The calendar says it’s time to move on to 2025.
With that said, there’s no better time then to look back at what made headlines, conversations and talking points in 2024.
Join us, if you will, in a retrospect of the past 12 months:
Tried, acquitted, but not re-elected
Osceola County School Board member Julius Melendez made headlines in 2024, way before running for re-election to his Board seat. He was criminally charged in July 2023 when an 18-year-old claimed he invited her to his home, served her alcohol and made unwanted advances. A jury found him not guilty of misdemeanor charges. Melendez went on to lose his Board seat to newcomer Bethzaida Garcia in a three-way race in August.
Yeah, about the election … While the 2024 Election will go down in history as just the second time a president came back from losing one election to win another (Donald Trump, who carried Osceola County, duplicated Grover Cleveland from the 1880s), Osceola voters on Aug. 20 and Nov. 5 selected local leaders for the next four years.
Those included new Kissimmee and St. Cloud Mayors Jackie Espinosa and Chris Robertson, Kissimmee commissioner Noel Ortiz, St. Cloud council member Jennifer Paul–the city’s first-ever person of color to sit on the dais–and School Board members Bethzaida Garcia, Anthony Cook and Paula Bronson.
While just 1 in 6 registered Osceola voters participated in the August primary, about 75 percent, or 3 out of 4, voted in the November general election.
No deputies charged in ’22 Target parking lot fatal shooting
In January a grand jury did not charge two Osceola County Sheriff Officers in the death of a 20-year-old man who was shot in a Kissimmee Target parking lot following an alleged April 2022 shoplifting. But the case did lead to updates in policy.
Ninth Circuit State Attorney Andrew Bain noted a new policy requiring all officer-involved deadly shootings be presented to a grand jury, “So that cases don’t sit and linger so our community, and law enforcement and families can move on from tragedy. It’s to provide a timeline, transparency and fairness.”
The grand jury also suggested the Sheriff ’s Office write policy that limits using technique to block in a subject vehicle; it called the maneuver in this case “Unsuccessful … problematic, ill-planned and impulsive,” and that “This should not have happened.”
Osceola Sheriff Marcos Lopez, who took heat for the incident and the adjacent training going on at the other end of the parking lot, noted outfitting sworn officers with body cameras, and reviewing written policies, such as when and how deputies shoot into vehicles, and ordering that “box in” maneuvers for vehicles only be used in felony situations and not misdemeanors, would become the standard.
Madeline Soto’s murder rocks community
When 13-year-old Madeline Soto was reported missing from Hunter’s Creek Middle School on Feb. 26, it began a story that continues to play out in Osceola County. The Kissimmee teen’s mother’s boyfriend, Stephan Sterns, 37, was arrested in connection with the case on Feb. 28 on charges of sexual battery, sexual battery on a person under age 12 and possession of sexual performance materials, after investigators found thousands of images of child sexual assault material (CSAM). He sits in jail charged with 60 such counts.
The Osceola County Sheriff ’s Office found Soto’s body east of St. Cloud near Pearl Lake four days later—and became embroiled in a scandal after a member of Sheriff Lopez’s social media team posted photos from the crime scene before deleting them about an hour later. The department called it an accident, but State Attorney Bain found Lopez liable of breaking state statute, to which he paid a fine this month.
It took the State Attorney’s Office about two months to file murder charges against Sterns, and another month to announce it will seek the death penalty. Arrested on Feb. 28, Sterns did not appear at any hearing or court appearance until briefly showing at an Oct. 14 status hearing.
The case against him—the how, when, and why of the case—became the talk of TV court shows and true crime platform posters across the country and world. While Sterns awaits trial in February for the CSAM charges and in September 2025 on the murder charges, Soto’s mother Jennifer has not been charged, and has slipped from the public eye after videos of her police interrogations during the investigation went public over the course of 2024.
A memorial along Hickory Tree Road near where Soto’s body was found sprang up, then went away at the request of the land’s owner, then reappeared as a line of locks in between the private property and right of way.
One last battle
A 30-year Osceola County tradition ended this year when the last shots were fired March 23 during the last Battle of Narcoossee Mill, the annual Civil War reenactment held at Ralph V. Chisholm Park in Narcoossee that started in the 1990s.
One of the reasons stated for ending the event is the extensive development planned for the now-City of St. Cloud park over the next few years.
Strong opinions on school chaplain program
Gov. Ron DeSantis made an appearance in Kissimmee on April 18 to sign into law legislation he said would, “Help enhance the student experience.” One of the bills he signed at Tohopekaliga High School was House Bill 931, allows for the presence of volunteer school chaplains in Florida schools. All the Osceola County School District had to do was write a policy to allow them in accordance with the state law.
That proved difficult and ultimately impossible. The debate over it stretched over a handful of school board meetings, where supporters of faith and those against religious leaders appearing in schools faced off during public comment at those meetings. After a pair of 3-2 votes against it during the October rulemaking revision session in October, the School Board elected to remove it from the December rulemaking cycle and chose not to include it going forward.
