Mariya Calkins, the wife of sitting Santa Rosa Commissioner James Calkins, is officially running for the District 3 seat in the Florida House of Representatives after Rep. Jayer Williamson announced he will not seek reelection after 2022.

For more than 30 years, if you visited the office of the Santa Rosa Press Gazette, you’d likely meet Jim Fletcher.

He was editor before he was publisher. He was passionate about Milton and about local news and about his “family” of employees. On Jan. 5, his family learned that Fletcher, who was hospitalized on New Year’s Day, had died of cancer at an area hospital a few days later. He was 64.

Boston, also affectionately known as the “Hub,” is now connected to the Gateway to the Gulf Coast. American Airlines will begin offering service between Logan International Airport and Pensacola International Airport in June 2022, bringing even more nonstop destination options to Pensacola travelers. This route is a part of the Northeast Alliance between American Airlines and JetBlue, Logan Airport’s largest carrier.

Rep. Jayer Williamson filed a bill to the Florida House of Representatives Dec. 27 that would require a referendum for any prospective municipality incorporation, making Williamson’s “personal requirement” a Florida law.

HB 1035 would include a paragraph in F.S. 165.041 requiring the “passage of a nonbinding referendum … supporting the incorporation of a new municipality approved by 60% or more of the qualified electors within the area of the proposed municipality.”

After a year of internal transitions, Santa Rosa County has a new – and old – attorney in place. Tom Dannheisser, county attorney for more than 20 years, has stepped back into that role after serving as a county and circuit judge.