District Semifinal: Tate Shuts Out Pine Forest
May 3, 2018
The Tate Aggies won their District 1-7A semifinal game over Pine Forest Wednesday, 12-0 in six innings.
Raymond LaFleur earned the win for Tate in five innings, allowing one hit and no runs while striking out four.
Nolan Rigby took the loss for Pine Forest. He gave up six runs on five hits in two and a third innings while striking out one.
Raymond LaFleur had three-run home run for Tate, going 1-2 with a run and three RBIs.
For Tate: Reid Halfacre 1-4, RBI, 2R; Jesse Sherrill 2-4, RBI: Mason Land 1-3, RBI; Hunter McLean 2-3, 2RBI, R; Blake Anderson 2-4, 2R; Darrien McDowell 2R; Ethan Bloodwoth R; Hunter Riggan 1-1, 2RBI; Trent Jeffcoat 1-2, 2R; Ryan Green R; Raymond LaFleur 1-2, HR, 3RBI.
Photos courtesy WEAR 3 for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Cuts To Florida Prison Drug Programs Draw Criticism
May 3, 2018
As Florida continues to deal with an opioid crisis, state corrections officials are moving ahead on a plan to cut substance-abuse services to make up a shortfall in health-care funding for the prison system.
“We’re in the worst drug epidemic that this country and Florida have ever seen and we’re talking now about reducing programs at the same exact time we’re trying to turn the corner on this epidemic. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me,” Mark Fontaine, executive director of the Florida Alcohol & Drug Abuse Association, said Wednesday.
The state Department of Corrections announced the plan Tuesday evening, saying services had to be cut to shift money to the health care program, where there is a $55 million shortfall.
Corrections Secretary Julie Jones said although lawmakers increased health-care funding for the prison system, the department does not have enough money to cover a new contract for medical, dental, mental-health and hospital services in the budget year that begins July 1. The current contract expires at the end of June.
The agency projects it will need an additional $28 million in 2018-2019 to fund the new contract and will have to offset $26.8 million in rising costs for pharmaceuticals.
“In order to secure a health services contractor, fund the increased pharmaceutical budget, and adjust for reductions, we’ve unfortunately had to make some very difficult decisions. At the start of the next fiscal year, we will be reducing some of our current contracts with community providers,” Jones said in a statement.
The reductions will be felt across the state, impacting some 33 community providers that offer substance-abuse services and other programs, ranging from life-skills development to job placement, designed to help prisoners successfully return to society once they have served sentences.
“They are reducing or eliminating contracts that they have with community providers that are providing very valuable, evidence-based and effective programs in order to get to that goal,” Fontaine said.
The cuts include a 40 percent reduction in funding for substance-abuse and mental-health treatment for prisoners returning to their communities, representing a $9.1 million reduction. Another $1.6 million will be cut in transitional housing services.
In the prisons, another $7.6 million in substance-abuse services will be eliminated, and the plan will shift prisoners receiving more intensive “therapeutic” treatment to “more cost-effective” work-release programs, providing another $6 million in savings, according to the plan.
Another $2.3 million will be cut from basic-education re-entry centers, while smaller cuts include $500,000 used to fund chaplains and librarians.
Fontaine said cuts in substance-abuse treatment are particularly troubling.
“Seventy percent of the people in prison have a drug problem, and these are the few critical services we have providing drug treatment and they’re talking about reducing those,” he said.
He also said effective drug treatment can help reduce the rate of prisoners returning to the system, reduce costs and protect communities.
“We’ve seen that over and over again. Research-based drug treatment makes a difference,” Fontaine said.
In an interview Tuesday night with The News Service of Florida, Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Chairman Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, said the prison system funding crisis had “been festering for years” and that lawmakers failed to adequately respond to the issue.
Brandes said health-care funding shortfalls have to be addressed, but he lamented the impact on the substance-abuse services.
“You can’t have an opioid crisis and cut opioid funding. You can’t just let people out of prison without some type of transition back into society. These are the types of programs that the research shows provide the best outcomes,” he said.
Fontaine, who said he is talking with lawmakers, legislative staff and Gov. Rick Scott’s aides, suggested one way to address the crisis would be to shift some of the state’s reserve funds into the prison budget, although lawmakers have been reluctant to spend down reserves.
“It’s not like we have to take this (budget-cutting) action. There are other actions that can be done. It just takes the political will to do it,” he said.
The privatization of prison health care has been an ongoing problem for the state, with the Department of Corrections going through a series of companies in an attempt to provide the services. Jones is negotiating a new contract with Centurion of Florida LLC, which provides the current services for about 87,000 inmates. The new contract is expected to be a five-year, $2 billion agreement.
by Lloyd Dunkelberger, The News Service of Florida
‘Hurricane Coleman’ Makes Landfall As Escambia County Practices For The Real Thing
May 3, 2018
Hurricane Coleman made landfall Tuesday with the Escambia County Emergency Operations Center fully staffed — all part of a Florida Division of Emergency Management’s statewide exercise to get ready for the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season.
Participants practiced Florida’s emergency plans and procedures for a potential hurricane making landfall. Escambia County focused on internal processes and training of the differing roles and responsibilities found in the emergency operations center.
Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Lavally’s Glam Slam Powers Wahoos Win Over The Mississippi Braves
May 3, 2018
Gavin LaValley came to plate in the seventh of a tie ballgame and gave the Wahoos the lead in grand fashion. He belted a go-ahead grand slam to lift the Wahoos over the Mississippi Braves 9-5 on Wednesday at Blue Wahoos Stadium.
LaValley swung at the first pitch he saw from Josh Graham (L, 2-2) and blasted Pensacola out of its three-game losing streak. Pensacola’s five-run rally in the frame sealed the win in the series opener. The win was gritty, and the type of performance that surely impressed many of the Cincinnati Reds brass who were in attendance to watch the Double-A affiliate.
The start of the game was far from perfect for Daniel Wright and the Wahoos. Mississippi cashed in on a hit batsman and an error as the visitors scored twice in the opening inning. Michael Reed added to their lead in the second inning with his first home run of the season to make it 3-0.
Pensacola’s first rally came in the fourth inning with the hosts trailing 3-1. After the first two batters reached safely, Brian O’Grady hit his second double of the game to bring home Josh VanMeter. Taylor Sparks followed with an RBI groundout, which tied the game at three. Garrett Boulware then gave the Wahoos their first lead with a sac fly to center to score O’Grady.
The lead didn’t last long because Austin Riley homered with a man on in the fifth inning to reposition Mississippi ahead of Pensacola 5-4. Wright exited the contest after five innings and allowed five runs (four earned). He was replaced by Evan Mitchell (W, 1-0) who worked two scoreless innings in relief. Carlos Navas closed the game out the game with two shutout frames to clinch the win.
The Blue Wahoos bigger rally was in in the seventh when the home side scored five runs on four hits. Boulware and Alberti Chavez led off the inning with singles, and pinch-hitter Nick Longhi singled to right to score Boulware. After a groundout and an intentional walk to load the bases, LaValley lifted Graham’s slider off Travis Demeritte’s glove and over the wall for the first Wahoos grand slam since Eric Jagielo’s slam back on May 5, 2016.
RHP Keury Mella (3-0) will put his Southern-League best 1.00 ERA on the line Thursday night against LHP Michael Mader (1-0, 2.81). Pensacola is a perfect 5-0 in games that Mella has started.
Cantonment Man Charged With Assault With A Deadly Weapon
May 2, 2018
A Cantonment man was arrested after jumping from his attic and later pulling a gun on other occupants of his house, according to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office.
Nicholas Morris was charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
A deputy responded to the 1200 block of Woodlake Drive for a warrant service. When she arrived, she was met by a man that said Morris had jumped out of his attic and ordered everyone to get out of his house because “they were snitches”. The man said Morris had guns in the house and had been up for three days after taking methamphetamines, according to an ECSO arrest report.
A female outside the house told the deputy that after Morris jumped out of the attic, he grabbed a gun and said “if they didn’t get out, he would kill them, the arrest report states. The female said the gun was a lever-action rifle.
Deputies entered the residence by breaching the front door; Morris was found in his bathroom and taken into custody.
A search of the house revealed two semi-automatic handguns under a couch cushion in the living room, a box of ammunition in the living room and multiple calibers of ammunition in the bedroom used by Morris, according to the report.
Morris remained in the Escambia County Jail Wednesday morning due to a probation violation charge.
NTSB: Driver Unresponsive Before I-10 Bus Crash
May 2, 2018
The National Transportation Safety Board has released their preliminary report on the deadly tour bus crash on I-10 on March 13.
The bus was transporting a high school marching band from Disney World in Orlando, where the band had performed, to Channelview, TX. This was the final leg of a four-day charter. The bus had left Orlando at 10:00 p.m. the day before and was scheduled to make a driver change near Mobile.
The bus was traveling about 59 mph according to preliminary GPS data, the NTSB report states.
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A witness reported that the motorcoach suddenly left the right westbound lane, crossed the left westbound lane, and continued across the median into the eastbound lanes. The motorcoach continued across both eastbound lanes, almost colliding with a passenger vehicle and a semi-truck then continued onto the shoulder and struck a guardrail.
The bus traveled back across both eastbound lanes onto the median, where it continued west into a ravine between twin bridge structures. The bus came to rest in the ravine on its right side against a bridge pier, 38 feet below the roadway.
The driver died, and all 46 passengers sustained injuries ranging from minor to serious.
The NTSB said preliminary evidence showed no signs of braking. A passenger reported that as the motorcoach departed the travel lanes, the driver appeared unresponsive. The passenger attempted to revive the driver in the time before the crash.
An inspection found no vehicle defects that might have contributed to the crash. The motorcoach was equipped with lap/shoulder belts for all seats, and the extent of belt use by passengers is being examined. The NTSB is also evaluating motor carrier operations and driver performance as it relates to the crash.
All aspects of the crash remain under investigation.
NorthEscambia.com photos by Kristi Barbour and others, click to enlarge. Overhead graphic from NTSB, click to enlarge.
Appeals Court Blocks ‘Homegrown’ Marijuana In Florida
May 2, 2018
Siding with the state Department of Health, an appeals court Tuesday at least temporarily blocked a Tampa businessman from being able to grow marijuana as he seeks to prevent a relapse of lung cancer.
The 1st District Court of Appeal reinstated a stay of a Leon County circuit judge’s ruling that would allow Joe Redner to grow his own pot for a treatment known as “juicing.”
Circuit Judge Karen Gievers last month ruled that Redner is entitled grow and possess marijuana for juicing under a 2016 constitutional amendment that broadly legalized medical marijuana in Florida.
The Department of Health appealed the ruling, triggering an automatic stay. But Gievers then lifted the automatic stay, spurring lawyers for the state to quickly ask the Tallahassee-based appeals court to reinstate the stay.
The appeals court Tuesday issued a one-page order reinstating the stay, which will remain in place as the court considers the appeal of Gievers’ underlying ruling that Redner should be allowed to grow his own marijuana.
“After this panel’s preliminary review of the full wording of the constitutional amendment, we determine that appellee (Redner) did not sufficiently demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits as required to justify vacating the automatic governmental stay,” Tuesday’s order said. “However, we do not intend to preclude full review of the issues on appeal by the merits panel (of the appeals court).”
Redner, who made his fortune as a strip-club owner, filed the lawsuit last year as the state carried out the 2016 constitutional amendment. While the state has faced a series of legal challenges, it has designed a regulatory system that involves licensing limited numbers of businesses to grow, process and sell medical marijuana.
Redner’s doctor ordered a juicing treatment that uses live marijuana plants to prevent a relapse of stage 4 lung cancer, according to court documents. Emulsification, or juicing, of the “biomass of the marijuana plant” was determined to be “the most effective way” for Redner “to get the benefit of medical marijuana,” according to Gievers’ initial ruling last month.
Gievers’ ruling was narrowly tailored to Redner. But in arguing last month that the stay should remain in place while an appeal moves forward, attorneys for the Department of Health argued that the ruling “opens the door for plaintiff and other qualified patients to grow medical marijuana unchecked from any state regulation.”
“In other words, the effect of the final judgment is to grant civil and criminal immunity to any one of the thousands of qualifying patients in Florida who may wish to grow and use medical marijuana as plaintiff has been authorized to do by this (Gievers’) court,” the department’s attorneys, Jason Gonzalez and Amber Stoner, wrote in an April 16 document. “The only way to prevent the proliferation of unregulated homegrown marijuana is to maintain the status quo while the appellate court reviews the propriety” of Gievers’ interpretation of the 2016 constitutional amendment.
by Jim Saunders, The News Service of Florida
Tate FFA Alumni Rodeo Is Friday, Saturday Nights
May 2, 2018
The 27th Annual Tate FFA Alumni Foundation Rodeo will be Friday and Saturday nights at 7:30 at the Escambia County Equestrian Center on Mobile Highway.
Advance tickets are available at Farm and Nursery Mart, Hill Kelly Dodge, Barnes Feed Store Pensacola and Tate High School. Tickets are $8 for adults and $3 for children in advance and $10 and $5 at the gate.
For more information about the Rodeo, call (850) 937-2308.
Florida Dept. Of Corrections Cuts Programs To Fill Budget Hole
May 2, 2018
Blaming the Legislature for not fully funding the state prison system, Florida corrections officials are slashing substance-abuse services, transitional housing and re-entry programs — services and programs launched to keep inmates from returning to life behind bars — in an attempt to fill a $28 million budget hole.
The Department of Corrections announced the cost-cutting measures late Tuesday. The cuts are focused largely on doing away with or dramatically reducing substance-abuse, mental-health and re-entry programs to plug a $28 million health-care services deficit.
With an annual budget in excess of $2.4 billion and about 100,000 inmates, the corrections agency makes up one of the state’s largest spending areas. But the agency is running an overall deficit of about $79 million, after budget reductions imposed by lawmakers over the past two years and escalating health care and pharmaceutical costs.
The corrections agency has been struggling to keep up with the cost of health care for the majority of the state’s inmates, after one private vendor quit years before its contract was up and the state fired another.
Department of Corrections Secretary Julie Jones, in a statement announcing the cuts, said she hoped the reductions are temporary.
“In order to secure a health services contractor, fund the increased pharmaceutical budget, and adjust for reductions, we’ve unfortunately had to make some very difficult decisions. At the start of the next fiscal year, we will be reducing some of our current contracts with community providers. Additionally, we are reducing operating costs to include maintenance, repair, utilities, and working to find every possible internal solution to reduce costs in order to maximize services for inmates and offenders,” Jones said in the statement issued Tuesday.
The budget cuts came a month after corrections officials asked vendors for a “voluntary rate reduction and/or cost-saving measure” in their current contracts.
Lawmakers this spring included money in the state budget to address a number of legal challenges centered on health care in the prison system, including the treatment of inmates with hepatitis and inmates with disabilities and mental-health issues.
But according to documents distributed by the department Tuesday evening, the $437 million earmarked for inmate health care — which includes pharmaceuticals — still came up about $55 million short.
Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Chairman Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, told The News Service of Florida on Tuesday evening that he has repeatedly warned his colleagues they were shortchanging the prison system.
Brandes said the funding crisis has “been festering for years” and called the cuts announced Tuesday unacceptable.
“In the short term, we’re going to have to fund the shortfalls in unconventional ways. But they must be funded. Period. These are not options. You must fund them,” he said.
Especially disturbing are the cuts to substance-abuse treatment, which are coming at the peak of the state’s opioid epidemic, and re-entry programs. Both have been shown to reduce recidivism and to aid prisoners as they transition to the community, said Brandes, who has been at the forefront of a criminal-justice reform movement in Florida.
“These are the very programs that have been proven to work. You can’t have an opioid crisis and cut opioid funding. You can’t just let people out of prison without some type of transition back into society. These are the types of programs that the research shows provide the best outcomes,” he said.
Jones announced the cuts as she prepares to sign a new contract with a private vendor to provide health services to about 87,000 inmates in state-run prisons.
The privatization of prison health care has been plagued with problems for the past several years.
Jones severed ties with Pittsburgh-based Wexford Health Sources a year ago, after Corizon Health in late 2015 notified the state that it was walking away from a five-year, $1.2 billion deal three years early. The Tennessee-based company said it was losing money on its contract with the state.
Jones came under fire for signing a no-bid, $268 million contract with Centurion of Florida LLC in January 2016 to take over for Corizon. Wexford’s contract with the state was unaffected by the deal with Centurion, which eventually took over health care for the entire state-run prison system.
Jones decided to redo the health care services contracts in 2015 and issued an invitation to negotiate for select companies to submit proposals.
But, after re-issuing the invitation to negotiate, Centurion — whose contract expires in June — was the only respondent for what is expected to be a $2 billion, five-year contract with the state. According to corrections officials, the agency is finalizing negotiations with Centurion.
“First and foremost, it’s our responsibility to ensure the security of individuals in our custody and to make certain their human and constitutional rights are upheld while incarcerated. Health care is one of these constitutional responsibilities, and in my tenure, I’ve held vendors accountable for ensuring these services are provided at an adequate and appropriate level, that is in line with required standards. Like every state agency, we must make fiscally sound decisions to operate within our legislatively appropriated budget,” Jones said in the statement.
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.
Jay And Northview Fall In District Tournament
May 2, 2018
Northview and Jay both lost Tuesday in the District 3-1A baseball semifinals.
(5) Chipley 11, (1) Jay 5
(2) Freeport 7 (3) Northview 2
Trevor Singleton pitched 4.1 inning for the Chiefs, allow two hits and two runs will striking out five. Seth Killam pitched 1.2 innings allowing three hits, five runs and striking out two.
For Northview: Tanner Levins 2-4, RBI; John Chivington 2-3, RBI; Jackson Moore 2-2, R: Seth Killam 1-4, 3B, R; Jason Fischer 2-2.
Freeport will host Chipley Thursday for the district championship.
Pictured: Northview seniors (L-R) Trevor Singleton, Braxton Edwards, Jason Fischer and John Chivington. NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.