The city council on Thursday asked the city's legal staff and police marine unit to devise a strategy to persuade the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to take a new look at allowing an ordinance setting speed limits and a no-wake zone on an approximately mile-long stretch of the Hillsborough River. The city can approve an ordinance, but officials say the state probably would nix it because of a lack of statistics showing accidents, injuries or fatalities. ...more

July 18, 2009

SEBRING — Sheriff Susan Benton accepted a letter of resignation Monday from a deputy who was charged in April by the U.S. Coast Guard with intoxicated operation of a vessel, while boating in a Pine Island canal. Former deputy Craig Skipper reportedly took an excursion in his boat on April 18, when he was stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard after a complaint was filed. Coast guard officials reported Skipper appeared intoxicated but he refused twice to take a sobriety test, an investigation report by Sheriff's Internal Affairs Officer Lt. Gus Garcia stated. The agency received a complaint that the boat was "operating on plane" (speeding) in a no wake zone and that the boat operator was "exposing himself," Garcia's report stated. ...more

June 24, 2008