Thousands Of Jars Collected During Peanut Butter Drive
November 30, 2017
Well over a ton of peanut butter was collected in Escambia County during the recent UF/IFAS Extension Annual Peanut Butter Challenge.
Escambia County residents donated 1,598 jars (2,495 lbs), while 744 jars (1161.8 lbs) were collected in Santa Rosa County.
In mid-December local peanut producers Rodney and Mike Helton will donate additional pallets full of peanut butter they purchased for the Escambia County challenge.
All of the peanut butter will be donated to local food pantries.
Pictured: A small portion of all the peanut butter donated by Escambia County residents. Photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
2017 Hurricane Season Comes To A Close
November 30, 2017
Thursday is the last day of the highly active, deadly and destructive 2017 Atlantic hurricane season, but most Floridians will feel its impact for years.
Politicians are still scrambling to determine how much of the next state budget will be dedicated to covering losses that may or may not be paid by the federal government.
The massive hit from Hurricane Irma caused direct physical and emotional impacts in Florida, and ripples continue to come ashore as thousands of people flee Hurricane Maria’s devastation in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Lawmakers are also looking at regulatory changes for nursing homes and debris-removal companies, as well as changes dealing with issues such as evacuation lanes, shelters and a potential state fuel reserve.
Gov. Rick Scott, who was a constantly visible face before and after Irma struck, said Monday while in Tampa that he’d like to boost the availability of propane for generators before the 2018 storm season.
“You always learn something,” Scott said. “Everybody had generators. This last time we started running low on propane. I want to make sure that doesn’t happen again. But everyone did a good job. Highway safety, we kept the fuel going.”
Visit Florida spent $5 million to tell potential tourists that the state quickly reopened after Hurricane Irma, even as scars from the September storm remain etched across agricultural fields and the Florida Keys.
Meanwhile, 72 deaths in Florida are currently attributed to the Irma, according to reports supplied by county medical examiners to the state Division of Emergency Management.
The fatalities include 14 cases involving carbon monoxide, eight drownings, four electrocutions and 14 incidents involving blunt-force injuries. Deaths occurred statewide, with six in the Florida Keys, five in Duval County and even two in Leon County, which sustained relatively little damage from Irma compared to other parts of the state.
The numbers don’t include 14 deaths of residents of a Broward County nursing home — 12 were recently ruled homicides — that have caused Scott to push for new rules requiring nursing homes and assisted-living facilities to have emergency generators.
Members of the House Select Committee on Hurricane Response and Preparedness will meet Monday and discuss potential storm-related recommendations for the 2018 legislative session, which starts in January. Among the possibilities are legislation about housing, agriculture tax relief, hardening for emergency-operations centers and management of shelters.
“Obviously, there will be short-term things that need to be taken care of in the immediate, upcoming session,” committee Chairwoman Jeanette Nunez, R-Miami, said. “And then, as we saw back in (Hurricane) Andrew, or during the ‘04-’05 season, legislatures will deal with this issue for years to come.”
Hurricane Hermine in 2016 was Florida’s first direct hit from a hurricane in more than a decade. But Irma, which made landfall Sept. 10 in Monroe and Collier counties and traveled up the state, was far more destructive.
Mark Wool, the warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Tallahassee office, called 2017 the busiest for the Atlantic since 2005.
“We didn’t have any things working against tropical cyclone development like in recent years,” Wool said. “There was no El Nino in effect, which tends to suppress things. Didn’t see a lot of dust coming off Africa. We had a very warm ocean and the depth of the warm water was quite large. And all of those things tend to fuel development of a lot of storms.”
Emergency-management officials each year stress preparing for hurricanes. But Wool said the flatness of Florida requires additional vigilance by coastal communities against flooding, as the state is also experiencing a period of rising sea levels.
“Parts of South Beach are flooding now without any storms. Blue skies, tidal flooding, the king tides,” Wool said. “We’ve seen times in the historic record where we’ve had large fluctuations in sea level, and we’re certainly on the upswing.”
