News Archive

Holley-Navarre Water customers will face higher bills when they refill their pools this summer, after the Holley-Navarre Water Board did away with a yard-meter policy that gave residents a credit on their sewer bill.

National Fentanyl Awareness Day seeks to bring attention to a prevalent drug issue, one that affects Santa Rosa County residents.

According to a press release from Attorney General Ashely Moody, over 105,000 Americans died of a drug overdose in the span of a year, and more than 66% of those deaths were related to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.

Driving over the Garcon Point Bridge between Navarre and Milton, one might notice some floating objects in East Bay, heralded by an American flag and the Florida state flag.

Those objects in the water are not traps—they are oyster farms, put there by Emerald Tides Oyster Company.

The promised reduction to the Garcon Point Bridge tolls still has no effective date.

Representatives from the Florida Department of Transportation and Governor Ron DeSantis’s office reported that while work is still happening, there is no current update.

A website and petition campaign called Open Our Museum has been organized by a group of local citizens and civic leaders working together to urge the U.S. Navy and the Department of Defense (DoD) to reestablish the public access waiver to NAS Pensacola so all citizens are allowed to visit the National Naval Aviation Museum (NNAM) and the base’s other historic attractions.

Freshwater fisheries researchers and managers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) successfully released 3,300 hatchery-raised shoal bass fingerlings (young fish) into the Chipola River in May.

Guy Thompson, the former Mayor of Milton, was released from the federal prison he was staying in two years before his set release date.

On January 17, 2020, Thompson was sentenced to 51 months in prison for embezzling over $650,000 from the United Way of Santa Rosa County, which he ran for 39 years. The sentencing came after the FBI and IRS investigated Thompson’s finances for the years of 2011-2018.

The zoning board discussed two potential townhome developments for Gulf Breeze Parkway. Beckie Cato from Forest Bay Estates presented the two projects at the May 12 meeting, one on the 5700 block and the other on the 4800 block of Gulf Breeze Parkway. The two areas are owned by the same person, but they are currently zoned as Highway Commercia Developments. The goal is to create two townhome developments.

Magdalene’s, Inc. has been in the works for two years, and on Thursday, April 28, the non-profit closed on their home. The building will be the site of a safe house for female survivors of human trafficking.

In August of 2019, David Williams, who operated a massage parlor on Fordham Parkway in Gulf Breeze, was arrested.

As the price of homes increase, so do the taxes that go with their sales. Documentary (or doc) stamp taxes have not technically gone up, but due to the increase in prices on homes and other properties, citizens could be paying more.