News Archive

The 2025 recreational bay scallop season for the Gulf County Zone (including all of St. Joseph Bay) opens Aug. 16 and will remain open through Sept. 24. This region includes all state waters from the Mexico Beach Canal in Bay County to the westernmost point of St. Vincent Island in Franklin County.

Santa Rosa County is undergoing a PD&E Study in an effort to create a Navarre Community Access Road. A virtual project update is currently available online at www.santarosa.fl.gov/1033/Navarre-Community-Access-Road.

The long wait for the traffic signal at Ortega Street and Highway 98 is over.

Since the second week of August, crews have been working to install a traffic signal at the crowded intersection.

There’s a new McDonald’s in town (almost).

Coastal Connections Academy is in hot water with school board officials after receiving an “F” grade for this past school year. The online public charter school has contracted with Santa Rosa County for the past four and a half years. CCA is managed through Pearson Virtual Schools, which has two schools in Florida and operates more than 40 across the U.S.

Santa Rosa County hosted a CivicCon event on Aug. 12. The event was held by CivicCon, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making the community “a better place to live, play, work, and invest through smart planning and by driving unparalleled and continuing com-munity engagement,” according to their website. The county was responsible for hosting the event, and provided a space for the meeting after the organization reached out express-ing interest in a Santa Rosa County event.

A vehicle ran into Ace Hardware in Navarre Monday morning, Aug. 18, prompting a response from Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office and Florida Highway Patrol. 

A week before children began flocking the halls of schools across Santa Rosa County, school administrators and Santa Rosa County District Schools personnel were hard at work getting ready for the 2025-26 school year.

From Aug. 4 through Aug. 8, school employees including teachers and front office staff returned to full time work at their respective school sites for a ‘planning week.’

Code Ninjas, an international afterschool learning center franchise, held an open house Saturday, Aug. 2, marking the first public event the organization has held since moving to their new location in Midway.

The arrest of a Gulf Breeze man for child pornography possession has stirred up anger and calls for accountability in the Gulf Breeze community.

Matthew McChesney, 18, is charged with 20 counts of possession of child pornography and three counts of trading child porn. According to a warrant report for McChesney, he accessed, traded and saved child sexual abuse material (CSAM) from a Discord chatroom.