As of Nov. 13, more than 830,000 property owners across the state had filed claims for $5.88 billion in insured losses from Irma, which was one of four storms — Tropical Storm Emily, Irma, Hurricane Nate and Tropical Storm Philippe — that had a direct impact on the state during the six-month hurricane season that closes Thursday.
Emily in early August made landfall on Anna Maria Island and quickly was downgraded to a tropical depression. Nate brushed the western Panhandle on Oct. 8 as the center of the storm came ashore near Biloxi, Miss. Philippe brought rain and couple of tornadoes to the Southern part of the state as it made landfall Oct. 29 with 45 mph winds in Southwest Florida.
Overall, there were 17 named storms this year. The most devastation came from Harvey’s Aug. 26 landfall in Texas, Irma’s double landfall and run-up of Florida starting Sept. 10, and Maria’s destruction of utilities and other infrastructure across Puerto Rico on Sept. 20.
While spinning in the Atlantic, Irma reached maximum sustained winds of 185 mph, a pace it held for a record 37 consecutive-hours. Nate also set a record in October for the fastest forward motion recorded for a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico.
“We certainly did establish some records,” Wool said. “Harvey’s rainfall established a new rainfall record for one system in the United States. I think some areas had 60 inches of rains, which was phenomenal.”
Irma also set new benchmarks for evacuees — an estimated 6.5 million people left their homes in advance of the storm — and power outages and restoration crews. Florida Power & Light, for example, reported 90 percent of its customers — about 10 million people — were without power on average 2.3 days.
The agriculture industry has put a preliminary estimate of $2.5 billion on its losses from the storm.
However, Florida leaders have yet to convince the White House and Congress to include an estimated $761 million in losses to the citrus industry in a series of disaster-relief packages this year.
State Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam again implored Florida’s congressional delegation on Tuesday to support U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney’s proposal to add $1.5 billion for Florida’s agricultural industry to a $44 billion disaster-relief request sent to Congress on Nov. 17 by the White House Office of Management and Budget.
While awaiting federal assistance, Scott authorized a $25 million interest-free loan program for citrus farmers.
Visit Florida, meanwhile, directed $5 million from its tourism budget for a special post-Irma marketing campaign, and Scott has requested lawmakers boost Visit Florida’s marketing dollars from $75 million in the current year to $100 million because of the need to have post-disaster marketing money readily available.
Despite the state saying tourism numbers continue to climb, hotels remain closed in parts of the Keys, where housing issues have grown for workers after Irma devastated a number of areas outside of Key West.
The Islamorada Resort Company, which hired more than 500 construction workers to repair storm damage at four locations on the islands, is reopening the first of the four on Dec. 15 and the second a month later.
“We are thrilled to welcome guests back to our slice of paradise,” said Eddie Sipple, the company’s area general manager.
by Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida
Pictured: A Cantonment woman escaped injury when a large tree fell into her home due to Hurricane Nate – one of the very few damage reports received from the storm in the North Escambia area. NorthEscambia.com file photos.
Northview Beta Club Creates Living Poinsettia Christmas Tree
November 30, 2017
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in the main hallway at Northview High School. The Northiew Beta Club sold 150 potted poinsettias as a fundraiser to create this living poinsettia tree. Photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
New Residency Requirement Pitched For Florida Legislative Candidates
November 30, 2017
A state panel Wednesday backed a proposed constitutional amendment that would change residency requirements for legislative candidates.
Under the proposal, candidates would have to reside in the districts they intend to represent at the time they qualify to run. Currently, they are only required to live in the districts when elected.
Without comment, the Legislative Committee of the Florida Constitution Revision Commission approved the proposed change (Proposal 50), filed by committee Chairman Jose Felix Diaz, a former state House member.
“What it will stop is gamesmanship,” said Diaz, a Miami-Dade County Republican. “There are lot of folks that run for office in other parts of the state that are (from) many counties away just to play spoiler. This will stop that political maneuvering.”
The change would not be required in years of legislative redistricting, which often leads to substantial changes in district boundaries.
