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 Now We're Talking
 
Author: Joe Byrnes Created: 10/3/2006 12:31 PM
All about news and life in Marion County, Fla.
Getting to know Victor Jones
By Joe Byrnes on 8/29/2007 11:12 AM
Marian Wingo telephoned recently to say she is proud of her grandson. He's 12 and going into the sixth grade.

Big deal, huh? Well, yeah.

Victor Jones - son of Vanguard High basketball star Toni Wingo - is a quiet, hearing-impaired child, as neat as a pin, with wire-rimmed glasses and the sweet hint of a smile.

Marian Wingo, 77, has taken care of Victor since he was a baby and cared for his older brother, Richard Vaughn, as well. Their mother has struggled with mental illness.

This summer Richard, now 16, went to live with other relatives in North Carolina. Victor stayed on with his grandmother. She has severe arthritis and gets assistance from Marion County Senior Services, and Victor, too, helps around the house and folds the laundry.

"He knows I'm not well, and he tries to help me as much as possible," sh ...
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A puppy named Jorge
By Joe Byrnes on 8/22/2007 7:52 AM
My wife and I have a new puppy - a black-and-tan long-haired dachshund named Sophie - and she is an absolute delight.

We're in the process of house training her, but Sophie is still leaving little presents on the floor.

In that way - and that way only - she reminds me of Jorge Gutman.

The financially challenged Broward County developer has left a heaping mess in downtown Ocala.

In Gutman's case, I don't think we should take the time to train him.

I hope the city finds a way to place the City Shops & Walk project - now just so much dirt mounded, as it were, in the middle of Ocala's living room - into more dependable hands.

Joe Byrnes may be reached at joe@ocala.com or 352-867-4112.
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Fly a yellow ribbon
By Joe Byrnes on 8/22/2007 7:51 AM
From the Wednesday, Aug. 22, column.

Marion County will fly a yellow flag at the Veterans Memorial Park in support of U.S. troops serving in harm's way.

The decision - a unanimous vote of the County Commission - came following a request by Barry Barnett. The Palm Coast artist is on a months-long campaign to have Florida's local governments fly that flag.

"Our goal is to see the yellow flag flying from every county flag pole without the county spending one dollar on the flag," Barnett said after the vote. He said it is totally non-political and unrelated to the nationwide debate about bringing the troops home from Iraq.

"I could care less what the policies are," Barnett said. "I care about the person who is standing watch on a ship or on guard on land ... or in the air."

The 3-by-5-foot yellow flag will have these ...
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Beware Florida's Weather
By Joe Byrnes on 8/15/2007 10:51 AM
This entry ran as the Now We're Talking column on Wednesday, Aug. 15.

It's August in Florida. We can either move somewhere else for the month or keep a careful eye on the weather.

Star-Banner reporter Joe Callahan, who has written more articles about Marion County weather than just about anybody, summed up the situation for me.

"We're in the Lightning Capital of the World," he said. "So, technically, you could walk out the door and get struck by lightning, bitten by a poisonous snake and a brown recluse spider and hit by hurricane just on the way to the mail box .Ê.Ê. and probably you'd get heat stroke somewhere in there."

So it pays to stay alert. Here are some things to watch for:

- In case you haven't noticed, it is dangerously hot. On several days during the past week or so, the National Weather Service issued h ...
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Headed for shore, he leaves wisdom in his wake
By Joe Byrnes on 8/8/2007 11:15 AM
This entry ran as the Now We're Talking column in the Star-Banner on Wednesday, Aug. 8.

I think of government work as public service. It comes from being a former schoolteacher, the husband of a state employee and the son of a state university professor.

So as I sat in Sam McKinney's office last week and heard him talk about 35 years of service with the agency now called the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, including 30 years as the man in charge of fisheries for the Northeast Region, I was surprised to hear a trace of bitterness in his voice.

Apparently, not everyone likes these government guys.

