Beulah Benefit Nets $10K For Murder Victim’s Children
February 19, 2017
Hundreds of people help raise over $10 thousand Saturday for the children of murder victim Kayla Crocker of Beulah.
Organizers said the fundraiser collected $10,800 with about 800 people in attendance Saturday at the Beulah Park on Mobile Highway.
Food plates were sold and prizes were raffled during the event. First responders in uniform were able to eat free.
Crocker, a Tate High School graduate, was the final victim of William “Billy” Boyette, who later took his own life when surrounded by law enforcement in Georgia, His accomplice, Mary Rice, is facing a first degreee murder charge for Crocker’s death.
Donations can still be made to the “Crocker Children Education Fund” at Navy Federal Credit Union.
Pictured above and below: A fundraiser for the children of murder victim Kayla Crocker of Beulah. Pictured inset: Escambia County Chief Deputy Chip Simmons plays a little basketball. Pictured bottom: Simmons and Sherif David Morgan pose with Beulah and Bellview volunteer firefighters. Photos by Tony Vance and others for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Northview Majorette Smith Is ‘Superior’ – Headed To State Next Month
February 19, 2017
Northview High School majorette captain Brianna Smith received solo superior ratings Friday afternoon in the Florida Bandmaster’s Association district competition at Escambia High School She will now head to the state assessment in March. Smith, a senior, received superior ratings at the FBA state level the past two years.
Pictured top: Smith performs during a Friday night football game last season, NorthEscambia.com photo. Pictured inset: Smith at Escambia High School on Friday. Submitted for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Sunny And Warm For Sunday
February 19, 2017
There is a dense fog advisory for tonight. Here is your official North Escambia area forecast:
Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 78. Calm wind becoming north around 5 mph.
Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 53. Calm wind becoming east around 5 mph.
Washington’s Birthday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 77. East wind 5 to 10 mph becoming south in the afternoon.
Monday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 55. South wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.
Tuesday: A slight chance of showers, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after noon. Cloudy, with a high near 73. Northeast wind 5 to 10 mph becoming southeast in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 30%.
Tuesday Night: A 40 percent chance of showers. Cloudy, with a low around 58. South wind around 5 mph becoming calm.
Wednesday: A 30 percent chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 75. East wind around 5 mph.
Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 56. East wind around 5 mph.
Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 77.
Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 58.
Friday: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 76.
Friday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low around 52.
Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 68.
Tate’s Hayden Lindsay Signs With Gulf Coast State Community College
February 19, 2017
Tate High School’s Hayden Lindsay signed Friday to play softball at Gulf Coast State Community College in Panama City. Courtesy photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Alabama Congressman Byrne Announces Escambia Office Hours
February 19, 2017
Staff members from the Office of Congressman Bradley Byrne (R-AL) will hold office hours Wednesday in Escambia County, AL.
The staff members will be on hand to help constituents with problems they may be experiencing with federal agencies including the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Medicare, and Social Security. Staff members can also assist constituents who need help applying for or receiving a United States passport.
The schedule for Wednesday, February 22 is as follows:
- 9:00 to 9:45 am – Atmore City Hall
- 11:00 am – 12:00 pm – Flomaton City Hall
- 2:00 – 2:30 pm: Brewton City Hall
- 2:30 – 3:00 pm: East Brewton City Hall
For more information, call (251) 989-2664.
NorthEscambia.com file photo, click to enlarge.
Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: Courting Opposition
February 19, 2017
There was already plenty of anti-judiciary invective being hurled around the Legislature in the run-up to the 2017 legislative session, and this week may have intensified the tension.
In legal battle after legal battle, the state or the Legislature suffered a loss. A special master appointed to referee the latest battle in the “water war” between Florida and Georgia essentially said Florida’s case was all wet. State laws on abortion and guns were blocked by the courts.
Meanwhile, a more purely political skirmish continued to grow, as Gov. Rick Scott and the House traded more shots over the future of economic incentive programs. There were no courts in the offing to resolve that fight, which will likely be decided in the old-fashioned way after the session begins March 7.
WASHED OUT
There’s little question, according to Maine lawyer Ralph Lancaster, that Georgia’s use of water that would otherwise flow into the Apalachicola River is causing problems downstream. But Lancaster, who was appointed by the U.S. Supreme Court to oversee a fight between Georgia and Florida over those flows, said this week that there was little he could do about it.
