Chip Simmons Prefiles For To Run For Escambia Sheriff In 2020
March 29, 2018
Escambia County Chief Deputy Chip Simmons has prefiled to run for Escambia County Sheriff in the 2020 election.
After nearly 30 years with the Pensacola Police Department, he stepped down as police chief in 2015 to become an assistant county administrator for Escambia County. He joined the Sheriff’s Office as the chief deputy of operations in December 2016. He is responsible for running the patrol, investigations and SWAT divisions.
Simmons is the first local candidate to prefile to run for office on the 2020 ballot.
NorthEscambia.com Publisher Named One Of Escambia County’s Most Influential People
March 29, 2018
The Pensacola Independent News has released their 2018 Inweekly Power List — their ranking of the most the most powerful and influential people in Escambia County.
Only one person that works primarily in the North Escambia area was named to the list — NorthEscambia.com publisher William Reynolds (not pictured).
This year, the Inweekly eliminated elected officials and other associated with local government from their list “because so much of their influence is tied to their posts”.
Topping this year’s list was attorney James J. Reeves of Reeves and Davis Attorneys at Law.
To view this year’s Inweekly Power List edition, click here.
Pictured: Attorney James J. Reeves on the cover of this week’s Inweekly.
Photos: Easter Bunny Visits The Molino Branch Library
March 29, 2018
The Easter Bunny stopped in Molino this week for a pajama story time and photos at the Molino Branch Library.
For a photo gallery, click here.
Photos courtesy WFPL for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Cantonment Pedestrian Hit And Killed On East Kingsfield Road
March 28, 2018
A pedestrian was hit and killed Tuesday night on East Kingsfield Road near Majestic Drive.
Jason Strother, age 34 of Cantonment, was walking eastbound on East Kingsfileld was he was struck by a 2003 Dodge Charger driven by 41-year old Patrick Bell of Cantonment about 9:15 p.m., according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Strother was pronounced deceased at the scene; Bell was not injured.
Any charges in the crash are pending the outcome of a traffic homicide investigation, according to the FHP.
Photos courtesy Al Showers, WEAR 3 for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
ECSO: Cantonment Man Involved As Guns Sold To Undercover Cops At Carver Park
March 28, 2018
A Cantonment man was arrested recently on weapons charges.
In March 2017, Anthony Purifoy was allegedly involved in the sale of two firearms to undercover officers at Carver Park on Webb Street in Cantonment, according to an arrest report.
Investigators from the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office Gun Crimes Response Team and ATF reported purchasing a Hi-Point 9mm and a Mossberg .22 caliber semiautomatic rifle for $850 in cash. A records check after the transaction did not indicate the guns were stolen.
A warrant was issued for Purifoy’s arrest. As deputies attempted to apprehend him recently, he ran from a house on Robinson Street and refused to stop, the report states. As he ran across Robinson street, he was apprehended by an Escambia County Sheriff’s Office K-9.
Purifoy was transported by Escambia County EMS to Baptist Hospital for treatment of his injuries.
Purify was arrested on two counts of possession of a weapon by a convicted felon and resist officer without violence. He remained in the Escambia County Jail without bond.
Bratt Elementary Names Students Of The Month
March 28, 2018
The following students were named Students of the Month for March at Bratt Elementary School.
Pre-K
Ariel Alexander
Patton Amos
Kindergarten
Riverly Heathcock
Abigail Hawthorne
Mason Garvin
Tikiya Syria
Aric Rolin
First Grade
Maybree Johnson
Layla Pettway
Briley Moore
Addison Carpenter
Second Grade
Jackson Salter
Isabella Sanspree
Anthoney Johnson
Bryson Odom
Third Grade
Kaylee Long
Lori Hall
John Griffs
Fourth Grade
Ora Bryan
Nevaeh Bush
Kenslee Chavira
Talaysha Curry
Fifth Grade
Cole Hughes
Jayla Brown
JayCee Vernon
Arieyana Johnson
Photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Judge Orders New System Of Restoring Felon Rights
March 28, 2018
A federal judge permanently blocked Florida’s “fatally flawed” process of restoring voting rights, giving Gov. Rick Scott and the Board of Executive Clemency a month to come up with a new system of providing ex-felons the right to vote.
In Tuesday’s order, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker repeatedly chided Scott and the state clemency board — comprised of Scott, Attorney General Pam Bondi, state Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis and Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam — for the current restoration process and for threatening to scrap the system altogether after the judge last month struck down the process as unconstitutional.
Walker, siding with the voting-rights group Fair Elections Legal Network, last month found that the state’s clemency system is arbitrary and violated First Amendment rights and equal-protection rights under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
In his Feb. 1 order, Walker asked both sides to propose a new method to restore voting rights to ex-felons, who now must wait five or seven years after their sentences are complete to apply to have their rights restored in a process Walker said gives “unfettered discretion” to the board.