An FWC biologist - even one who loves dogs, organizes fishing derbies for kids and is a devoted, caring father to his own developmentally disabled son - can receive threats and dirty looks from members of the public who see their interests threatened by ...
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FWC seeks public comments on bald eagle plan
By Joe Byrnes on 8/6/2007 2:20 PM
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is looking for your comments on its plan to manage the bald eagle in Florida. State and federal agencies have concluded the species has thoroughly rebounded from near extinction in the 1960s and is no longer threatened.

So how should the state manage America's national bird, which, by the way, is still protected under federal law? The FWC is considering that question. A final decision on the plan should come in December.

A public workshop - for your input - is scheduled 5:30 to 7 p.m. Aug. 22 at the Northeast Regional Office, 1239 S.W. 10th St. in Ocala.

This comment period ends Sept. 14 when the Commission meets in St. Petersburg, according to an FWC news release.

"Commissioners will hear public comment at the September meeting and again at the December meeting, but no formal action will ...
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A killer is spared in recognition of two who truly lived
By Joe Byrnes on 8/1/2007 12:22 PM
This ran as the Now We're Talking column on Wednesday in the Star-Banner.

It's impossible to fold down into a newspaper column all the heartache and love lost and promise denied that came with the random murders of John Michael Parker and Amber Marie Peck.

I won't even try. I'd like to focus, instead, on the decision their families made - choosing as they believed Parker and Peck would want - to spare the killer a death sentence and spare themselves a dozen years or longer of anguished waiting.

On Monday, citing their wishes, State Attorney Brad King offered Leo L. Boatman, 21, two life sentences without parole if he pleaded guilty. The parents of the victims stood in Judge Willard Pope's courtroom and testified tearfully about them: a kind-hearted father, son and Marine Corps veteran and a caring, fun-loving daughter and sister who had discovered a new car ...
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Don't turn City Hall into Pottersville
By Joe Byrnes on 8/1/2007 12:16 PM
This entry was published July 18. For an update on what happened at the City Council meeting, read Jessica Greene's news story titled "City makes decision on health insurance."

They say the best defense is a good offense. And now, as the Ocala City Council defends against an anticipated loss of revenue, Councilman Kyle Kay is being downright offensive.

Monday, the councilman - a banker from a banking family - took the opportunity in front of city workers to tout the benefits of thrift and personal responsibility and, at the same time, support an option that could increase their family health care costs by more than $300 a month.

I picture Kay as a younger, slimmer, law-abiding version of Mr. Potter ...
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Smokers need not apply
By Joe Byrnes on 7/24/2007 5:14 PM
This entry ran as a Wednesday column in the Star-Banner.

The city of Ocala is offering one more reason to tell your kids not to smoke, and, if you're a youngster, another reason to avoid the nasty habit.

This minor, local incentive is in addition to the obvious ones: the prospect of a long, lingering, painful death from heart disease or lung cancer and the daily waste of hard-earned cash, money that literally goes up in smoke.

Ocala's new reason to quit is this: If you do smoke, the city won't give you a job, not with the Police Department, Ocala Electric Utility or Public Works or as a clerk or manager in City Hall. City Manager Paul Nugent told me the fire department already doesn't hire smokers, because of the added dangers from smoke inhalation during firefighting.

Let me be clear. I'm an ex-smoker, and I know that smoking - though I still, absurdly, fin ...
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Lessons learned in naming schools
By Joe Byrnes on 7/11/2007 4:43 PM
Hammett Bowen Jr. Elementary stands out as a recent exception when it comes to naming schools.

The School Board named it after a person, a Medal of Honor recipient who gave his life to save others in Vietnam. But nationwide the trend is to name public schools after things in nature, not heroes or presidents. That's according to a study by the conservative Manhattan Institute.

Its authors, led by University of Arkansas professor Jay P. Greene, looked at seven states, including Florida. Here are some of their findings:

- Among 2,998 Florida schools, only five are named for George Washington while 11 are named after the manatee.