Especially since Florida’s lawsuit targeted the wrong party.
Lancaster’s recommendation, which now heads to the U.S. Supreme Court, is the result of a 2013 lawsuit filed by Florida, alleging Georgia diverts too much water from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system and that the diversions have damaged Apalachicola Bay and Franklin County’s seafood industry.
Georgia countered that any limits on its water use will undermine its economy, including the growth of the Atlanta area and the state’s agriculture industry in southeastern Georgia.
A key finding in Lancaster’s report was that, since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — which controls water flow through the region in a series of dams and reservoirs — was not a party to the lawsuit, he could not devise a settlement between Florida and Georgia without the Corps’ participation.
“Because the Corps is not a party, no decree entered by this court can mandate any change in the Corps’ operations in the basin,” Lancaster wrote. “Without the ability to bind the Corps, I am not persuaded that the court can assure Florida the relief it seeks.”
That didn’t mean there was nothing to the state’s account of the damage, Lancaster wrote in a 137-page report.
Lancaster supported several key assertions by Florida including the cause of the 2012 collapse of the Apalachicola oyster industry, which normally supplies 90 percent of the oysters in Florida and 10 percent of the nation’s oysters. He rejected Georgia’s argument that it was Florida’s mismanagement of the oyster beds that led to the 2012 collapse rather than the decreased water flow that led to higher salt levels in Apalachicola Bay.
The fault rests elsewhere, Lancaster implied, pointing a finger at the Corps.
“The evidence presented at trial suggests that the Corps’ reservoir operations are a significant, and perhaps the primary, factor influencing the amount of streamflow crossing the state line during times of drought and low flows,” Lancaster wrote.
Being wrong has not been cheap. Through November, Florida had paid out more than $35 million to four law firms involved in the U.S. Supreme Court case during the last two fiscal years, according to data collected by the Florida House.
Since 2001, Florida has paid out $72 million in legal fees for the current case and previous litigation, the House data shows. If the projection of more than $40 million in legal fees for this year holds steady, the total legal tab since 2001 could well exceed $90 million.
In an interview Thursday with The News Service of Florida, House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’ Lakes, didn’t sound inclined to pay. He said a House review of the legal fees is ongoing.
Corcoran also said House legal staff members are scrutinizing the special master’s report, which was issued Tuesday. The speaker raised the prospect of the House “aggressively” pursuing refunds after looking at issues involved in the case.
Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., Florida’s representatives in the federal government were trying to save the day.
And Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson may have given himself a campaign issue to use if Scott, a Republican, challenges him in 2018.
Nelson filed a bill to require the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to increase the freshwater flow from Georgia south into the Apalachicola River and Apalachicola Bay. Republican Congressman Neal Dunn, whose Northwest Florida district includes Apalachicola Bay, called on the Corps to suspend new plans to allow more water use in Georgia until the federal agency meets with Florida officials and others to discuss the impact of the court report.
Nelson and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio urged the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to not finalize water-control standards for the river basin.
“While we do not agree with his final recommendation, the special master correctly points out that Florida has indeed suffered real harm due to Georgia’s unrestrained overconsumption of water,” Nelson and Rubio wrote in a letter to Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, the commanding general and chief for the Corps in Washington. “The master’s report also emphasizes the need for the Army Corps to reevaluate its position with respect to the impacts on the Apalachicola River and Bay.”
MAY IT PLEASE THE COURT? PROBABLY NOT
As the Legislature has pursued more and more culturally conservative legislation on issues like guns and abortions in recent years, critics have warned that the Republican majorities were in danger of running afoul of the courts.
This week, those warnings came true. In separate rulings this week, courts ruled against a waiting period for women seeking abortions and a law meant to keep doctors from asking patients if they have any firearms lying around the house.
The Florida Supreme Court blocked the abortion law, a 2015 measure that would have required women to wait 24 hours before undergoing the procedure. Thursday’s 4-2 decision was the second time the state high court kept the law from taking effect.
In the majority opinion, Justice Barbara Pariente wrote that enactment of the law “would lead to irreparable harm.”
“Indeed, under Florida’s pre-existing informed consent law, a woman can already take all of the time she needs to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy, both before she arrives at the clinic and after she receives the counseling information,” she wrote for the majority. “No other medical procedure, even those with greater health consequences, requires a twenty-four hour waiting period in the informed consent process.”
