Alexander Sworn-In As New Pensacola Police Chief; Retired Chief Headed To County Job
August 6, 2015
An installation ceremony was held Wednesday for Pensacola’s new police chief.
Escambia County Judge Patricia A. Kinsey gave David Alexander III his oath of office during the event at Sanders Beach-Corinne Jones Community Center. Alexander’s wife Alcuin pinned his badge on him after he took his oath
of office. He became the Pensacola Police Department’s first African-American chief of police when the Pensacola City Council approved his appointment on July 16.
His appointment follows the July 31 retirement of Chief Chip W. Simmons. Simmons is set to become an assistant county administrator for Escambia County.
Simmons will be responsible for overseeing community public safety relations and coordination, firefighters both paid and volunteers, jail construction and public safety coordination and employee relations. Corrections Director Michael Tidwell, Public Safety Director Mike Weaver, Facilities Management Director David Wheeler and Building Services Director Don Mayo and their departments will report to Simmons.
Pictured: An installation service for new Pensacola Police Chief David Alexander III Wednesday afternoon. Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Wahoos Beat Jacksonville
August 6, 2015
Pitching was the name of the game as the Pensacola Blue Wahoos (23-16, 48-59) took down the Jacksonville Suns (13-25, 42-66) by a score of 2-1 at Bragan Field. With tonight’s win, the Blue Wahoos clinched the series over the Suns.
Wahoos starter Cody Reed (2-0, 0.60) was dominant as he shut out the Suns through 8.0 innings while striking out a career-high 12 batters. Reed has allowed only one run through 14.0 innings with the Wahoos. His 12 strikeouts were also a season-high for a Wahoos pitcher. Zack Weiss earned the save, his 15th of the season.
Despite allowing only a pair of runs on three hits through 7.0 innings, Jacksonville starter Scott Lyman (0-7) is still looking for his first Double-A win. Lyman was dominant until the seventh inning, as he had allowed but a hit and two walks to that point.
Juan Duran and Ryan Wright, who each had a critical extra-base RBI in the seventh inning to break the scoreless tie, led the Wahoos at the plate. Bryson Smith, Alex Blandino and Jesse Winker also recorded hits for the Blue Wahoos. Winker now has a five-game hit streak and is batting .368 in the month of August.
The first run of the game came in the top of the seventh on a Duran RBI double to the left-center field gap that scored Marquez Smith from first. Wright would then bring Duran home on a triple over the head of Kenny Wilson in center.
Matt Juengel made some noise for the Suns in the bottom of the ninth with a deep homer over the left field wall. Weiss, however, responded with a pair of outs to earn the save.
The Blue Wahoos return home Friday to begin a five-game series against the Birmingham Barons.
Deputies Seek Missing, Endangered Santa Rosa County Woman
August 6, 2015
The Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office is currently looking for a 48-year old woman that is missing and considered endangered.
Lisa Jacobs Thornton was last seen by her family at about 11 p.m. on August 1. Family members she left her cell phone, purse, medications and other personal items behind when she left her Navarre home. She is believed to have left the residence in a silver BMW that was later found abandoned on the side of I-10. There were no signs of foul play.
Deputies said Thornton is in need of her medications, and it is believed she left home with a weapon.
Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to call the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office at (850) 983-1100.
Escambia School Lunch Prices Increase
August 5, 2015
Breakfast and lunch will cost a bit more for some students this year when they return to school on August 17 in Escambia County.
For elementary school students, the price for breakfast will increase to $1.25 from $1, and lunch goes up to $2.25 from $2. Prices for elementary students that qualify for reduced price meals will not change. Breakfast will remain 30 cents, while lunch will still cost 40 cents for those that qualify for reduced prices.
Adults, such as faculty, staff, volunteers and visitors, will also pay more. The price for an adult breakfast will increase from $1.80 to $2, while lunch will jump to $3.25 from $3.
The meal prices for students in middle and high school will not change. Breakfast will remain $1.50, and lunch will still be $2.50.
The changes were approved last April by the Escambia County School Board. This was the first price increase since the 2008-2009 for the Escambia County School District.
Triple Murder May Have Been Related To Witchcraft
August 5, 2015
The murders of three people on Deerfield Drive last week were ritualistic and may have been related to witchcraft, according to Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan.