Jim Shanks honored at Dillingham opening
Dillingham Apartments opened on June 4. While new housing opening might not be newsworthy, it was that the facility—30 one and two-bedroom apartment units in a case-managed setting that ensures those diagnosed with mental illness or substance abuse issues have an opportunity to have a permanent and dignified place to call home—was dedicated to Shanks, the former CEO of Park Place Behavioral Health Services, who was instrumental in pulling together the funding and building partners to bring the project to life. Shanks helped break ground on it with city of Kissimmee and Osceola County officials in March 2023, but he passed away that August.
Kissimmee’s bronze breaker
Breakdancing, or simply “breaking”, made its debut as an Olympic sport at the 2024 Paris Summer Games. Kissimmee’s own Victor Montalvo, 30, a Gateway High School alum, defeated Shigeyuki “Shigekix” Nakarai in the bronze medal “battle”, winning on the judges’ cards in all three rounds. The International Olympic committee declined to include breaking in the 2028 Olympics, so Montalvo’s medal will forever be one-of-a-kind.
Some school students return to searches, metal detectors
When classes started for the 2024-25 school year, the School District of Osceola County rolled out two new security plans: random searches of students’ book bags and other containers, including lunch boxes and purses, conducted by school administration and randomly chosen, and new weapons detection devices for use at Osceola High School on a trial basis.
While the OHS devices did make entering school a slightly longer process at the start of the year, neither policy has created controversy through the first semester of the year.
County makes growth ‘pay its fair share’ with increased impact fees
After months of discussion and work by county staff, Osceola County commissioners voted 4-1 to approve an increased set of mobility impact fees charged on new construction. With a philosophy that, “Growth should pay for itself,” the goal is to provide a funding mechanism for the county to build the roads and other infrastructure needed in order to meet the growing needs of a growing county with a growing population.
While those from developers to builders associations to Realtors, called the increases “still alarming” and “barely defensible,” the county cited “extraordinary circumstances relating to Transportation Infrastructure” in passing the increased fees. The City of St. Cloud followed suit weeks later with its own increased fee schedule.
Tropical train of trouble
Living under the constant threat of hurricanes means, in Osceola County, you plan your work, then work your plan when it’s time. We worked plans three times in 2024, and while the impacts weren’t great—or at least as much so as on the Gulf coast side of Florida—storms re-arranged some schedules. It didn’t come as a surprise, as forecasters warned us to brace for a “hyperactive” storm season starting in the spring.
The season lived up to it. After Hurricane Beryl cruised through the Caribbean as the earliest Category 5 storm on record around July 1, Hurricane Debby gave us a rainy, breezy day on Aug. 8. Then, Category 4 Hurricane Helene struck on Sept. 26 in nearly the same area of the Florida Big Bend, and brought even gustier winds and a day off from school and work.
But it wasn’t until the first week of October when it got serious. Milton formed in the Gulf of Mexico, went from a tropical depression to a Category 5 storm in a little over 48 hours, and made an uncommon easterly trek across the Gulf. Reports called for local impacts that would have rivaled the winds of Charley in 2004—the storm that sets the bar for Osceola impacts—but in the end “The county fared very well,” said Osceola Emergency Management Director Bill Litton, noting he was expecting “significant effects”. We saw 3 to 6 inches of rain and winds that blew at 50-60 mph for three to four hours, with the biggest impact were power losses that, for a majority of customers, were resolved within 24 hours.
Scandal hits Kissimmee Police Department
Kissimmee Police Chief Betty Holland resigned on Oct. 27, in the wake of a State Attorney’s investigation into an April 2023 excessive use of force case. As part of the State Attorney’s investigation, 20 KPD members were interviewed, other cases came up for questioning, and the testimony of 11 was questioned for “information the State Attorney believes affects the credibility and/or truthfulness of a recurring state witness.” Including Holland, five KPD commanders or detectives left, were placed on administrative leave or transferred from their department.
The city brought in Maj. Robert Anzueto from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department to lead an overhaul of the department and policies.
“This is a crucial step in that process and a clear path forward toward restoring trust in our community,” City Manager Mike Steigerwald said.
Osceola County sports in 2024
While the Osceola Magic opened its first NBA G League season prior to the new year, the team claimed the Eastern Conference and found itself in the conference semifinals before falling in the playoffs. Their second season has started off to rave reviews.
In the high school scene, noteworthy events included the St. Cloud High boys and girls golf teams qualifying for the state tournament, five county basketball teams made the regional playoffs, and Osceola High made a run all the way to the Class 7A state football championship game in Miami.
Commissioner Brandon Arrington sponsored an “Athletes of the Week” campaign to highlight high school athletes throughout the year; one male and one female will be awarded a scholarship contribution in 2025.
So, 2025 … you have a tough act to follow.
