, Traci Torres cannot remember a back-to-school shopping season shaping up as gloomy as this one. ...more

August 1, 2008

We all do it. Here are the top ten I've told myself and tried to believe: ...more

July 6, 2008

Dear Abby: My children are 10 and 12. When my wife and I suggest that we all do something together, they whine and moan. We have to force them to go or end up getting upset with them and staying home. ...more

June 29, 2008

The city's cemetery expansion plans have been put on hold. Tuesday night, the city commission decided to table consideration of a proposal to trade a surplus street paver, backhoe and land to expand the 130-year-old burial ground. The trade would have covered only $38,645 of the $247,800 purchase price for the 7-acre parcel that Dade City wants to buy from contractor and property owner Bob Larkin. ...more

May 29, 2008

Once again I state my opposition to using tax monies for tennis courts at public schools. During a time of economic challenges, when teachers across the state are being laid off, and when many counties will face budget shortfalls paying for fuel for county vehicles and school district buses, it is not a time to consider spending money to build tennis courts on public school campus. Any such recreational public monies should be spent on projects that benefit all residents — not just school children. ...more

May 12, 2008

I didn't think the disposal of 100 billion plastic bags a year in this country was all that much. Los Angeles, however, does and is apparently leading the country in adopting legislation to eliminate the "paper or plastic" option by banning the plastic bag. Elsewhere some retailers are voluntarily doing the same. Still there is a group of us around who share a kind of save-it-just-in-case mentality. We recycle stuff by using it for purposes never dreamed of by the inventors. In fact we would be very tempted to sign a "Save the Bag" petition if one started making the rounds. Sure a "bring a bag to market" or "rent a bag" movement is admirable, but how often do you simply pop into a supermarket just for a quart of milk only to get a text message from someone at home with a list long enough to fill up two carts? ...more

May 2, 2008

Most days the mail just sits there in the box until one of us finally goes for the bad news. Weekends are usually worse. For some reason, Saturdays are when we get the bills that are messed up; the ones that some store's accounts have somehow taken a debit instead of a credit. ...more

May 2, 2008

Our lack of personal toughness is sapping our authority to get things done right. The inability to deny ourselves anything is making us weak. This weakness is filtering down to every aspect of our society. When we don't say "no" to ourselves, how can we expect others in our charge to listen to us? We have forgotten the virtues of saying "no" to ourselves, our children, our students, employees and our ever-expanding government. ...more

February 14, 2008