Molino Park Presents ‘Alphabet Adventures of Sometimes Y’
April 17, 2015
The first grade classes at Molino Park Elementary School presented “The Alphabet Adventures of Sometimes Y” Thursday night at the school. NorthEscambia.com photos by Kristi Price, click to enlarge.
Tate Aggies Wrap Regular Season At 21-4 With Milton Win
April 17, 2015
The Tate High School Aggies beat Milton Thursday night 3-1 to end the regular season with at 21-4.
For Tate, Jared Hatch picked up his first varsity win.. Branden Fryman was 1-3, RBI; Mark Miller 1-2, RBI; Jacob Saulnier 1-3; AJ Gordon 1-3, run; Earl Justice 1-1, run; Sawyer Smith 2-2, run.
The district tournament is up next for the Aggies next week.
Four In A Row: Jay Lady Royals Win 12-Inning District Championship Battle
April 17, 2015
The Jay Lady Royals won their fourth District 3-1A championship in a row Thursday night 7-6 in a hard fought 12-inning battle over the Chipley Tigers.
Hitting for Jay were: Kolby Bray 3-5, R; Emily Dobson 3-6, R, 2 RBIs, 2B; Avery Jackson 2-6, RBI, 2B; Destiny Herring 2-5, R; Samantha Steadham 2-6, R, RBI.
The Lady Royals advance to the Region 1-1A playoffs on April 28.
Pictured: The Jay Lady Royals won their fourth District 3-1A championship in a row Thursday night. Photo by Diann Tagert for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Defending State Champ West Florida Drops Close District Final Game
April 17, 2015
The defending 4A state champion West Florida Lady Jaguars lost to the Walton Braves 2-1 in the District 1-4A championship game Thursday.
The Lady Jags took a 1-0 lead, but gave up two unearned runs in the third inning. Farrah Nicholas pitched six for West Florida, striking out two. Emily Loring and Kayla Miller were both 1-3.
As district runner-ups, the Lady Jaguars are still in the playoffs. They will travel to Tallahassee next Thursday to play 2-4A champion Florida High School.
Pictured: West Florida drops District 1-4A championship game to Walton Thursday. Photos by Gary Carnley for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Escambia Academy Wins Boys Track State Championship
April 17, 2015
The Escambia Academy boys track team won the 3A AISA State Championship held in Selma, AL. Escambia Academy is located in Canoe, AL, just outside Atmore. NorthEscambia.com photo by Ditto Gorme, click to enlarge.
Smokies Win Their Season Opener Against Blue Wahoos
April 17, 2015
Marquez Smith hit a pinch-hit, two-out double in the top of the ninth inning Thursday against the Tennessee Smokies.
Pensacola Blue Wahoos Juan Perez then was put in to pinch run for Smith and advanced on a wild pitch. Beau Amaral walked and Pensacola had the tying and winning runs on first and third base. However, Zach Vincej struck out to end the game at Smokies Stadium.
Tennessee held on to win its season opener, 5-4, when it scored three runs in the fourth. Stephen Bruno scored the decisive run on a fielders choice to first by Pin-Chieh Chen, which put the Smokies ahead, 5-2.
Both teams will make up Wednesday’s rain out with a doubleheader that begins at 5:30 p.m. ET Friday. Both games are scheduled to last seven innings tomorrow.
Yovan Gonzalez doubled in Seth Mejias-Brean and Ryan Wright in the seventh inning to pull Pensacola within one run, 5-4.
Making his Blue Wahoos debut Marcus Walden lasted three innings, giving up all five runs to Tennessee on seven hits and three walks. He struck out two.
Leading the Wahoos lineup were outfielder Jesse Winker who went 2-4 with an RBI; Gonzalez, who went 2-4 with a double and 2 RBIs; first baseman Kyle Waldrop, who was 1-3 and walked; and Beau Amaral, who scored a run and was 1-4.