“Initial research had led us to believe that there is potential it was a ritualistic killing,” Morgan said during a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
The bodies of 77-year old Voncile Smith and her sons, 49-year old Department of Homeland Security employee Richard Thomas Smith and 47-year old Walmart employee John William Smith were discovered inside her home on Deerfield Drive last Friday morning about 9:30 when deputies responded for a welfare check. The medical examiner believes they were actually killed on Tuesday, July 28.
All three were beaten with a claw hammer and their throats slit, Morgan said, and Richard Thomas was also shot in the head. Their bodies were positioned in a ritualistic fashion.
“The method of the murder — blunt force trauma, slit throats, positions of the bodies — and then our person of interest has some ties to a faith and/or religion that is indicative of that,” Morgan said. “The time of death we believe on Tuesday also coincides with what’s referred to as a blue moon, which occurs every three years.”
A blue moon is defined as the second full moon within a calendar month. Last month, a full moon occurred on July 2 and a second, or blue moon, occurred on July 31.
The investigation revealed that there were no signs of forced entry. Robbery did not appear to be a motive; a home safe containing cash was not touched.
Morgan said Escambia County Sheriff’s investigators have spoken with a person of interest, described as a white male tied to an alternative religion that practices witchcraft.
“It’s witchcraft, I’ll say that right now,” the sheriff stated. “There are different factions of that…we most assuredly do not want to defame or demean any practice.”
The investigation into the triple murder is continuing by the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Pictured: Three people were found dead inside a home Deerfield Drive Friday by the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office as they responded for a welfare check. Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Need A Birth Certificate To Get A Driver’s License Or ID Card?
August 5, 2015
The Marcus Pointe Office of Escambia County Tax Collector Janet Holley is now issuing Florida certified birth certificates to customers who are in need of the documentation to complete their driver license and identification card transactions.
Requests not related to a tax collector transaction are not accepted at this time. Birth certificates can only be issued to the registrant (the child named on the record) if of legal age (18) or the parent(s) listed on the birth record.
The applicant (self or parent) will complete an application and provide valid photo identification. Acceptable forms of identification include: driver license, identification card, passport, and/or military identification card.
Birth record purchases are non-refundable. The cost for the certified Florida birth certificate is $17.25; additional copies of the same record purchased at the same time cost $10 each. These fees are separate from any driver license or identification fees that are charged.
For more information, contact the tax collector’s office at (850) 438-6500, ext. 3252.
Century Reschedules Council Meeting, Sets Budget Public Hearings
August 5, 2015
Monday night, the Century Town Council rescheduled their first meeting on September and set a couple of special hearings as part of the processes needed to pass a 2015-16 budget.
The council’s first meeting of the month has been rescheduled from September 7, the Labor Day holiday, to September 14. It will begin with a 6:50 p.m. public hearing on the proposed budget.
The proposed budget is set for a final public hearing at 6:50 p.m. on September 21, just before the council’s regular meeting at 7 p.m.
Pine Meadow Making Space For Makerspaces
August 5, 2015
Makerspaces are coming to Escambia County Public Schools this year according to Superintendent Malcolm Thomas. This is just one part of his Vision 2020 plan that he is rolling out to administrators and teachers this week as the district prepares for the start of the 2015-2016 school year.
Makerspaces are creative, DIY spaces where people can gather to create, invent, and learn.
“Schools and education are improving, but the world is changing at a pace faster than our improvement trajectory,” Thomas told a group of administrators and teachers who attended the district’s Administrator’s Conference last Friday. “We have to be able to prepare the workforce of the future. We cannot sit and wait for the future, we must lead and prepare for the future.”
Makerspaces are one of the ways schools will be helping children of today prepare to be the life-long learners and creative leaders of our future is by going back to an old fashioned concept of letting kids explore, experiment and learn through trial and error in a safe environment. One school that is already onboard with this idea is Pine Elementary School where the school’s media specialist, Debby Dorough, found out about Makerspaces on Pinterest and decided to try it.
“I started small with Legos and tinker toys. I set up a space with materials and no directions – just build something, take a picture of your creation and then take it apart for the next person,” Dorough explained.
This summer, Dorough continued to develop this plan with special events in their library every Wednesday in July. Different groups of students met at different times throughout the day. One group was learning how to be this year’s library helpers while others were learning how to be Pine Meadow’s Techspurts (technology helpers). She also had an hour for teachers, so they could learn new technology tricks and techniques over the summer, such as how to use a green screen or how to use an Apple TV in their classrooms.
