News Update for 6/2/20

The latest Florida Department of Health statistics released this morning show Highlands County’s corona virus numbers have gone up by two. There now have been 132 positive cases of the virus registered here.
According to the numbers, of the 4,431 tests now administered, 4,296 – or 94.5-percent – have come back negative. There have been 38 hospitalizations listed and nine deaths since records started being kept back in March.

Highlands County commissioners voted this morning not to change anything in their garbage collection program with WasteConnections. County Attorney Joy Carmichael told commissioners that her reading of the contract showed that the company is bound under the terms of the 10-year pact.
Commissioners said that whatever happened today, residents would be looking at additional charges for garbage collection in the future. No action was taken on the current moratorium on curbside recycling.

There’s more activity planned today at the Avon Park Bombing Range. Officials there say they first will host a number of flights of F-16 fighter jet training, followed by some of the big Sikorsky HC-60 helicopters.
That activity reportedly will run all day and well into the night.

They have been working on it for better than a decade – now Duke Energy has announced they will build a solar farm in Hardee County. The Charlie Creek Solar Power Plant will be built on 610 acres there. The nearly 75-Megawatt facility will consist of some 235,000 tracking solar panels.
Company officials say that when completed, the array will be able to produce enough electric to power some 23,000 homes at about 39-cents per Kilowatt hour.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd has issued a warning to potential looters there. He said that the people in Polk County “like guns, they have guns and I encourage them to have guns.” He advised that those residents would be at their homes with their guns loaded.
Polk residents were under the second night of a curfew last night with no apparent incidents.
Highlands County Sheriff’s officials said they had seen internet reports of violence here – however, it was reported to have been uneventful overnight across the county.