“There are some areas where you have existing legislators drawn out of their seats and they don’t have a lot of time to move,” Diaz said. Last year “in the Senate, there was a change in the spring and they were already running for re-election in the fall.”
The proposal is now ready to be considered by the full 37-member Constitution Revision Commission, which will determine whether it will go before voters in November 2018.
The commission, which meets every 20 years, has the power to directly place proposed constitutional amendments on the general-election ballot.
Diaz pitched the proposal after former state Rep. Daisy Baez, D-Coral Gables, resigned her seat amid scrutiny about her residency. Baez, who was elected in 2016, resigned after pleading guilty to a perjury charge in an investigation by the Miami-Dade County State Attorney’s Office.
Diaz has said the proposed constitutional amendment was not spurred by the Baez case.
The issue of residency of lawmakers has been an almost-annual source of rumor and contention.
In 2013, Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, sought an investigation into residency claims by six South Florida lawmakers, two fellow members of the Senate and four from the House. All six were Democrats.
Currently, part of the Florida Constitution requires, “Each legislator shall be at least twenty-one years of age, an elector and resident of the district from which elected and shall have resided in the state for a period of two years prior to election.”
The language also says residency requirements must be met “upon election,” which has been taken to mean as either when election results are certified or when a candidate was physically sworn into office.
“The courts have determined that somebody needs to reside in their district at the time of election as opposed to the time of qualifying,” Diaz said. “This would clarify the intent of the Constitution.”
Dump Truck Driver Injured In Cantonment Crash
November 29, 2017
The driver of a dump truck was transported by Escambia County EMS to an area hospital following a single vehicle crash about 4:20 p.m. Tuesday. The accident occurred in the 1400 block of Highway 297A, just north of East Kingsfield Road. The truck was hauling a load of rocks. The accident remains under investigation by the Florida Highway Patrol. NorthEscambia.com photo by Kristi Barbour, click to enlarge.
Local Teen Won’t Be Charged For Killing Stepfather
November 29, 2017
The State Attorney’s Office has ruled a local teenager acted in self-defense and won’t be charged in the fatal shooting of his stepfather.
According to a newly released State Attorney’s Office report:
The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office responded to the Circle K on Pine Forest Road about 1 a.m. on Saturday, October 21. Milledge Gordon was located in the backseat of his vehicle with a single gunshot wound to the back. He was pronounced deceased at the scene. Deputies located a handgun on the trunk of the vehicle.
Gordon’s wife and four teenage sons, ranging in age from 13 to 17, were on the scene and were transported to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office for questioning.
The family had gone to the Pensacola Interstate Fair prior to the incident. Gordon consumed a large amount of alcohol at the fair and had an argument with his wife prior to leaving. Gordon wanted to drive but his wife did not want him to because of his level of inebriation. She eventually gave in, and Gordon drove from the fair with his wife in the passenger seat and the four boys in the backseat.
Gordon was driving at an extreme rate of speed and swerving in and out of traffic as his passengers screamed at him to pull the vehicle over. He eventually pulled into the parking lot of the Circle K, which was closed at the time. He then began to attack his wife as his 17-year old stepson reached over the seat to stop the attack. Gordon exited the vehicle, got into the backseat as the boys attempted to escape from the other side of the car. Gordon was able to grab the 17-year old and get on top of him in the backseat and begin punching and choking the teen.
The 16-year old got out of the backseat and popped the trunk, which he knew contained his mother’s purse and a firearm. He retrieved the firearm and pointed it at his stepfather.
Gordon outweighed his stepson by approximately 80 pounds and was laying on top of the boy choking him. The 16-year old shouted at Gordon to get off of his brother but was ignored. He warned his stepfather a second time but Gordon continued to attack the old teen.
The 16-year old then fired a single shot, striking Gordon in the upper back. The boys attempted to render aid to Gordon and 911 was called. The wife and her four sons remained at the scene and gave voluntary statements to law enforcement.
At the time the teen fired the single shot, his brother was in danger of death or great bodily harm due to being choked by Gordon, according to the State Attorney’s Office. He reasonably believed that the single gunshot was necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to his brother.