But, in a dissent joined by Justice Ricky Polston, Justice Charles Canady accused the majority of taking “an unreasonably narrow view of the purpose of informed consent” and argued that the plaintiffs had not presented any evidence to prove that the 24-hour waiting period imposed “a significant restriction on the right to abortion.”
Hours later, a federal appeals court sided with a coalition of individual doctors and medical groups in finding unconstitutional major portions of a controversial Florida law restricting physicians and other health-care providers from asking patients about guns.
The statute, dubbed the “docs vs. glocks” law, included a series of restrictions on doctors and health providers. For example, it sought to prevent physicians from entering information about gun ownership into medical records if the physicians know the information is not “relevant” to patients’ medical care or safety or to the safety of other people.
Also, the 2011 law said doctors should refrain from asking about gun ownership by patients or family members unless the doctors believe in “good faith” that the information is relevant to medical care or safety. And the law sought to prevent doctors from discriminating against patients or “harassing” them because of owning firearms.
In its ruling Thursday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the record-keeping, inquiry and anti-harassment provisions of the law are unconstitutional, but upheld the portion of the law that bars doctors from discriminating against patients who have guns.
“Florida may generally believe that doctors and medical professionals should not ask about, nor express views hostile to, firearm ownership, but it ‘may not burden the speech of others in order to tilt public debate in a preferred direction,’ ” Judge Adalberto Jordan wrote in one of two majority opinions issued by the full appellate court.
In a dissent, Judge Gerald Tjoflat argued that the state law was narrowly drawn and is an “attempt to regulate a very specific part of the relationship” between a health care provider and a patient.
“It does not prevent medical professionals from speaking publicly about firearms, nor does it prevent medical professionals from speaking privately to patients about firearms so long as the physician determined in good faith the relevancy of such discussion to the patient’s medical care, safety, or the safety of others,” he wrote.
VISIT FLORIDA, ROUND 53
Back in the political realm, Scott got some new ammunition in his battle with the House — and particularly Corcoran — over business incentives.
The governor was able to announce that Florida hit record tourism numbers in 2016.
The surge in visitors came despite reports during the past year of toxic algae blooms in Florida waterways, the spread of the mosquito-borne Zika virus, damage from a pair of hurricanes and a terrorist-related attack at an Orlando nightclub.
“I don’t understand how anyone can look at Florida’s booming tourism industry, and the more than 1.4 million jobs it supports, and vote to kill it,” Scott said in a prepared statement. “The legislation the Florida House is pushing puts more than 1.4 million jobs at risk and we cannot let that happen.”
But Corcoran told The News Service the governor needs to prove to lawmakers that tourism spending is directly tied to the increase in tourists.
“Show me how Pitbull’s video brought more millennials to the state of Florida? You just can’t do it,” Corcoran said, referring to a controversial $1 million contract Visit Florida inked with Miami hip-hop artist Armando Christian Perez, better known as Pitbull. “We’re in la la land.”
Anyone familiar with the new movie of the same name knows, of course, that (spoiler alert) both parties go their separate ways in order to find their dreams. That is a resolution not available to Scott and Corcoran.
STORY OF THE WEEK: A special master in the latest “water wars” lawsuit issued a report favoring Georgia, a major blow to efforts by Florida officials to increase the flow of water in the Apalachicola River.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “It’s almost as if we are being asked to accept the bogeyman’s argument that refugees in this state are the problem. What the bill does is, it sends red meat to the base of a political party in order to justify future elections. It’s wrong.”—State Rep. Kionne McGhee, D-Miami, on a bill seeking to withdraw Florida from a federal refugee-assistance program.
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Volunteers Needed For FloridaWest Board of Directors
February 19, 2017
Volunteers are needed for the FloridaWest Economic Development Alliance Board of Directors.
The FloridaWest Economic Development Alliance was created in October 2014 when economic development was separated and moved out from under the present day Greater Pensacola Chamber. FloridaWest EDA operates as a publicly/privately-funded organization, observing all local, state and federal laws that apply to nonprofit organizations as defined in section 501(c )(6) of the Internal Revenue Code and Florida’s Government-in-the Sunshine Law, sections 286 and 288.075 of the Florida statutes.
The mission of FloridaWest EDA is to promote industry and commerce, enhance the business climate and stimulate economic prosperity, support workforce development, promote community development and encourage political action. FloridaWest EDA strives to accomplish the greatest good for the greatest number of people in Pensacola, Escambia County and Northwest Florida.
