Collier County school superintendent Ray Baker announced today (Friday) all high school athletes must be able to prove their age -- or they won’t be able to play sports. The decision comes after several Immokalee High School students were found to be too old. Collier superintendent Ray Baker says all public high school athletes must be able to verify and prove their ages. The maximum is 19-years, 9-months. But one Immokalee high athlete was 30 and another was 23. This week the state high school athletic association stripped several district soccer and football titles and put Immokalee on probation. Baker says the school won’t appeal those penalties. He says the district will put together a summer task force to address over-age students. But he says it’s a statewide issue.

“It’s not just Collier County has students that come to us with documents that are hard to track and hard to verify.”

Baker says Immokalee High principal Manny Touron (tour-ON) will get at least a written reprimand and possibly more. But Baker says he will remain the principal.

All public high school athletes in Collier County will now be required to prove their ages before they can take the field. School Superintendent Ray Baker announced the change this morning during a news conference after several Immokalee High students were found to be too old to play sports. The superintendent also says he hasn’t made up his mind what punishment the school’s principal, Manny Touron (tour-ON), will get besides a written reprimand. But Baker says Touron will keep his job.

“But you don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. This is an excellent principal, an excellent principal. And that community, I believe, needs Manny Touron.”

Touron says he made a mistake in not fully investigating the age of several of the football and soccer players when he learned they may have been overage.

The U-S Department of Agriculture has barred fresh Florida citrus from being shipped to citrus producing states – over fears that canker and other diseases that have affected Florida fruit could spread.
Florida Citrus Mutual’s interim CEO Jay Clark says while the ban on shipping grapefruits and tangerines to California, Arizona, Texas, Alabama and Louisiana hurts…it’s not a deadly blow.

“If you look at the big picture of all the oranges that are produced in the state, the fresh fruit market only makes up about 10-percent. However when you talk about a drop in the bucket, if you’re one of those growers that make up that 10-percent it’s the whole bucket. So as far as the industry, most oranges are utilized through juice, but certainly the fresh fruit market is a very important market to us.”

Growers say they’ll try to persuade the USDA to remove Alabama and Louisiana from the quarantine list because citrus production in those states is nominal.

A team from the University of North Carolina and Mote Marine Lab is back in Sarasota Bay continuing a three-year study of the bottlenose dolphins that call the area home. They really want to know if the dolphins actually do call the area something like our word for home. They’ve already proven the animals recognize their own names – a signature whistle unique to each dolphin.
Biology Layla Sighig says the study is a small piece in understanding how dolphins talk with one another and what it means.

“The fact that we found that they do use these arbitrary symbols to represent other animals implies that they have perhaps mental images of these animals or in some way or form concepts of these other animals.”

Sighig used natural recordings of signal whistles from other familiar dolphins to measure the responses. And to ensure the dolphins were not just responding to a known voice, they used computer-generated signals. In both instances, the dolphins turned around as if to ask, "Are you talking to me?"

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A team of researchers from the University of North Carolina and Mote Marine lab are conducting experiments with dolphins in Sarasota Bay this month. They’ll spend about two weeks studying if the dolphins respond to signals besides their names. Their names are whistles unique to each animal. Researcher Layla SEYE-ig has been working with this pod for 20 years.

“My overall interest is really trying to understand the natural communicational system of dolphins. There could be relevance in terms of understand more about human language I suppose if we do find more parallels with our own language system in dolphins it might help to understand evolutionary forces that have driven the development of these types of communication systems in different animals.”

They plan to play random recorded signals and monitor the dolphins' reactions. SEYE-ig says the research could give scientists clues if dolphins relay messages of stress, unhappiness or have conversations. But that type of information could require several more years of study.

Collier County is home to the most expensive housing market in Florida. This week, commissioners voted to allow more developments with affordable homes. Business owners in Naples and the surrounding cities are having a tough time finding enough workers who can afford to live in Collier County. So after years of complaints, commissioners voted unanimously to approve four developments that contain more than 350 affordable homes and condominiums. Collier Commission chairman Frank Halas says it’s something they needed to do.

“It’s not the total answer but at least it’s a start. And we’re really looking for the public sector to jump on board this thing and help assist these communities down here in Southwest Florida in regards to addressing affordable housing.”

Halas spoke on WGCU’s Gulf Coast Live. The vote ended a stalemate with developers when commissioners approved the first rezoning requests in almost four months.

Collier County is feeling the heat of an expensive housing market. This week, commissioners voted to approve four new developments that will include a total of 350 affordable homes and condominiums. A family of four who makes less than 52-thousand dollars a year would be eligible to buy the discounted homes. Speaking on WGCU’s Gulf Coast Live, Commission chairman Frank Halas said it’s important for young people to stay in Collier.

“We have to make sure that they have someplace as a starter home for them so that they have the ability the stay in this community because a lot of them live in this community and they sure don’t want to move away and we sure don’t want them to move away. Because you have to have youths if you want a vibrant community.”

There won’t be any immediate relief. The Collier homes will take about four years before they’re ready and the need for many more affordable houses is still there.

Hurricanes, Canker, Greening and Labor – those are the four major challenges facing Florida’s Citrus Industry. That’s according to officials with Florida Citrus Mutual – the state’s largest citrus growers organization. It’s the primary sponsor of this week’s Florida Citrus Industry Annual Conference in Estero. WGCU’s Valerie Alker has this report.

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A new report finds members of Congress and their aides took at least 23-thousand trips between 2000 and 2005, valued at nearly 50-million-dollars…all paid for by corporations, trade groups and non-profit organizations.

The Washington-based Center for Public Integrity prepared Monday’s report on congressional travel perks.

Jim Morris – who led the study – says many of the travel request forms – required by Congress to help account for these free trips –lacked key information.

For instance, he says Republican Sarasota Congresswoman Katherine Harris attended an event in Palm Beach in 2003, but didn’t list who was paying for the trip…at least until his group pointed out her error.


“The bottom line is she didn’t put the sponsor on the form and it wasn’t on the agenda. So after our inquiries she amended the form and put the correct information in there…but it was almost 3 years after the fact.”

Speaking on WGCU’s Gulf Coast Live – Morris also said Boca Raton Democrat Robert Wexler was among a number of Florida lawmakers whose names turned up in the report. He took the 2nd most expensive trip when he traveled to Kazakhstan at a cost of just under 30-thousand-dollars.