Then at 2:00 the Minecraft Club met. Once they helped each other learn the program, they agreed upon a rubric for designing a virtual school.
“They decided what to include, like classrooms, a bus ramp, a cafeteria, etc. Then they put their own spin on it, like having a lava pit in the principal’s office,” Dorough added with a laugh. “They designed on iPad minis and presented using an AppleTV which allowed everyone to see their design as they took everyone on a virtual tour.”
“I tried to make the cafeteria look like a replica of the Crusty Crab,” explained incoming fifth grader, Michael Bui to his friends. Why the Crusty Crab? “I like Sponge Bob.”
Meanwhile, Griffin Lavallee a third grader this year, explored how the marble run worked in another Makerspace. His goal was to get the marble to run a course from the top to the bottom without jumping the track. When he finally got all of the pieces to cooperate, he was able to drop a series of marbles into the top and have them end up in a reservoir piece at the bottom. He was quite triumphant and explained that he figured out that he had to “move things to make them workout and you have to figure the timing out (between the marbles) not from the top but, from where your marble got stuck.”
He presented his marble course to Mrs. Dorough and proudly told her he had named the marble run, the Spinner McWinga!
Trial and error in a safe environment. Encouragement to try something with no right answer – to instead find YOUR best answer. These ideas are just a start of what can come from time in Makerspaces.
“Escambia County school teachers will be asked this year to try this and then to share their ideas on Pinterest,” said Thomas. “Our district Fine Arts coordinator, Angela Barberi has set up iVision2020 on Pinterest for us, so everyone will have somewhere to post their ideas and photos of their examples. In addition, even I have pinned sites I hope our teachers will find inspiring.”
Another key element of Makerspaces success is “plussing.” Teachers are “plussing” when they borrow what’s good about an idea and make it better. Ideally, there is no limit to the number of times an idea can be plussed.
Creating Makerspaces in libraries, technology labs and classrooms will take thinking out-of-the-box and it will take sometime to select an idea and acquire materials needed to match that idea. All sorts of items can be used in a Makerspace. They are only limited by imagination, space and materials – so really, the sky’s the limit.
“Librarians this year will love donations of fun materials. They can be new or gently used,” added Dorough. “If your kids loved it, our kids will love it as well.”
Some suggestions are Legos, Duplos, K’nex, Imaginex and other building toys; puppets for story creation; dolls with clothes for kids interested in fashion design; magnets and art supplies. Another item schools can use are board games, dice and pieces for students to repurpose and create their own games.
Other items can help schools set up the stations, for example, oil drip pans or large cookie sheets help create a station like the marble run while large dry marker boards can be mounted or even turned into table tops. Another idea is to use flat green Lego building foundation flats and put them side by side on a board that can be safely mounted vertically, so kids can use Legos to build something that will come out from the board allowing them to work in 3D in a new way.
Those interested in helping accomplish this, can contact their favorite school or those interested in helping on a larger scale, can contact the Community Involvement Office by calling 850-469-5676, or by emailing Jo McArthur, ECSD Community Involvement Coordinator, at jmcarthur@escambia.k12.fl.us.
Pictured top: Michael Bui, 5th grader at Pine Meadow Elementary School designed his perfect school using Minecraft on an iPad mini during July meetings of Pine Meadow’s Minecraft Club. At their final meeting on July 29th, club members took turns leading club members on virtual tours of their schools on an AppleTV. The cafeteria in Hui’s school was designed to resemble Sponge Bob’s Crusty Crab. Pictured inset: Griffin Lavallee, a third grader this year at Pine Meadow Elementary School, makes adjustments to the pieces of the marble run. Pictured below: Pine Meadow Elementary School librarian and Makerspace coordinator, Debby Dorough and the Minecraft Club presenters after the virtual tours of their perfect schools designed using Minecraft and presented wirelessly over the AppleTV. Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Increased Chances Of Rain
August 5, 2015
Here is your official North Escambia area forecast:
Tonight: A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 75. Southwest wind 5 to 10 mph.
Thursday: A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 90. Southwest wind 5 to 10 mph.
Thursday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 77. Southwest wind 5 to 10 mph.
Friday: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 94. Heat index values as high as 105. West wind 5 to 10 mph.
