Mandarin Art Festival celebrates 51 years
Easter weekend is April 20 – 21 and for the 51st year, the Mandarin Art Festival will be held on the holiday weekend. More »
Therapy Animal Coalition matches up volunteer teams with organizations
Pet therapy animals are different from service animals and emotional support animals. More »
New tiger cubs at St. Augustine Wild Reserve
Recently, the St. Augustine Wild Reserve received two new tiger cubs, Rupa and Shiva, from an animal compound out of state. More »
Back in Time with Brett | Steamship Maple Leaf – Part 1
Life froze at Mandarin Point on April 1, 1864, and now, wrenched in the depths of the murky St. Johns River, rests the world’s largest known repository of Civil War artifacts known. More »
The CreekLine
Neighborhood watch with a twist
By NewsLine Staff
mail@floridanewsline.com
The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office and Neighbors by Ring brings Community Watch Partners to St. Johns County, a modern day neighborhood watch program that allows platform users to provide the community with real-time, local crime and safety information. This application, which is available for both Apple and Android, is a new version of the neighborhood watch: by allowing users to share videos, photos, and text based posts with other users of the app as well as receive real time safety alerts from neighbors, local law enforcement and the Ring team.
Q&A with State Attorney, 7th Judicial Circuit, R.J. Larizza
Q: This month, can you give us some information about the opioid epidemic?
A: This is an issue that has touched every corner of our state. It started to surface with the so-called “pill mills;” Florida had the dubious distinction of being among the top states where people would get pills for pain management. Pharmaceuticals were making a lot of money and we had an epidemic. Then fentanyl came into play and people started dying from this. Law enforcement and first responders had to use Narcan to bring people back from the brink of death, but some of this had adverse effects when it got into the skin of those administering it.
Q&A with Florida State Representative Cyndi Stevenson, District 17
Q: Can you give us an update (as of interview date of March 15) on the bills you are sponsoring this session?
A: The voter privacy bill for minors was just passed out of committee and we are hopeful that it will become law this year. It still has to go through two more committees before it gets to the floor.
Q&A with St. Johns County Property Appraiser Eddie Creamer
Q: Can you give some background on tangible personal property?
A: Tangible personal property, which we call “TPP,” is unclear, confusing and even unknown by many businesses, especially small businesses. It is subject to tangible personal property tax, which is an ad valorem tax and applied according to value. All business owners are required to file a tangible personal property return that lists the assets used to run the business, including furniture, computers, printers and copiers. The value of these items, less depreciation as determined by the State of Florida depreciation tables, is taxed at the county millage.
Q&A with St. Johns County Supervisor of Elections Vicky Oakes
Q: It’s currently not election time. What does your office do when it is not an active election cycle?
A: This time of year, we do a number of voter education programs. For instance, I and my staff go to all the area high schools and local colleges. Students in high school can pre-register to vote at age 16, and then when they turn 18, we send them their voter identification card and a sample ballot if it is near election time.
For high schools that request it, my office will conduct their student government elections onsite for them.
We also recently led a civics program for all seventh graders at Switzerland Point Middle School. This took two full days.
