WEEk of DECEmBER 25, 2024
VoLUmE 63, NUmBER 6
Superintendent talks priorities for improving school district By MEGHAN BRADBURY
news@breezenewspapers.com
Superintendent Dr. Denise Carlin shared that she has an unwavering commitment to the staff of the School District of Lee County at the school board's meeting on Dec. 10. “I am proud to share with our community that we are so focused as a district on the five priorities I ran on,” she said. “I’m so Dr. Denise Carlin happy because as a team we talked about our priorities and the laser like focus on our work.” Those priorities include: ensuring safe and secure schools; increasing student SANIBEL-CAPTIVA CONSERVATION FOUNDATION
See SUPERINTENDENT, page 20
SCCF sea turtle team identifies long-term nesting trends IslanderInsIde
The Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation (SCCF) reported that the sea turtle nesting beaches of Sanibel have been monitored since 1959, first led by sea turtle researcher Charles LeBuff and his organization, Caretta Research. The island was initially monitored for loggerhead turtles and, more recently, a growing green turtle population. The SCCF sea turtle team continues to analyze nest-monitoring and night-tagging datasets from Sanibel to identify trends in the reproductive metrics of the local nesting populations.
“These trends can be used to assess how Sanibel’s sea turtle population is responding to environmental and anthropogenic pressures,” sea turtle biologist Savannah Weber said. The metrics analyzed included nest counts and dates of first and last nesting emergences from 1980 to 2023, as well as hatch success from 1998 to 2023. Data from the 2024 nesting season is now being analyzed and will be added to the longterm dataset. See NESTING TRENDS, page 20
Man found guilty of attempted murder in police shooting By TIFFANY REPECKI
trepecki@breezenewspapers.com
A man who shot at three Sanibel police officers and a sheriff's deputy in 2016 has been convicted of multiple criminal charges, including attempted first-degree murder of a law enforcement officer. Following a four-day trial in Lee County, a jury found Jon Webster Hay, 57, guilty on Dec. 12 of three counts of attempted first-degree murder on a law
Jon Webster Hay
enforcement officer with a firearm, life felonies; one count of shoot at/into an occupied vehicle, a second-degree felony; and one count of fleeing to elude a law enforcement officer, a third-degree felony. According to records from the county Clerk of Courts, the panel of jurors found him not guilty of a fourth count of attempted
first-degree murder on a law enforcement officer with a firearm. At about 8 p.m. on Nov. 20, 2016, Sanibel police Officer Jared Ciccone conducted a traffic stop in the area of 2330 Periwinkle Way. A gray van passed by and shot at him, striking him once in the upper body. Ciccone radioed that shots had been fired and provided a vehicle description, where the shots had come from, the direction the van was traveling and that the driver was a man, according to records. See GUILTY, page 20
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