- In Florida during the past 50 years, schools with nature-related names have increased from 18.7 percent to 36.8 percent. Meanwhile, schools named for people have decreased from 43.9 percent to 25.7 percent.

- The majority of districts ar ...
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Nancy Stacy deserves a trophy
By Joe Byrnes on 6/27/2007 1:47 PM
Republican Nancy Stacy has taken some heat for the political stunt she pulled. As a write-in candidate in House District 24, she blocked Democrats and independents from the June 5 GOP primary and forced a meaningless general election on Tuesday that wasted tens of thousands of dollars.

Some people have railed against the "disenfranchisement" of those non-Republicans. Because of Stacy, they have had no say in selecting their representative.

There's some truth in that.

It's no less true that she deserves a trophy as Marion County's political operative of the year. She got in there and won the case for her partisan interests - her niche group in the political battle - by taking advantage of a technicality.

She's like a good defense attorney exploiting a loophole to help her client.

The cause of justice is not served when the criminal walks free on ...
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First responders recognized for a special delivery
By Joe Byrnes on 6/20/2007 8:41 PM
"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you," Terry Neverman declared into a video camera Tuesday.

He was trying for the impossible - to fully express his feelings of gratitude toward the seven first responders who helped deliver his son at his home in western Marion County.


Baby Tyler sleeps in his mother's arms on Tuesday, June 19, 2007.

On Mother's Day, Baby Tyler was being born in a hurry and he was turned around the wrong way - not head-first as he was supposed to be.

"I mean, I can't express it enough," Neverman said, his eyes moist with emotion. & ...
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FWC: No killing little gators or burying gophers
By Joe Byrnes on 6/15/2007 2:10 AM
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission made important decisions this week affecting alligators and gopher tortoises. Gators and gophers were topics of previous blog entries - so this is an update.

Alligator Management

The commission decided Wednesday "not to open the door to allowing homeowners to dispose of small nuisance alligators on their own. Rather, they decided to continue the requirement that people contact the FWC, and the agency will dispatch nuisance alligator trappers to remove the reptiles," according to an FWC news release.

The staff's proposal had included the option of allowing homeowners to "euthanize" the smaller gators.

"FWC Commissioners, meeting in a two-day session in Melbourne, also turned thumbs down to a proposal to issue statewide permits to recreational alligator hunters and agreed to continu ...
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Something to celebrate: Re-opening of the Marion Theatre
By Joe Byrnes on 6/14/2007 1:16 AM
Here's something to celebrate: the Aug. 11 grand re-opening of the 65-year-old Marion Theatre downtown.

I tried to imagine what it was like on opening night, Sept. 11, 1941, when patrons shelled out 39 cents to enter the brightly lit theater and view “Aloma of the South Seas.” As usual, when it's a question of local history, I called David Cook, historian and former Star-Banner editor.

Cook was there on opening night. He was 13 and was fascinated by the penny-sized moths that seemed to be everywhere outside the building at 50 S. Magnolia Ave. They were drawn, perhaps, by dazzling lights brighter than the town had seen before.

“In those days, Ocala rolled up its sidewalks at 6 p.m., and everybody went home,” Cook said. I asked him about the city's other old theaters, and Cook laid out for me, in a matter of minutes, the early history of local movie houses.
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Take a scenic drive that's worth your time
By Joe Byrnes on 6/7/2007 12:35 AM
There is sometimes a certain deep purplish blue in the western sky just after sunset that surprises me and is, to my eyes, a breath-taking hint of the piercing sweetness of heaven.

It has caught me off guard at unexpected places, like the parking lot at Target on State Road 200. I'll be about my business - my busy-ness - and happen to glimpse the sky. Just that color, seen through the power lines and above the headlights and the silhouettes of storefronts, and suddenly I'm back at a campsite in the Smokies, listening to the endless music of a mountain stream.