Company Says No Starbucks For Molino; Another Restaurant With New Gas Station
November 29, 2017
The company planning a new convenience store in Molino says it won’t actually include a Starbucks, but rather another fast food franchise.
NorthEscambia.com published a story Tuesday that stated “the new convenience store/gas station will be constructed ‘with a Starbucks attached to the side’,” as taken directly and accurately from documents submitted to Escambia County by Milam & Co. Construction on behalf of Diamond Oil in Atmore. [Click here to read the entire document, or see excerpt below.]
But Roy White, president of Diamond Oil in Atmore, said Tuesday night that the “Starbucks” reference was a typographical or clerical error in the document. Instead, White said the store will include a franchise food outlet, but he can not name the company until agreements are complete.
“That was an error in the letter,” White said. “We will have a restaurant, but I can tell you it definitely will not be a Starbucks.”
The new convenience store — and the yet to be named restaurant — will be located on 8.22 acres at the northwest corner of the intersection, across Highway 97 and north of the current Tom Thumb store. It is planned to have two fueling station canopies — one for regular gasoline and the second for diesel and commercial vehicle operations.
The Escambia County Development Review Committee will hold a pre-application meeeting on store plans this Thursday afternoon. Before construction could begin,the plans must go through several more steps in the county approval process. At the pre-application stage, there is no assurance that plans will ever reach the construction stage or that the facility will have the currently outlined layout.
NorthEscambia.com graphic.
Thursday Is Final Day For Property Tax Discount
November 29, 2017
Thursday, November 30 is the last day to receive a four percent discount on real estate and tangible personal property taxes, according to Escambia County Tax Collector Scott Lunsford.
Payments will receive the four percent discount if:
· mailed with a November postmark;
· left by midnight, November 30, in a 24-hour drop box available at all locations; or
· made online by midnight, November 30, at EscambiaTaxCollector.com.
Taxpayers are encouraged to pay online; however, other options are available such as mail, phone and in person at any of our four convenient tax collector offices.
To check the status of your taxes and pay online, visit www.escambiataxcollector.com. For more information, call the tax collector’s office at (850) 438-6500, ext. 3252.
Tate High Hosting Souper Bowl And Student Gallery Night
November 29, 2017
The Tate High School Art Department is hosting their third annual “Souper Bowl” this Friday from 5-7 p.m. in the Art building, in conjunction with Student Gallery Night.
Students have been working hard on handmade ceramic bowls and other arts and crafts to sell at this event. All the proceeds will go towards Tate’s ceramics program, with a portion of the profits going to benefit Sean’s Outpost, a local homeless outreach.
Student artists will also be selling a variety of artwork including photography, paintings, jewelry and more. Organizers said this is a great opportunity to get some unique holiday gifts. In addition, the first 25 people who bring a non-perishable food item or a pair of new socks to donate to Sean’s Outpost will also receive a free ceramic ornament.
“We find ourselves working harder each year to raise funds to pay for our materials — clay, glaze, tools and equipment. Aggie Artists accomplish a lot on a limited budget,” said Tate teacher Jennifer Rodriguez. “With a little more we could give our students more experiences, update ancient equipment and create bigger pieces of art with higher quality materials. By supporting our Souper Bowl you will contribute to students sculpting their ideas into clay, throwing bowls on the potter’s wheel and more, as well as helping our area homeless.”
During the event, there will be music, art, food and fun for all ages. The cost is $10 to purchase a handmade bowl plus food and drink, or $5 to purchase just food and drink. For more information, contact Jennifer Rodriguez a (850) 937-2300 ext. 601 or email jrodriguez1@escambia.k12.fl.us.
Molino Library Names Turkey Coloring Contest Winners
November 29, 2017
The Molino Branch Library held a Thanksgiving turkey coloring contest, with prizes awarded to the top art in each age category. Picture above (L-R), with the artwork below in the same order, are contest winners (Name not submitted), age 12; Camden, age 8; Megan, age 5; and Georgia, age 3. Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
