Molino Fire Dept. To Hold Open House This Saturday
June 16, 2015
The Molino Volunteer Fire Department will host their second annual open house from 4-8 p.m. Saturday.
The event will feature free food, drinks and festivities, special guest appearances, vendors, fire station tours and more. There will be a demonstration event at 6 p.m. Admission is free, but donations will be accepted for food plates.
For vendor information, call (850) 587-2661 or click here for the department’s Facebook page.
The Molino Hotshots will hold a car wash at the fire station Saturday morning.
The Molino Volunteer Fire Department is actively seeking volunteers for emergency and non-emergency operations. Applications are accepted from persons age 16 and older. The Molino Fire Station is part of Escambia Fire Rescue and provides emergency services to the Molino community.
Positions needed include clerical assistance, medical first responders, apparatus operators and firefighters. Free training is provided and includes junior firefighters 16 to 18 who can earn valuable credit for Bright Futures Scholarships through volunteer service and training.
Pictured: A live burn demonstration during last year’s open house at the Molino Volunteer Fire Department. NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.
Jeb Bush Bursts Onto Campaign Stage
June 16, 2015
Hoping to expand the White House dynasty established by his father and brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush formally launched his presidential bid on Monday with a fiery pledge to “run with heart” and a pumped-up promise of “keeping my word, facing the issues without flinching, and staying true to what I believe.”
Bush — flanked by his three children; wife, Columba; and mother, Barbara — made the announcement to hundreds of supporters, including members of the Florida Cabinet, crowded into the Miami-Dade College campus in Bush’s one-time hometown of Kendall.
Monday’s much-ballyhooed event ended months of speculation about Bush’s entrance into what is expected to be a crowded Republican primary field, something he noted in his half-hour remarks interrupted frequently by applause and cheers of “We love Jeb!”
“…Not a one of us deserves the job by right of resume, party, seniority, family, or family narrative. It’s nobody’s turn. It’s everybody’s test, and it’s wide open — exactly as a contest for president should be,” Bush said.
Bush, who just returned from a week-long trip to Europe where he met with high-level officials, laid out some of his campaign themes, touching on foreign affairs, economic growth and education, while touting his eight-year record as Florida governor ending in 2007.
“We will take Washington — the static capital of this dynamic country — out of the business of causing problems,” Bush promised. “We will get back on the side of free enterprise and free people. I know we can fix this. Because I’ve done it.”
Bush pledged to increase the country’s economic growth rate to 4 percent and to make the nation “energy secure” within five years.
The trimmed-down Bush — he told reporters this year that he was on the low-carbohydrate “paleo” diet — also jabbed his Republican primary opponents, including a veiled reference to U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Bush protégé who has emerged as one of the top GOP contenders in the 2016 presidential race.
Calling himself a “reforming governor,” Bush noted that, as the state’s chief executive, “there’s no passing off responsibility … no blending into the legislative crowd or filing an amendment and calling that success.”
Bush — who revived his iconic “Jeb!” logo for his 2016 campaign — said there’s no substitute for experience,
“We are not going to clean up the mess in Washington by electing the people who either helped create it or have proven incapable of fixing it,” he said.
Hours before Bush delivered his remarks, Rubio welcomed Bush to the race with two posts on Twitter and a statement posted on Rubio’s campaign website.
“In politics, people throw around the word ‘friend’ so much it often has little real meaning. When I call @JebBush my friend, I mean it,” Rubio tweeted Monday morning. “My friend @JebBush is a passionate advocate for what he believes, and I welcome him to the race.”
Bush has assembled a campaign machine headed by long-time adviser, Sally Bradshaw. Mike Murphy will direct the Bush-backing “Right to Rise” political committee. The former governor and the committee reportedly amassed tens of millions of dollars in what will be an expensive battle.
As evidenced by the presence of the three Republican Florida Cabinet members — Attorney General Pam Bondi, Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam and Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater — as well as three former Republican Party of Florida chairmen at Monday’s event, Bush has been viewed by some as the “establishment” candidate. That label may be a burden in an era when tea party Republicans, including Florida’s Gov. Rick Scott, have emerged victorious in contentious primary elections.
“His biggest challenge is he represents more of the same in a GOP that over the past few years has been looking for less of the same,” said Democratic consultant Steve Schale, who led President Barack Obama’s Florida campaign in 2008.
And, while some have branded Bush as too moderate to appeal to a divided Republican party, he, along with his supporters, point to his record in Florida as proof of his conservative bent.
After taking office in 1999, Bush did away with minority preferences in government hiring and university admissions, shrank the number of state workers and — heading the state during an economic boom — repeatedly cut taxes. He also pushed an education voucher system that allowed children in failing schools to use public dollars to pay for private schools. The Florida Supreme Court later ruled that the program was unconstitutional.
