APPEALS COURT REJECTS PARKING RESTRICTION

Wading into a neighborhood dispute, a state appeals court Wednesday rejected an on-street parking restriction because a developer decades ago turned over streets to the city of Tallahassee. A three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal overturned a Leon County circuit judge’s ruling that involved the Kenmare Commons neighborhood in Tallahassee. The Kenmare Commons Homes Association and some residents alleged in the lawsuit that Edward and Linda Huck violated covenants and restrictions because a caregiver for Edward Huck parked on the street in front of the Huck house, according to Wednesday’s ruling. The neighborhood’s developer, Killearn Properties, Inc., recorded the covenants and restrictions in 1991. But the developer also deeded the roads to the city of Tallahassee. “Coming from the developer at the beginning

Death Row Inmate Appeal Denied In 1994 Murder

A federal appeals court this week denied an appeal by a Death Row inmate convicted in the 1994 murder and rape of a woman kidnapped from a Lake City supermarket parking lot. A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday rejected arguments raised by inmate Anthony Wainwright, including that new evidence could show he was innocent in the murder of 23-year-old Carmen Gayheart. Wainwright and Richard Hamilton were accused of kidnapping Gayheart from a Winn-Dixie parking lot after escaping from a North Carolina prison, according to a 1997 Florida and hunting, with deer crowded into habitats.

The commission’s emergency directive that set up the management zone bars exporting deer from the area. Also, the order limits baiting or feeding deer in the zone, along with rehabilitating or releasing injured or orphaned white-tailed deer.

The order doesn’t prevent hunters from bringing killed deer into the zone to be processed.

With no simple treatment or vaccine for chronic wasting disease, deer farmers have expressed concern that a single positive test could require the eradication of entire herds, which in some cases represent millions of dollars in investments.

Newton Cook, who serves on the commission’s Deer Management Technical Advisory Group, encouraged deer farmers and hunters to “trust the staff” on the science to slow chronic wasting disease, which “my grandchildren will be living with.”

“They (staff members) have a lot of experience. They see what’s happening across the country,” Cook said. “They have to do what they have to do in order to at least slow the spread of the disease in Florida. And that’s about the best that we can hope for.”

The commission is reaching out to hunters in Northwest Florida to quickly collect samples from deer to determine the prevalence of the disease.

“Our hopes are that that’s maintained to the Panhandle area of the state and that we can slow that spread effectively,” commission Hunting and Game Management Director George Warthen said. “And we’ve seen other states be able to manage this.”

Commission Chairman Rodney Barreto told Warthen to “stay the course.” of the neighborhood in 1991, this promise (about not parking on the streets) no doubt sounded like an alluring one,” Judge Adam Tanenbaum wrote in a 10-page ruling joined by Judges Thomas Winokur and Rachel Nordby. “Imagine a new development, and you are a pioneer purchaser of one of the lots while construction continues all around you. Naturally, you would prefer not to arrive at your new home at the end of the day and find all kinds of construction, development and sales vehicles parked up and down your street, including in front of your house.” But the ruling said the “developer saw to it in 1991 that KCHA (Kenmare Commons Homes Association) would not own or be responsible for the neighborhood roads, so instead, we have a restriction on personal activity on property that bears no connection to the association. Indeed, the roads now belong to the taxpayers. If KCHA or individual association members do not like how the neighborhood roads are being maintained or policed, they have a remedy, but it does not lie in the courts. Rather, they can contact the city.”

Florida has monitored the issue since 2002, testing about 17,500 hunter-killed, road-killed and sick deer. Since 2017, the state has bought equipment needed to address an outbreak.

In 2021, the state placed certain limits on importing deer carcasses into Florida. As examples, people can bring in deboned meat, finished taxidermy mounts and clean hides and antlers.

Exceptions are made for deer harvested from properties in Georgia or Alabama that are bisected by the Florida border and are under the same ownership.