Local News 11-18-24

Highlands County deputies made a grizzly discovery early Friday morning in Sun N Lake of Sebring. Deputies were called to a home on Bianca Street shortly after midnight Friday morning and found a 13-year-old girl unresponsive on the floor next to the front door. She was pronounced dead at the scene by EMS. Her adoptive mother, 34-year-old former DCF employee Diane Natasha Mack, initially told deputies she had found the girl unresponsive Thursday morning – deputies say she drove the four other children who lived in the home to Titusville and returned to Sebring before she called for help for her child. The girl was nude except for a diaper, and had clearly been severely abused. Mack is charged with first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse, kidnapping, and destroying evidence. She is being held without bail in the Highlands County Jail.

In-person registration and interviews for D-SNAP food assistance starts today through Wednesday at Alan Jay Arena at the Highlands County Fairgrounds. Watch for traffic in the area for the next few days. The program provides assistance for those not already on the SNAP nutrition aid programs.

FEMA has opened a Disaster Recovery Center in Highlands County at the Bert J. Harris Jr. Agricultural Center, south of Sebring at flashing yellow light at the corner with George Boulevard.

Hours are 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week. After the first couple weeks, they’ll back off to Monday through Saturday. The center is using Conference rooms #2 and #3.

At this month’s Sebring City Council meeting, the Council voted to ask City residents to make City Clerk and Treasurer Kathy Haley’s job an appointed one after she retires in 2026. Haley wasn’t at that meeting and was – let’s say – unimpressed by the fact that the decision was made without her presence of input. She’s expressed support for keeping the position as an elected one. A referendum on making the position appointed rather than elected will likely be on the ballot in March.