Big lawns aren't the scene in the urban core where most homes are built near the sidewalk, leaving just enough room on the front yard for hedges, plants and flowers. ...more

July 23, 2008

Late Thursday or early Friday morning someone drove a pickup truck onto the yards of four Lake Placid homes in the neighborhood surrounding the 1000 block of Jonquil Street. ...more

July 20, 2008

It was like a slice of heaven for Gary and Bonnie King. A couple of years ago, they found the home they loved in a quiet subdivision of a rural town. ...more

July 19, 2008

Torrential rain Thursday afternoon flooded a neighborhood in East Tampa and closed one lane of State Road 60 near U.S. 41, slowing rush hour traffic to a crawl. ...more

July 18, 2008

TAMPA - Torrential rain this afternoon has flooded a neighborhood in East Tampa and closed one lane of State Road 60 near U.S. 41. ...more

July 17, 2008

JACKSONVILLE (AP) _ - Chappell's Lawn & Garden used to pay about $100 a week in fuel for its trucks, mowers, edgers and trimmers that keep business going. ...more

July 13, 2008

Code Enforcement Oxymoron There is a lot of talk in county government about the idea of combining some county agencies to help save money. Combining agencies, reducing top heavy management and getting workers to respond to the real needs of the county they serve is of the utmost importance, especially today. ...more

July 11, 2008

SEBRING –– As far as rainfall goes, the last two weeks were rather wet for Avon Park and downright soggy for Lake Placid. So soggy, in fact, that Highlands County Lakes Association Secretary John Ruggiero said he saw the lake, Lake Placid, rise about 10 inches from two weeks ago, which is about what the Archbold Biological Station's rain gauge recorded for that time period, according to the National Weather Service. "If we could even get 5 or 6 (inches) a week, that would be a wonderful thing for the lakes in our county," Ruggiero said. For those who long for the days when they could put a boat out on Lake Jackson, "this is just a spit in the bucket," association vice president Dave McCadam said. He added that the rain patterns over the past two weeks were not that far from normal for the northern part of the county. ...more

July 6, 2008

As I ride along U.S. 27, I look out on Lake Jackson. As I look past the weeds, where there is sand, I notice people out there with chairs, coolers and some of them who can get their boats afloat, boats. Where there is sand and water people tend to go to the beach, have fun, swim, relax and just have a good time. I further notice that none of them choose to sit in the weeds. It's still unimaginable that we spent over $70,000 to remove some of the weeds from the dry lake bed, and maintain the so called "native" weeds. Weeds are unsightly. Weeds are weeds. A weed by any other name is still a weed. We pick them from our lawns and flower beds. We poison them to get rid of them. But then along comes someone with a grant to grow them. Who decides that we should have weeds growing where there will again someday be a lake? We don't need to cultivate weeds where there should, and eventually will be, water. Something for boat props to get tangled in. Now I've noticed that we are maintaining the weeds. We are mowing weeds in a lake bed. I wonder how much that is costing and who is paying that bill? ...more

July 3, 2008

The sun teased Pasco County on Sunday, peeking out several times. But the sky was mostly gray, and the rain poured on already waterlogged lawns and into taxed drainage systems. ...more

June 23, 2008