St. Johns County

St. Johns County officials want to hear what residents think about potential medical marijuana regulations.

Time is of the essence to pass local rules, with several marijuana bills up for consideration in Tallahassee this legislative session.

Florida state law now allows students to cross county lines for class beginning next school year.

Highly-rated St. Johns County opened its out-of-county application process Monday.

St. Johns County has joined a growing number of area counties offering the ability to text 911 in an emergency.

Clay and Alachua counties also offer the service.

Former deputy superintendent Tim Forson was selected Tuesday as the next superintendent of schools for St. Johns County. The school board voted unanimously Tuesday morning to appoint Forson and planned to begin contract negotiations immediately.

Longtime Superintendent Dr. Joseph Joyner announced plans to retire earlier this year.

St. Johns County has launched a website where residents can find out when their neighborhood is scheduled for debris removal after Hurricane Matthew. 

Fifty Florida counties will open early voting locations on Monday. Here's where they are in Northeast Florida, along with times and dates they'll be open before Election Day, Nov. 8. Registered voters can choose any early voting location in the county, unlike on Election Day, when they must vote in their precinct. 

Update 9:50 a.m. 9/1: Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has canceled the floodplain map open house scheduled for 4 p.m. Thursday evening at the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall due to inclement weather as a result of Tropical Storm Hermine. The open house scheduled for 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Concert Hall, 1050 A1A North, will still take place. Additional meetings will bescheduled in the near future.  

This summer, the St. Johns County School District is working to get community members outside by opening up additional sports facilities to the public. 

Tropical Storm Colin is expected to affect the First Coast most heavily Monday night and into Tuesday morning. But its effects are expected to arrive much sooner, says St. Johns County Emergency Management Director Linda Stoughton. 

"We could start to see rain come across around 2, 3 o'clock in the afternoon. This is mostly going to be a nighttime event, so if people need to run out very quickly and get supplies, this would be the absolute time to do it," she says.

MORE | For the latest on Tropical Storm Colin

  A week of early voting begins Saturday on a referendum for a half-cent sales tax hike to fund St. Johns County schools.

School district leaders say the tax increase is needed to build new schools to ease current and prevent future overcrowding and improve technology and security for students. 

The district is expected to grow by 15,813 students over the next 10 years. District leaders said that means 20 schools will be needed. They said 2,689 homes were permitted in the county in 2014.

It’s a good time to be a job seeker in Northeast Florida—especially if you live in St. Johns County. That was the report given Tuesday morning at the Florida Cabinet meeting in St. Augustine.

The St. Johns Cultural Council is presenting a new photo exhibition this month highlighting changes in St. Augustine throughout its history.

The exhibition is called Snapshot St. Augustine. The photos are on display in the Rotunda Gallery in the St. Johns County Administration Building.

During an appearance on WJCT's "First Coast Connect," photographer Ken Barrett talked about his work.

A Department of Veterans' Affairs medical clinic in St. Johns County will be the focus of a congressional hearing Thursday.

District 6 Congressman Ron DeSantis is holding the hearing to explore why it’s taken so long to move the county’s VA clinic.

St. Johns County Veterans Council Chairman Bill Dudley says he’s been in near-constant contact with DeSantis’s office as the county has negotiated with the federal Veterans Administration.

St. Johns County is distributing new, much larger recycling carts starting Monday.

The upgrade is aimed at getting more people to recycle.

Advanced Disposal, an integrated environmental services company, is upgrading St. Johns County customers to 95-gallon recycling carts for their curbside recycling service at no additional cost.

St. Johns County spokesman Michael Ray says this is part of Florida’s effort to reach its recycling goal of 75 percent. This goal was set by the state in 2008.

Republicans easily won a trio of Northeast Florida legislative seats Tuesday during special elections triggered by the resignation last year of former Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, to become president of Florida State University.

For the fourth year in a row, St. Johns County was ranked the healthiest county in Florida, according to a new report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and University of Wisconsin. Other counties in the region face challenges to keeping residents healthy.

Northeast Florida’s Union County was ranked the state’s least-healthy, while nearby Duval County moved up two spots to 43rd in the state.

A former St. Johns County inspector has pleaded guilty to extortion. The man faces up to 20 years in federal prison.

Sixty-four-year-old Will Rogers of St. Augustine pleaded guilty on Monday to the charge he extorted money while working as a construction inspector for St. Johns County. That's according to a news release from U.S. Attorney A. Lee Bentley III, whose office prosecuted the case.