Friday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 78. Southwest wind 5 to 10 mph.
Saturday: A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 94. West wind around 5 mph.
Saturday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low around 77. Southwest wind 5 to 10 mph.
Sunday: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly sunny and hot, with a high near 98. West wind around 5 mph becoming north in the afternoon.
Sunday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 77. South wind around 5 mph.
Monday: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly sunny, with a high near 96.
Monday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 77.
Tuesday: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 95.
Tuesday Night: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 77.
Wednesday: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 94.
Back To School Tax Holiday Begins Friday, Retailers Already Pushing For Next Year
August 5, 2015
A longer than usual back-to-school tax holiday gets underway Friday, and a lobbying arm for retailers is already making plans to sell lawmakers on keeping the extended discount period next year.
The Florida Retail Federation also is eyeing a number of other proposed sales-tax breaks that failed to win legislative support this year — breaks that would apply to the purchase of hurricane supplies, energy-saving appliances and for guns and fishing gear to use while camping.
“We’re eager to explore more options for sales-tax holidays,” Florida Retail Federation spokesman James Miller said.
Retailers see the tax holidays as moneymakers. The back-to-school holiday starts at 12:01 a.m. Friday and runs through 11:59 p.m. Aug. 16.
“We’re excited this year’s Legislature and Gov. Scott came around and saw the importance of having it 10 days,” Miller said. “I think it’s going to be important for families. Depending upon when a family may get a paycheck, this first of the month or 15th, or both, by having it from the 7th to the 16th it gives families multiple weekends.”
Since the first sales-tax holiday was offered in 1998, the discount period has only stretched to 10 days once before, in 2007.
State economists project that this year’s back-to-school holiday period, which had been offered at three days each year since 2011, will reduce state and local revenue by $67.8 million.
Retailers anticipate the discount period will bring in shoppers who may be tempted to pick up additional items while in the stores.
And while the tax-break period is based on the premise of helping families with students returning to classes, the sales are open to all shoppers with discounts ranging from simple school supplies to clothing under $100. Also, the break applies to the sales tax on the first $750 of the price of laptop computers and certain other electronics for personal use.
House Finance & Tax Chairman Matt Gaetz, who helped author a tax-cut package that included the holiday, said he’s already getting feedback from people that the 10-day tax break period gives families more time to plan for the discounts.
Lawmakers put together the wide-ranging tax cut package (HB 33A) in June during a special session on the budget.
The package also includes cuts to the communications-services tax on cell-phone and cable-TV bills and eliminates for one year sales taxes on college textbooks. The package is projected by state economists to cut revenue by $372.4 million in the fiscal year that began July 1.
The House initially proposed a $673 million package that included a small-business tax holiday two days after Thanksgiving and a one-day sales-tax holiday on July 4 for outdoor equipment including guns, spear-guns and bows, ammunition, camping tents and fishing gear.
But that package died as lawmakers ended the regular session without a budget.
Gov. Rick Scott touted the back-to-school tax break Monday while handing out school supplies in West Palm Beach during the Office Depot Foundation’s “National Backpack Program.”
Scott is expected to call for more than $500 million in tax cuts for the 2016 legislative session.
In 2014 Scott campaigned on a promise of $1 billion in tax cuts over a two-year period.
Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, said the 2016 tax-cut package will depend on state revenue projections, which lawmakers will get before the session begins in January.
“We’ll have to look at the revenue forecasts and our cost models to determine what our appetite is as a legislature for tax cuts,” Gaetz said.
He expects the back-to-school tax holiday to be on the table, along with his own proposal to establish an Independence Day discount on camping equipment.
But when calculating the cuts, Gaetz said priority is expected to be given to prior Scott proposals to make a manufacturing tax cut permanent and to reduce a commercial real-estate rent tax.
“Those will probably be near the top of the list for me,” Gaetz added.
Gaetz’s counterpart, Senate Finance and Tax Chairwoman Dorothy Hukill, who has pushed in the past to reduce the commercial rent tax, on Monday reintroduced another of Scott’ past tax-cut priorities.
Hukill, R-Port Orange, filed a bill (SB 76) that would increase the corporate income-tax exemption from $50,000 to $75,000. Increasing the exemption would reduce — or even potentially eliminate — tax bills for businesses. Hukill also proposed the change during the 2015 legislative session, but it did not pass.
by Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida