Avon Park has its next City Manager. After listening to the six finalists last night, council members chose David Flowers for the job. Flowers knows his way around a government building; he was on the city council in the early 1990s, and has served as a Highlands County commissioner and Sheriff’s deputy. Flowers will be available to start work on January 7 after giving notice at his current job and be in place for the next Council meeting January 14. Flowers gets to start putting fires out from the git-go … a generator for city hall might have been improperly ordered, and he could be grilled about that at his first meeting.
Pretty rocky weather here in Highlands County yesterday, as a couple-three squall lines made their way through running southwest to northeast across the region. We got our fair share of wind and rain – into the inches – but to our north and west, there was some serious stuff to our north and west. Over in Manatee, Pasco and Pinellas Counties, straight line winds that COULD have included a tornado damaged dozens of manufactured homes – one of them over at Myakka City was verified as an F0 tornado, and another verified tornado took part of the roof off a home near Lake Wales and sent an elderly lady to the hospital when she was struck by debris.
Detectives are still looking for leads in a shooting from Wednesday night in Avon Park – the Dollar General store there saw a 19 year old Avon Park man shot multiple times and transported to the hospital in critical but stable condition – Detective Jorge Martinez from the County Sherriff’s detective disvsioon would appreciate a call if you know anything – he’s at 402-7250. Heartland Crimestoppers is offering p to $3,000 cash for information leading to the crime being solved. If you want to leave a top anonymously, the Sherriff’s department has a cellphone app now – it’s free on either Apple or Google’s app stores.
Highlands County Sherriff’s Deputies have a chance to play Santa this year thanks to a load of toys collected for the Cops Adapt Unit by a group of local organizatons including the local Viet Nam Vets of America, Lake Ridge Retireees and the Wild Turkey Tavern. Toys will be distributed through the RCMA office in Avon Park to identified needy families around the county.