News Archive

A family living in The Moors off Avalon Boulevard had a scare the night of Saturday, May 21. Shea Riles and her family were trying to settle in for the evening when they heard noises coming from the attic—a man ended up falling through the ceiling and into the room of Riles’s daughter.

Santa Rosa County may not have a typical public transit system, but the county does offer options for those who need it.

The para transit system operates for those who may not have access to their own transportation.

National Fentanyl Awareness Day seeks to bring attention to a prevalent drug issue, one that affects Santa Rosa County residents.

According to a press release from Attorney General Ashely Moody, over 105,000 Americans died of a drug overdose in the span of a year, and more than 66% of those deaths were related to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.

Driving over the Garcon Point Bridge between Navarre and Milton, one might notice some floating objects in East Bay, heralded by an American flag and the Florida state flag.

Those objects in the water are not traps—they are oyster farms, put there by Emerald Tides Oyster Company. On the other side, Brandon Smith’s Grayson Bay Oyster Company has their own farms in Escambia Bay.

The promised reduction to the Garcon Point Bridge tolls still has no effective date.

Representatives from the Florida Department of Transportation and Governor Ron DeSantis’s office reported that while work is still happening, there is no current update.

A website and petition campaign called Open Our Museum has been organized by a group of local citizens and civic leaders working together to urge the U.S. Navy and the Department of Defense (DoD) to reestablish the public access waiver to NAS Pensacola so all citizens are allowed to visit the National Naval Aviation Museum (NNAM) and the base’s other historic attractions.

One family continues to approach the Board of County Commissioners regarding the alternative subdivision provision.

The Fowlers have been attending commissioner meetings since November, asking the board to delete the provision, and now they have a name to put to their perceived threat—Jubilee.

Freshwater fisheries researchers and managers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) successfully released 3,300 hatchery-raised shoal bass fingerlings (young fish) into the Chipola River in May.

Guy Thompson, the former Mayor of Milton, was released from the federal prison he was staying in two years before his set release date.

On January 17, 2020, Thompson was sentenced to 51 months in prison for embezzling over $650,000 from the United Way of Santa Rosa County, which he ran for 39 years. The sentencing came after the FBI and IRS investigated Thompson’s finances for the years of 2011-2018.

The Santa Rosa County School District is looking at putting in two new schools in the East Milton area. The district sought a positive recommendation from the zoning board on May 12 regarding the possibility of turning a portion of land in the 5400 block of SA Jones Road into both a K-8 school and a high school.