Saturday Local News Round-up
Overnight shelters are open, another pedestrian death on Mabry, and a new task force calls for sending at-risk youth to the military. More inside.
11/19/22
Good morning everyone,
Happy Saturday!
Below is this week’s news roundup, hopefully covering whatever you missed in local news this past week. Enjoy your weekend!
Best,
Shelby
❄️ The Kearney Center will continue to offer overnight sheltering due to temperatures dropping below 35 degrees. Intake will be from 5pm-9pm at 2650 Municipal Way.
💥 A pedestrian was hit while crossing Pensacola St, near the Goodwill on Mabry. She died as a result of her injuries. Last week, the Tallahassee Police Department received $50,000 to do seatbelt enforcement. The City Commission should have invested that money into improving the quality of public infrastructure on high-injury roads. Streetlights and lighted crosswalks are desperately needed on that road.
🏭 The Amazon Fulfillment Center has selected Tallahassee Community College as an education partner for its Career Choice program. TCC will provide Amazon’s hourly employees with training programs that include HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), machining and welding. The program will be available to any Amazon hourly employee in Tallahassee who has been employed for at least 90 days. It’s still unclear if the City/County will provide public transportation to the Center, despite Mayor Dailey saying: “We are running Star Metro out to Amazon, and we’re looking forward to it.” . The Center will open next year, expecting to create around 1,000 full-time jobs in Tallahassee.
🥘 A FAMU alumna, Falayn Ferrell, is bringing the official Black Restaurant Week to Tallahassee for the first time ever. Sixteen local restaurants are participating in the campaign, which runs until next Sunday. Black Restaurant Week LLC also donated $10,000 to the Florida A&M School of Business and Industry to support the next generation of business leaders.
🏹 FSU celebrated its 60th anniversary of Integration this week. The first Black undergraduate to attend Florida State was Maxwell Courtney. He was a Math major and a graduate of the old Lincoln High School, which closed in the 1960s during the integration period.
👩🏽⚖️ A new task force aimed at reducing crime in Tallahassee had its first meeting on Monday. The "Respect yourself" Crime Prevention laid out 15 action items, from creating military boot camps as an alternative to jail time for young people, to punishing business owners whose crowded parking lots become sites of violence. The full list of the task force’s action items are here. Tallahassee’s most recent shootings: 11/13, 11/14, 11/15.
🚔 The local Police Officers union is calling for the removal of a Tallahassee Citizens Police Review Board member, Taylor Biro, for allegedly bringing a ‘f the police’ mug to a Citizens Police Review Board meeting. Biro denied the accusation and called it “a divisive distraction”.
🎄State offices will be closed Nov. 23, Dec. 23 and Dec. 30, giving workers a few extra days off around the holidays.
Looking Forward
November 21 - Tallahassee City Commission’s Reorganization Ceremony — basically the swearing in of re-elected & newly elected Commissioners
November 22 - Leon County Commission’s Reorganization Ceremony