I had the distinct privilege of covering the homecoming and housewarming of Staff Sergeant Aaron Hale this past Saturday in Santa Rosa Beach. I could have written a book on the events that took place that morning and the events that led up to a home being gifted to the Hales.
We live in a gorgeous area that people pay thousands of dollars to come to each year either as snowbirds or for week-long visits. We really don’t appreciate what we have here, or we would take better care of Navarre and the people of Navarre Beach would care more.
In the four years before I took office, Florida lost more than 825,000 jobs, unemployment more than tripled from 3.5 percent to 11.1 percent, and state debt increased by $5.2 billion.
It used to be that when one of our employees said, “I’m moving when my house sells” we had about 12-18 months to not worry about it. However, the market is officially picking up because we recently had an instance when a house went on the market on Monday and sold for more than the asking price on Wednesday and it was a pricey home with a swimming pool. Thankfully, the closing process is still pretty slow so we had four weeks to find a replacement.
By the time you read this it will officially be spring and our legislators will have been in session for a little more than two weeks. Appropriate enough – Leo Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina that, “Spring is the time of plans and projects.”
Daylight savings starts Sunday morning and that means Spring is here. Navarre Beach will start to get college spring-breakers. The University of Florida is out for Spring Break this week. Next week, Florida State, Troy, Auburn, University of West Florida, Duke, University of North Carolina, University of Georgia and Emory are out for spring break.
The Arc of Florida is working to make changes to state laws that are long overdue. Senate Bill 142, the Intellectual Disabilities Bill, would remove the term “mental retardation” and replace it with “intellectual disability” in state statutes.