As I see it, our Marion County sunsets are shot through sometimes with intimations of eternity. Our sunrises, though, bring a feeling of new beginnings and second chances. The early morning, with its foggy grays and misty golden hues, has the best light in which to appreciate the beauty - and the pos ...
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A parent's worst nightmare
By Joe Byrnes on 5/30/2007 9:20 PM
It fell to me Sunday afternoon to photograph an accident that claimed two lives on State Road 200 near the Citrus County line.

When I saw the badly damaged car, I realized it looked a lot like my 20-year-old stepson's Honda Accord. I struggled quietly with the sort of panic you hold back with one rationalization after another, assuring myself it couldn't possibly be him because of this or that.

Then I reached him by cell phone.
Other parents - Tim and Lori Hess, of Inverness - heard about the accident and hurried to the scene. Their daughter Melissa and her best friend, Molly Paquin, had been shopping in Ocala. Hours earlier, Melissa had called her boyfriend and told him she was driving home. No one had heard from her since then.

Lori Hess would recognize the car. The young women, recent graduates of Citrus High School, had been killed in the accident.
...
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Florida's elements
By Joe Byrnes on 5/30/2007 9:16 PM
Earth, wind, fire and water. The old elements are a litany of political and environmental questions - and dangers - facing Florida.

Earth. Beginning June 12, the Legislature convenes to consider cutting the taxes we pay for our little patches of Earth. They have risen along with land and home values. Local governments, meanwhile, fear losing essential revenues.

There's nothing more earthy than the gopher tortoise. Also that week, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will take up a management plan for the tortoise, whose tunnels provide refuge for 360 other species. The new rules will not permit bulldozing them in their burrows.

Wind. The Atlantic hurricane season begins Friday, and the National Hurricane Center predicts a rough one: 13-17 named storms, including 7-10 hurricanes and 3-5 major ones. It's t ...
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Capsized: A story of survival
By Joe Byrnes on 5/23/2007 5:34 AM
Rodney D. Rogers has a new lease on life.

Earlier this month, he and three friends survived for at least 24 hours in the rough waters of the Gulf of Mexico, clinging to his capsized fishing boat until Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers rescued them.


Safe and sound, Rodney Rogers poses next to his boat in Weirsdale.

Does Rogers plan to go fishing again?

"Oh, yes," he said. The next time, though, he will plan better and carry an EPIRB, an emergency position-indicating radio beacon.

I went to interview him last Friday on the back porch of his Weirsdale home. He is a rocker, a ...
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Wages here and around the country - how do they compare?
By Joe Byrnes on 5/18/2007 6:25 AM
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has released data showing wages for many different jobs categories, including the wages for Marion County, also know as the Ocala Metropolitan Statistical Area.

It's no surprise that our pay compares poorly to wages throughout Florida and the country. Our average annual wage is $31,540, compared to $35,820 for Florida and $39,190 for the United States as a whole.

This most recent data, which was released today, is for May 2006.

Using the BLS interactive data system, I've created three PDF charts that you can search if you like. Or you can explore the government data yourself at www.bls.gov/oes/.

Unfortunately, some of our obvious job categories - like secondary school teachers and farm managers - aren't listed for the Ocala MSA.

Here are some examples of what you'll find:

- Our 1,980 registered n ...
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Redefining 'utopia' in Marion County
By Joe Byrnes on 5/16/2007 11:16 PM
Sometimes I'll come upon a word or expression that suddenly brings together a scattered assortment of old ideas.

This happened to me when I was reading the County Commission meeting agenda online and found the phrase "Utopia of Marion County."

It's just another planned development springing up in Summerfield, a proposed Community Development District where new homeowners will pay a fee for a quality lifestyle. Commissioners voted to skip a workshop on the subdivision, which is planned north of County Road 42 and just east of U.S. 301. The next step is a public hearing to create the CDD.

Utopia is owned by Ecclestone Signature Homes of Marion and involves prominent developer Thad Boyd III. These guys have a strong track record.

But the name they've come up with encapsulates for me so much of what is wrong with how we're treating Marion County - this 1,663 square miles of sand ...
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