Bush’s other high-profile voucher program — one that gives tax credits to businesses that subsidize private school educations for low-income children — is the subject of another lawsuit.
Bush also alienated Democrats during his Tallahassee tenure with his stands on social issues. Bush backed restrictions on abortions and signed the nation’s first “stand your ground” law. And he was embroiled in controversy over his attempt to keep Terri Schiavo, who was in a vegetative state and fed through a tube, alive.
Bush’s legacy in Florida, however, remains the education reforms that have of late developed into a flashpoint for conservative critics. Bush pioneered a school accountability system that included more testing of students and imposed a grading system on schools based on student performance.
Bush, who after leaving office created an educational foundation, at one point supported the nationwide “Common Core” education standards but has since insisted that the states should be responsible for setting the measures.
“When a school is just another dead end, every parent should have the right to send their child to a better school — public, private or charter,” he said Monday. “Every school should have high standards, and the federal government should have nothing to do with setting them. Nationwide, if I am president, we will take the power of choice away from the unions and the bureaucrats and give it back to parents.”
The bilingual Bush, who met his wife in Mexico, departed briefly from his prepared remarks on Monday after being heckled by a group of people whose lime-green shirts spelled out “Legal status is not enough.”
“Just so my friends know, the next president will pass meaningful immigration reform so that that will be solved, not by executive order,” he ad libbed, referring to an Obama executive order aimed at preventing about 5 million undocumented immigrants from being deported.
Those who know the wonkish Bush well say that his greatest strengths could also be his greatest liabilities, and they aren’t referring to his last name.
Bush is the kind of leader who “knocked the water out of the bathtub” and is unrelenting, said GOP strategist J.M. “Mac” Stipanovich, who first met Bush 30 years ago and has been a close adviser for two decades.
Bush’s three “most salient characteristics are his name, his intelligence and his genuine love for policy,” Stipanovich said.
“And if he’s not going to be elected president it will be because he didn’t say and do the things that he needed to do to win the primary. He’s going to increase his risk in the primary to lower risk in the general election. And the reason he’s going to do that is because that’s who he is,” he said.
But others painted Bush’s steadfastness in a less amiable tone.
“… What makes the specter of a Jeb Bush presidency even more unpalatable is his belief in his own superiority and infallibility — in my 22 years in elected office I have never worked with someone who is as inflexible, uncompromising, and willing to do whatever it takes to get their way as Jeb Bush,” U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee who served in the Florida Legislature during Bush’s tenure as governor, said in a statement. “These are not the qualities Americans need in their president if we are going to work together to get things done.”
Bush earned a reputation among reporters for being thin-skinned and having a temper that flares quickly. And, unlike many other politicians, Bush rarely if ever stuck to talking points when speaking publicly.
“He isn’t afraid to mix it up, isn’t afraid to be bold,” Schale said. “His frankness at times can get him in trouble.”
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Pensacola Blue Wahoos Beat The Montgomery Biscuits
June 16, 2015
Right-handed pitcher Daniel Wright allowed two runs in the seventh inning to lead the Pensacola Blue Wahoos to victory over the Montgomery Biscuits at Riverwalk Stadium.
Pensacola snapped a four-game losing streak thanks to six scoreless innings by Wright, as the Blue Wahoos won, 4-2, over the Biscuits.
Wright, who improved to 3-4 on the year with a 5.46 ERA, bounced back from giving up four earned runs in 5.2 innings in his last start against the Jacksonville Suns. Against Montgomery on Monday, Wright allowed just four hits, walked none and struck out four.
Wright was backed up by the Pensacola lineup that scored four runs on 11 hits. The Blue Wahoos scored three in the second inning when catcher Cam Maron hit his first home run for Pensacola to right field that also scored DH Sean Buckley for a 2-0 lead. Left fielder Jesse Winker then hit a sacrifice fly to right field to score second baseman Ryan Wright from third and put Pensacola ahead, 3-0.
It added another run in the eighth inning, when Buckley crossed the plate on a ground out by shortstop Zach Vincej.
Montgomery got its two runs when catcher Justin O’Conner, the Tampa Bay Rays No. 1 prospect according to MLB, doubled in left fielder Joey Rickard to cut the lead to 3-1. O’Conner then scored on a sacrifice fly by right fielder Johnny Field to pull the Biscuits within, 3-2.
Maron extended his hitting streak to five games and raised his average to .224 with his dinger. He went 5-12 or .416 in the series against the Biscuits with one homer and four RBIs.
Pensacola improved to 24-39 in the Southern League South Division and has the day off tomorrow before opening a five-game homestand against the Mobile BayBears. Meanwhile, Montgomery dropped to 33-31 in the North Division.
Pensacola first baseman Ray Chang went 2-5 and is hitting .375 in June. Meanwhile, Marquez Smith is even hitting hotter in the month with a .405 average, including two homeruns and six RBIs. His average is now .277 on the season.