Battle Over Future Of Escambia Fire Services Heats Up
April 16, 2015
There’s a battle of sorts heating up over the future of fire services in Escambia County. Will fire stations be staffed by volunteers? Paid firefighters? Both? Will fire taxes be raised for some, or all? Will fire fighters respond at all to an emergency at your home?
Good Friday morning, there were two house fires in the area served by the Ferry Pass Volunteer Fire Station, but no truck from Ferry Pass ever rolled to either fire due to a lack of volunteers at the time. Escambia County Administrator Jack Brown placed 24/7 paid fire crews at the station to “assist” the volunteers to ensure proper coverage for the district that includes ares such as North Davis Highway, University Parkway and eastern Nine Mile Road. The firefighters are being paid with funds already available in the county’s fire services budget this year.
In over half of the county’s 23 fire districts, volunteers are the first to answer the call for help.
A “manpower summary” report provided to NorthEscambia.com last week by Escambia County show nothing less than a dismal, even a frightening, response level by volunteer fire stations.
(article continues below report, click to enlarge)
That report shows volunteer firefighter stations did not respond at to one-third of all calls and missed 45 percent of critical incidents where life or property were threatened. Wednesday, the Escambia County Professional Firefighters Local union posted the summary information above online, and relayed it in a Twitter message to several media outlets. But now that report has come under fire as being inaccurate in regards to North Escambia stations.
Using the report as ammunition, the union is calling for paid staffing at more of the county’s fire stations, and they will push the Escambia County Commission for a $50 increase in the MSBU (municipal services benefit unit) to fund the firefighters.
“It’s a small price to pay,” Nick Gradia, union president said Wednesday. “It would increase the $85 now paid by each resident up to $135, but that’s less than many areas.” Gradia and union envision the county’s volunteer firefighters continuing their service, working alongside the paid firefighters for an even better response to emergencies.
“This is not about getting rid of the volunteers. This is about making sure there is a guaranteed response from the fire station when a resident makes a call for help,” Gradia said.
In North Escambia — specifically the Beulah, Century, McDavid, Walnut Hill and Molino fire stations — the numbers provided last week (above) show a poor response by volunteers, including a 47 percent “understaffed” response to critical emergencies by the Walnut Hill Fire Station.
According to Escambia Fire Chief Pat Grace, the “understaffed” response computations were based on any response where a fire apparatus did not roll out of a station with at least three firefighters on board.
As NorthEscambia.com investigated the county report, we found apparent errors as the numbers relate to the rural North Escambia departments. For instance, apparatus used in the north-end include brush trucks and, in Walnut Hill, a medical squad — all of which have only two seats and can never respond with three firefighters. At fire stations in the north end of the county, one firefighter may respond from the station in a fire engine, while three or more of certified firefighters may respond directly to the incident scene in their private vehicles, but that would have been included in the report as an inadequate response, according to county officials.
In a letter dated Wednesday to each of the Escambia County Commissioners, union secretary Dimitri Jansen said the report data (above) provided to commissioners “could be construed as incorrect”, specifically among the North Escambia stations. Other inaccurately reported data could show a non or inadequate response when a specific apparatus is dispatched but instead response was in a different vehicle, or, in the case of Walnut Hill, Century and Molino, the response came from the district’s substation, the letter states.
Jansen’s letter admits that the problem with insufficient responses is an issue with departments in the south-end of the county, not among the northern, more rural departments.
“Overall the responses for North Escambia have been very successful and should be considered a model for any fire district within Escambia County,” Jansen wrote to commissioners. “It has never been our intention to inflate or deflate the data we provided to you in order to further any agenda. It is both for the citizens of Escambia County as well as that of Escambia County Fire Rescue best interest to provide you and the public with an accurate analysis of the large gap in fire protection.”
Gradia said it had been brought to his attention that data for north-end stations might not be completely accurate due to reporting criteria and different response methodology, but a volunteer response problem still exists in North Escambia, despite better responses than south end stations.
“We are not as concerned about the north end where they are doing a much better job,” Gradia said.
