Higginbotham

A Macclenny man was sent off to prison for one year after pleading guilty on August 24 to being drunk at the wheel of a pickup truck that collided late last year with a vehicle containing a couple and their five children on their way to church.

For 55-year-old Ronald J. Higginbotham, it was his fourth DUI conviction.
Circuit Judge Peter K. Sieg also tacked on a three-year, nine month probation following the defendant’s release from prison, fined him $2000 and $448 court costs and took his driver’s license away for life.

A hearing later will determine a restitution amount to compensate the family of Michael and Debbie Combs of Macclenny, who were injured when Mr. Higginbotham’s 2004 Dodge pickup drifted across the center line on Woodlawn Rd. on a curve and struck their vehicle head-on.

The accident occurred the early evening of December 20, 2009 as the Combs family headed off to a church service in Macclenny.

The secret’s out.

Northeast Florida is being primed to accept an estimated two million additional shipping containers in the next decade with at least five large-scale inland port projects on the horizon.

These storage and distribution centers strategically located near railroads and highways could work in concert to fill the demand created by mega-ships docking at an expanded Jacksonville port after the Panama Canal is widened, possibly as soon as 2015.

But depending on the level of demand and how soon the seaport is ready for the influx of goods from Asian markets, the inland ports, including two planned for Baker County, could end up competing for a slice of the transportation logistics pie.

There’s between 25 and 30 million square feet of industrial warehouse space on the drawing board today at five locations in Baker, Duval, Columbia and Nassau counties.