The Blue Wahoos return home to play the Mobile BayBears June 17-21.
Inmate Charged With Stabbing Guard At Atmore’s Fountain Prison
June 15, 2015
An inmate at the Fountain Correctional Facility in Atmore has been charged with stabbing a male correctional officer over the weekend. The officer was stabbed during a routine check of a housing unit inside the facility at approximately 8:50 a.m. on Saturday.
The officer was transported to an offsite medical facility where he was treated and released the same day.
Larry Jones, 44, was charged with the stabbing. Jones is serving a 100-year sentence on a 1991 conviction in Montgomery County for first degree robbery, kidnapping, rape and sodomy.
The stabbing occurred after the correctional officer had confiscated a contraband cell phone from another inmate earlier in the morning. It is believed that Jones assaulted the officer in retaliation by stabbing him multiple times with a makeshift knife.
Jones was removed from general population and detained in the facility’s segregation unit without further incident.
ADOC’s Investigations and Intelligence Division is investigating the assault.
Alabama Death Row Inmate Found Dead In His Cell
June 15, 2015
Alabama death row inmate John Milton Hardy, 43, was found dead in his cell at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore on Monday.
A corrections officer found Hardy unresponsive in his cell during an early morning security check. Medical officials responded, but were unable to revive Hardy. A corrections doctor pronounced him dead at 3:23 a.m.
Hardy and Ulysses Charles Sneed, 45, were both sentenced to death for the 1993 murder of Clarence Nugene Terry. Hardy and Sneed were convicted of killing Terry by shooting him multiple times during the armed robbery of a convenience store in Decatur where Terry was employed as a clerk.
Hardy’s body was turned over to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for an autopsy. The cause of death remains under investigation.
Billings Murder Getaway Driver Gonzalez, Sr. Dies In Prison
June 15, 2015
Inmate Leonard Patrick Gonzalez, Sr. has died in a Florida prison. He was was convicted in the murders of Byrd and Melanie Billings and then sentenced to 17½ years. He was set to serve the remainder of his sentence after an early release for health issues was denied.
In March, the Florida Department of Corrections said Gonzalez, Sr. had a terminal illness and had less than one year to live. He was in a wheelchair and needed assistance to complete ordinary daily activities.
In total, eight people were convicted for planning and participating in the Beulah murders, including Gonzalez, Sr.’s son Leonard Patrick Gonzalez, Jr. An Escambia County Jury convicted Gonzalez, Jr. to two counts of first degree murder and one count of home invasion robbery with a firearm. Gonzalez, Jr. received two death penalties and a life sentence and remains on Florida’s death row.
The special needs children that were at home during the July 9, 2009, murder of their adoptive parents have been adopted by the Billings’ older daughter Ashley Markham.
House, Senate Reach Agreement On Environmental Budget
June 15, 2015
Lawmakers agreed on hundreds of millions of dollars in environmental spending during a meeting Sunday night, but disappointed supporters of a land and water conservation amendment overwhelmingly approved by voters last fall.
The deal struck by Senate Appropriations Chairman Tom Lee, R-Brandon, and House Appropriations Chairman Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’ Lakes, was announced after a 34-hour break in public budget negotiations between the two sides. The Legislature is working to resolve its budget differences by the scheduled Saturday end of a special session — 10 days before Florida has to have a spending plan in place to avoid a government shutdown.
In all, the deal sets aside $81.8 million for Everglades restoration, $55 million to buy land and $47.5 million in funding for restoration of the state’s natural springs. The Senate helped to constrain those numbers by pushing back on House attempts to bond some of the money, which would have allowed the state to spend roughly $10 for every dollar used for bonding.
“Without bonding, we weren’t really able to do anything too robust in any particular area,” Lee told reporters after the meeting.
The largest share of the land-buying money, $20 million, will go toward improvements to the Kissimmee River, while another $17.4 million will go to the state’s Florida Forever land acquisition program. The state will also spend $15 million on protection easements and agreements on private land.
In a new item that emerged Sunday evening, lawmakers also agreed to use $2 million for a project on Howell Creek in Central Florida. That watershed is in the district of Senate Rules Chairman David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs.
“We have a lot of fine leaders along the I-4 corridor in Florida right now,” Lee noted wryly.
The agreement to spend $55 million on land buys came months after 75 percent of voters approved a constitutional amendment devoting a specific share of real-estate taxes to water and land projects. The amendment freed up roughly a quarter of a billion dollars for that purpose, but lawmakers have taken an expansive view of what falls under Amendment 1.
Eric Draper, executive director of Audubon Florida, said Sunday night that lawmakers were “out of touch” with voters who approved the amendment.
“This is the do-nothing legislature for the environment,” he said.
Draper said lawmakers should have spent $100 million to $150 million on land buys alone to comply with the amendment. He didn’t rule out the possibility of a lawsuit arguing that lawmakers weren’t following the Constitution.