The membership of the FloridaWest EDA Board of Directors consists of not less than seven and not more than 21 members made up of members from the private sector and two members each who are appointed by the city and the county. Appointees serve as long as the appointing authority wants them to serve.
The FloridaWest EDA Board of Directors meets at the Greater Pensacola Chamber, 117 W. Garden St., the last Tuesday of every other month from 2-3:30 p.m.
Residents interested in serving on the board are asked to submit a resume and letter indicating their desire to serve by close of business Wednesday, February 22. Resumes should be submitted to Judy Witterstaeter, Program Coordinator, Board of County Commissioners, P.O. Box 1591, Pensacola, FL 32502, or emailed to jhwitter@myescambia.com.
Resumes submitted to a BCC agenda for consideration will become part of the official minutes and are subject to public records requests.
Benefit Raises Over $15K For Local Family With Double Cancer Loss
February 18, 2017
A benefit for the Barrow family Friday night in Bratt raised over $15,790 for the family, according to organizers. The Breakfast for the Barrows fundraiser included pancake supper at the First Baptist Church of Bratt and sales of t-shirts and bracelets.
The Barrows recently experienced the loss two family members to cancer — mother Joanna Barrow died on January 30 and son Zachary Barrow passed away on February 8. (NorthEscambia.com recently featured the emotional story of Zach and his fiancee Lauren, click here.)
The Zach Barrow Memorial Scholarship funded by Dr. Sheldon Harigel was also announced. The $1,000 scholarship will be awarded annually on December 3, Zach’s birthday, to a deserving athlete at Northview High School, where Zach graduated and later returned as an assistant baseball coach.
The Blue Wahoo’s Kazoo was scheduled to attend the pancake supper but was absent due to illness. It was announced that the Blue Wahoos will honor the Barrows at an upcoming game, present them a portion of game night proceeds and allow a family member to toss the game’s first pitch.
NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Cantonment Friends Flip Beulah Home On DIY’s ‘First Time Flippers’
February 18, 2017
A couple of Cantonment best friends appeared on the DIY Network’s “First Time Flippers” Saturday night.
In the show, Ginger Solliday and Kim Hedgepeth purchased a house in Beulah (the show refers to it as Pensacola), made needed repairs and improvements and flippod — resold — it, for a financial windfall. Things don’t immediately go so well, as it was the first flip for the friends. When Solliday becomes concerned about their lack of experience, she and Hedgepath clash over whether they should hire a professional or finish the the rest of the renovations on their own.
“It’s pretty funny and the house turned out great,” Hedgepath told NorthEscambia.com.”We look dumb on the show, but it was so much fun.”
The friends decided they could completely renovate a house for profit while watching DIY TV shows, Hedgepath said. She “retired” a couple of years ago after working as a paralegal for 21 years, and Solliday is a part-time hair stylist. The needed some extra cash for vacations, and decided the house flip might be a good idea.
Their husbands also helped out along the way, but that’s not shown on the program, she said.
We won’t spoil the show and tell you how much, if anything, the duo made on the flip, but we do know they started on their second flip about two weeks ago.
And Hedgepath offers some advice for anyone considering a flip: “Go for it, as long as you are willing to put in some hard work. It was really fun. One more piece of advice…it really is OK to wear flip flops!”
The episode “Flip Flop Flippn’”, which was filmed last summer, airs again on the DIY Network on Sunday, 8:30 p.m on Saturday March 18, and 11:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 19.
Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Kayla Crocker Community Benefit Is Today
February 18, 2017
A community benefit will be held today for the children of 28-year old Kayla Maylee Crocker, the Beulah mother of two that was shot by William Boyette during a home invasion.
The Beulah community has planned a memorial and fundraising event Saturday from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. at the Beulah Park at 7820 Mobile Highway. All first responders with identification will be able to eat for free.
A BBQ combo with a sandwich, drink and a bag of chips will be $6. A cake walk will be held during the event for several donated cakes, and there will be entertainment.
There will also be a raffle for prizes that includes: a year’s worth of cleaning services by Melissa’s Custom Clean ($1,000 value), Spray Tan sessions, home décor, jewelry and gift cards/certificates donated by several local restaurants and retail shops with many more items being donated daily.
All money collected will be place into an account in the childrens’ names at Navy Federal Credit Union.