Anna Maria Elementary School first-grade teacher Tina Goffred marches with her class during the Oct. 27 Fall Festival Parade.   Anna Maria Elementary School first grader Liam Benford throws a water balloon at coach Eric Bosso, who suffered more than 700 water balloon hits during the course of the Fall Festival celebration ...

It was a time for applause, cheers and a few tears at the Anna Maria City Commission’s Oct. 25 meeting. First, Doug Copeland was named Citizen of the Year by the city’s selection committee, which brought several rounds of applause. Then planning and zoning board chair Tom Turner was honored for his ...

Anna Maria Island Community Center executive board president Greg Ross said this week negotiations with a replacement for center director Pierrette Kelly are ongoing. But Kelly’s last day as director was Friday, Oct. 26. She left with husband Paul for Ireland to tend to family matters following the death of his ...

While Holmes Beach will elect two commissioners and a mayor on Nov. 6, Anna Maria must wait until the commission’s Nov. 15 organizational meeting to decide the next mayor and then appoint an interim commission member from the electorate. It’s all because no one qualified to run for mayor and Mayor ...

Holmes Beach added an electrical engineer to its building department — islander David Greene.         The mayor and public works superintendent Joe Duennes hired Greene Oct. 23 for a wage of $22.35 per hour.         Duennes said they had four responses to an advertisement for building inspector/plans examiner, and he interviewed two ...

A measure aimed at preventing a rush on building permits in Holmes Beach was pulled Oct. 23 minutes before a multi-faceted ordinance to address renter-related noise issues was voted into law by the commission. Commissioners amended the city’s land development code to require one parking space for each bedroom; 5-foot setbacks ...

In an Oct. 26 counterclaim filed in the Circuit Court of the 12th Judicial Circuit by Charles Webb, attorney for the Sandpiper Resort in Bradenton Beach, Webb said the Holmes Beach lawsuit to declare a portion of 27th Street as public property is unlawful. Holmes Beach filed the lawsuit in May ...

At the end of the Oct. 26 airing of the “Dr. Phil” episode titled New Year’s Mystery, featuring the case of Sheena Morris, 22, who died in a Bradenton Beach motel room on New Year’s Day 2009, the host announced that the Bradenton Beach Police Department had issued a statement. The ...

Kelly Osborn’s long journey to find out what happened to her daughter on New Year’s Day 2009 in a Bradenton Beach motel room took a turn toward more questions than answers after an appearance last week on “Dr. Phil.” Sheena Morris, 22, was found hanging by a dog leash in the ...

The Oct. 16 raid in Holmes Beach by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Florida Department of Financial Services, Division of Insurance Fraud, has netted a second arrest.     ICE spokesperson Carissa Cutrell said the investigation is ongoing.     Jamie Basilio-Chavez, 28, of Bradenton, was arrested Oct. 18 in Tampa on ...