In a brief filed last month, attorneys for the state argued that Florida could permanently do away with the restoration of civil rights, sparking a rebuke from Walker in Tuesday’s order.
“This court is not the Vote-Restoration Czar. It does not pick and choose who may receive the right to vote and who may not,” Walker began Tuesday’s 22-page order.
Walker accused the state of choosing to “essentially repackage the current scheme” that would allow Scott and the clemency board “to do, as the governor described, ‘whatever we want’ in denying voting rights to hundreds of thousands of their constituents.”
“This will not do,” Walker wrote.
On the other side, the plaintiffs asked Walker to restore the right to vote to former felons who had completed their sentences and had already gone through a five- or seven-year waiting period.
“But such relief is beyond the scope of this court’s authority,” Walker wrote, adding that “any perceived policy weaknesses” regarding the restoration of voting rights can be cured through ballot initiatives or legislative acts.
While Walker did not lay out a new process or establish new time limits, the judge ordered the board to move forward with time constraints “that are meaningful, specific, and expeditious.”
“Absent extraordinary circumstances, this court cannot conceive of any reason why an applicant at any point must wait more than one election cycle after she becomes eligible to apply for restoration,” the judge wrote.
Scott was instrumental in establishing the more onerous restoration-of-rights process almost immediately after he took office in 2011.
Scott spokesman John Tupps said Tuesday it is up to “officials elected by Floridians, not judges … to determine Florida’s clemency process for convicted felons.”
“This is outlined in Florida’s Constitution and has been in place for more than a century and under multiple gubernatorial administrations,” Tupps said in a statement. “The governor continues to stand with victims of crime. He believes that people who have been convicted of felony offenses including crimes like murder, violence against children and domestic violence, should demonstrate that they can live a life free of crime while being accountable to our communities.”
Walker’s order found that the restoration-of-rights portion of Florida’s Constitution, along with the executive clemency rights-restoration process, run afoul of the U.S. Constitution.
Relying on a footnoted quote from legendary screen character Rocky Balboa, Walker mocked the defendants, writing that they claimed “the current scheme is all sunshine and rainbows.”
And Walker invoked history as a lesson in the significance of “free association and free expression to choose public officials” to represent people and advance public policy.
“These interests are why Americans launched a revolution against perceived unfettered discretion in the hands of one high-ranking official, King George III,” Walker wrote.
Walker also cautioned that there is a risk that the clemency board “may engage in viewpoint discrimination through seemingly neutral rationales” such as traffic citations or a “perceived lack of remorse” that “serve as impermissible” masks for censorship.
“Therefore, the board must promulgate specific standards and neutral criteria to direct its decision-making,” Walker ordered.
The standards and criteria “cannot be merely advisory, a Potemkin village for anyone closely reviewing the scheme,” the judge elaborated, instructing the board not to rely “on whims, passing emotions or perceptions.”
“Establishing safeguards against viewpoint discrimination should be the board’s paramount goal following this order,” Walker instructed.
Scott and the clemency board “balk at injunctive relief” partly because of “a presumption of regularity,” Walker wrote.
“This argument boils down to ‘trust us — we got this,’ ” he wrote.
Walker also took note of “problems of potential abuse,” especially when clemency board members — who are statewide elected officials and who may be running for re-election or another office — “have a personal stake in shaping the electorate to their perceived benefit.”
“Speech is an essential mechanism of democracy, for it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people,” Walker wrote, quoting from a seminal U.S. Supreme Court decision in a case known as Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
“Florida’s current scheme inverts that important democratic mechanism. It cannot do so anymore,” the judge wrote.
Walker ordered the clemency board to devise a constitutionally sound program with “specific, neutral criteria that excise the risk — and, of course, the actual practice of — any impermissible discrimination, such as race, gender, religion or viewpoint.”
Walker did not specify any particular process or criteria, but ordered that “Florida’s corrected scheme cannot be byzantine or burdensome.”
Walker also rejected arguments that the clemency board can’t handle what could be hundreds of thousands of applications for rights restoration.
“It is no excuse that the board lacks resources to abide by the federal Constitution’s requirements. If the board pursues policies that sever hundreds of thousands of Floridians from the franchise and, at the appropriate time, hundreds of thousands of Floridians want their voting rights back, the board must shoulder the burden of its policies’ consequences,” Walker wrote. “They cannot continue to shrug off restoration applications indefinitely.”
Walker also chastised Scott and the board for threatening to put an end to the rights-restoration process.
Even though he found that the state’s “arbitrary slow drip” of restoring rights violates the U.S. Constitution, “that does not mean defendants can shut off the spigot of voting rights with a wrench, yank it from the plumbing, and throw the whole apparatus into the Gulf of Mexico,” Walker wrote.
“Having lost their ability to re-enfranchise citizens at a snail’s pace guided by absolutely nothing, Defendants threats to arbitrarily and completely end the vote-restoration scheme is tantamount to picking up one’s marbles and going home,” he scolded.
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Free Beans And Rice Giveaway Saturday In Cantonment
March 28, 2018
Saint Monica’s Episcopal Church, will be distributing free rice and dried beans and other non-perishables on Saturday, March 31 from 9 until 11 a.m. (or while supplies last) at the church located at 699 South Hwy 95-A in Cantonment.
There are no guidelines and no paperwork required.
Florida Superintendents Say Money May Not Cover Resource Officers
March 28, 2018
A new report from Florida’s school superintendents warns that despite a nearly $100 million increase in funding, there may not be enough money to post an armed school resource officer at each school in the state.
In reacting to the shooting deaths of 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, the Legislature passed a new budget and related bills that boosted funding for resource officers by $97.5 million to $162 million in the upcoming academic year.
But a report from the Florida Association of District School Superintendents said school districts might not be able to meet the goal of posting at least one safety officer at each of Florida’s more than 3,500 elementary, middle and high schools. The report was part of a State Board of Education agenda for a meeting Tuesday in LaBelle but was not discussed.
“We appreciate the legislative appropriations, but many districts will have difficulty meeting the requirement to establish or assign one (or) more safe-school officers at each school facility,” the report said.
The superintendents also said a lack of funding for law-enforcement officers may put pressure on districts to use the “Coach Aaron Feis Guardian Program,” which would allow school employees, including some teachers, to bring guns to school if they are specially trained and deputized by sheriffs.
But noting the opposition to the guardian program in many districts and communities, the superintendents said much of the $67 million for that initiative may go unspent. They asked the Board of Education for support in shifting some of those funds to the school resource officer program.
“Superintendents request that you support and recommend that these unspent dollars be used in districts for additional school resource officers or other school safety measures,” the report said.
In a recent interview with The News Service of Florida, Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, said lawmakers may considering using the Joint Legislative Budget Commission to shift some of the guardian funds into other safety measures if the money goes unspent, although it was too early to make that determination.
The superintendents also raised concerns about a provision in the new school-safety law that will require “active shooter” and “hostage situations” drills in the schools.
“Superintendents support these drills, but they must be accomplished with minimal disruption to teaching and learning and in a manner that does not unnecessarily frighten students, particularly elementary students,” the report said.
The superintendents said they would work with the Department of Education on other school-safety initiatives, including establishing a state Safe Schools Office, developing a school security-risk assessment tool and implementing the guardian program.
The report also offered some recommendations on implementing a new $69 million mental-health services program, which has been a top priority for the school superintendents for some time.
But the report warned that some school districts could face budget cuts in the coming year because the bulk of increased spending in the new education budget is targeted toward the school safety and mental health issues in the wake of the Broward County shooting.
The superintendents noted that the “base student allocation,” the primary source for general operational activities, only increased by 47 cents per student statewide, a fraction of the overall funding increase of $101.50 per student.
“With only a 47-cent increase in the BSA, superintendents will be forced to cut their budgets — cuts that will impact students, schools and communities that are served,” the report said.
by Lloyd Dunkelberger, The News Service of Florida
Pine Forest Shuts Out Northview; Tate Beats Miami Beach
March 28, 2018
Tate 2, Miami Beach 1
The Tate Aggies beat Miami Beach High School 2-1 Tuesday.
Cole Fryman earned the victory on the pitcher’s mound for the Aggies. He allowed just one run on four hits, walking one and striking out one.
For Tate: Blake Anderson 1-2; Ryan Green 1-3, R; Reid Halfacre 1-3, RBI; Trent Jeffcoat 1-2; Raymond Lafleur 1-3; Hunter Riggan 1-2, R; Jesse Sherill 1-3, R.
Pine Forest 11, Northview 0
The Pine Forest Eagles defeated the Northview Chiefs Tuesday afternoon at Pine Forest.
After a scoreless first inning, the 6A Eagles exploded with nine runs and sealed the win in just three innings with two runs in the bottom of the third to invoke the 10-run rule.
Singleton took the loss for the 1A Chiefs surrendering 11 runs on 12 hits while striking out two. Nolan Rigby earned the win for Pine Forest with no run, three hits and striking out two.
For Northview: Seth Killam 1-3; Trevor Singleton 1-3; John Chivington 1-3; Jason Fischer 1-2.
For Pine Forest: John Pinette 1-4, R; Kyler Hultgren 1-2, 2R; Jason Roberts 3-3, R, 2RBI; Nolan Rigby 2-3, 2R, RBI; Garrett Holmes 1-3, R, RBI; Timmy Williams 3-3, 2R, RBI; Christian Munoz 1-2, RBI; Wyatt Gill 1-3, R, RBI; Ladarius Clardy 1-3, R, RBI.
Pine Forest will host South Warren of Bowling Green, KY, on April 2 at 7 p.m. The Chiefs will travel to Jay on April 3 at 6:30 p.m.