“I think there are reasons to think that that’s in the realm of the possible,” Draper said. He noted that there are “probably 4 million angry Floridians right now.”
Lee wouldn’t predict what might happen if the Legislature was sued.
“I’m not a lawyer, but in this world we live in today, I am confident of one thing and one thing only, and that is that there will be litigation,” Lee said.
The only major aspect of the budget yet to be agreed on is the spending plan for public education. That portion of the budget has been tied up in related policy disputes, but Lee said the House and Senate are close to resolution.
“I think we’re there in terms of trying to understand the framework of how to bring that in for a landing, but it has taken awhile,” he said.
Budget negotiators hope to complete their work by Tuesday, which would clear the way for the required 72-hour “cooling off” period to begin early enough for a Friday vote.
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Lane Widening, Shoulder Paving Planned For Numerous North Escambia Roads
June 15, 2015
A five-year rural transportation improvement plan, including numerous shoulder widening projects in the North Escambia area, has been presented to the Escambia County Commission.
Mary Beth Washnock of the West Florida Regional Planning Council presented the report on transportation projects in the rural part of Escambia County. The projects are expected to take place in the fiscal year 2014-2018 time period.
Priority projects for 2015 include (some projects may already be underway or complete):
- Lane Widening and Paved Shoulders
- Highway 4A from Highway 4A/State Line Rd to Highway 168
- Highway 182 Molino Rd from Highway 29 to Highway 95A
- Highway 4 from Highway 97 to Highway 99
- Pine Barren Rd from Bogia Rd to Highway 164
- Highway 196 Barrineau Park Rd from Highway 29 to Highway 95A
- Pine Barren Rd from Highway 164 to Highway 4
- Highway 99 from Highway 97 to Highway 4
- Highway 164 from Highway 99 to US 29
- Highway 4A from Highway 29 to Highway 4A
- Highway 4 from Highway 99 to Highway 29
- Highway 4A from Highway 168 to Highway 4
- Highway 97A from Highway 99 west to Highway 97A
- Highway 97A from Highway 97A north to Highway 99A
- Highway 99A from Highway 97 to Highway 97A
- Highway 168 from Highway 99 to Highway 4A
- Highway 99 from Highway 97A to Highway 97
- Paving
- Pineville Road from Highway 97A to Brushy Creek
- Pineville Road from Brushy Creek to Highway 99A
- Pineville Road from Highway 99A to Jakes Road
- Occie Phillips Road from Highway 97A to Brushy Creek
- Multi-Use Trail
- Highway 95A from MPA Boundary to Highway 29
- Park And Ride Lots
- Highway 97 North of Highway 4 (Davisville Comm. Center)
- Highway 29 at Omega Road (ECSO Substation)
Citizens Ready For Hurricane Season
June 15, 2015
Citizens Property Insurance just closed on a $1 billion bond transfer, which the state-backed insurer said Friday completes its financial preparations for the 2015 hurricane season.
“Like our counterparts in the private sector, Citizens continues to strengthen its financial position and ability to serve its customers,” Citizens Chairman Chris Gardner said in a prepared statement. “Florida has been lucky to have had nearly a decade of no storms and we have worked hard to take advantage of that good fortune. Citizens is ready.”
The transaction provides readily available cash for Citizens to cover claims immediately following a catastrophic storm.
Citizens, which has shed about 1 million policies into the private market during the past four years, has benefited from favorable global pricing on reinsurance — insurance for insurers — and a private insurance market that has grown while Florida has avoided being hit by a hurricane since 2005. Citizens enters the six-month Atlantic storm season with a $7.5 billion surplus, the highest in its history, and $3.9 billion in reinsurance coverage.
Hurricane season began last week.
Barrineau Park Historical Society Awards Scholarships
June 15, 2015
The Barrineau Park Historical Society recently awarded scholarships to three deserving members of the Class 0f 2015 during an event at the Barrineau Park Community Center.
Cara Thompson, a Northview High School School graduate, received a $500 Lynda C. Minchew Memorial Scholarship. Thompson plans to major in English and wants to become a writer.
Josey Venable, a West Florida High School graduate, received a $1,000 Barrineau Park Historical Society Scholarship. Venable plans to be come a registered nurse.
Tamara Wise, a West Florida High School graduate, received a $1,000 Steven Jogan Memorial Scholarship from the Barrineau Park Historical Society. Wise plans to pursue a career in nursing.
Graduating seniors who attend Tate or Northview high schools, or reside in those districts, were eligible to apply for these scholarships with a 3.0 average or higher. The applicants were also required to write an essay explaining why a historical society is important to a community.
Pictured: Barrineau Park Historical Society scholarship recipients (L-R) Cara Thompson, Josey Venable and Tamara Wise. Submitted photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.