With the $50 fire tax increase, he said the union would like to see an additional 24/7 advanced life support fire crew stationed in North Escambia, likely in Molino or McDavid, to supplement the volunteer response, along with a 24/7 paid crew already in place in Cantonment and a daytime paid crew already in Century.
But Escambia County Public Safety Director Mike Weaver disagrees.
“I see nothing in the near future, the next 5-7 years at least, that shows any additional paid crews are needed north of Nine Mile Road,” Weaver said. He said the county “manpower” report being circulated was inaccurate for the North Escambia volunteer fire stations.
An internal Escambia County public safety report obtained Wednesday by NorthEscambia.com paints an entirely different picture for several fire stations than the report circulated by the firefighter’s union.
(article continues below report, click to enlarge)
The report details response from all fire stations in the county during fiscal year 2014. The report was generated after each and every questionable response was analyzed in the county’s fire services software, eliminating almost all inaccurate data for each station.
“This report more accurately reflects the true picture of department responses,” Weaver said. Rather than showing 47 percent inadequate response by the Walnut Hill Fire Station, for instance, the newly researched report (above) shows Walnut Hill missed zero percent of calls.
“We should be looking at the northern stations, particularly Walnut Hill and McDavid, and see what they are doing right,” he said. “Some of these stations are a perfect model of how the volunteer system can work”.
Weaver said paid-only crews would never work in northern stations. For instance, if a paid crew placed in Walnut Hill responded to a structure fire in the Molino district, it would leave 200 square miles in the Walnut Hill district without any response. “You are always going to have to rely on volunteers at some of these stations.”
But one thing is clear on both reports — volunteer non-response at several south-end stations is a problem, and the volunteer only model is simply not working at those stations.
“It’s just absolute garbage that the union is trying to push out the volunteers,” Gradia said. “Nothing could be further than the truth. Volunteer and paid can work together and compliment each other in a fire station.”
In addition to Ferry Pass, the union is currently pressing for the fire tax increase to fund career crews to higher volume stations in Bellview, Myrtle Grove, Innerarity Point and West Pensacola.
“We know that changes are necessary,” Escambia County Administrator Jack Brown said. “The north end is doing fine, but we must do something to provide adequate protection to the citizens of the south end. We need stations in the south where paid firefighters and volunteers are working together.”
Escambia County Commission Chairman Steven Barry said the commission will begin to hammer out the fire services issues at a workshop meeting on April 23.
Pictured: Volunteer firefighters battle a full-involved house fire on Highway 97 in Davisville last November. NorthEscambia.com file photos, click to enlarge.
Evers’ School Gun Bill Likely Dead
April 16, 2015
A Senate bill that would allow school superintendents to tap employees or volunteers to carry concealed weapons on school property was effectively killed by a committee Wednesday, meaning that two high-profile proposals blending firearms and education could fail during the legislative session.
The Senate Education PreK-12 Committee agreed to temporarily postpone — a procedural move similar to tabling — the “school safety” bill (SB 180). Because the committee is not scheduled to meet again, the legislation is bottled up and can’t go before the full Senate. It also can’t be added to another bill on the Senate floor.
The bill was postponed as a courtesy to Sen. Greg Evers, the Baker Republican who sponsored the measure, according to Education PreK-12 Chairman John Legg, R-Lutz. It would have failed if the panel voted on it, Legg said.
“It did not have the votes in this committee,” he said.
Technically, the language could still end up before the Senate. House lawmakers could attach the proposal to another bill, then send it over to the Senate. The upper chamber would then be free to vote on that legislation — but Legg said he thought that move was unlikely.
“If it was (amended) onto something, it would put that bill in severe jeopardy,” he said.
The House companion (HB 19) to Evers’ bill has cleared all of its committees but is also essentially dead as a stand-alone bill without its Senate counterpart.
Bills that would lead to guns at schools have traditionally faced an uphill challenge in the Senate, which is more moderate on such issues than the House. With supporters saying it would improve school safety, the Evers bill called for allowing trained volunteers or employees to be able to carry guns. Those people would need to have backgrounds in the military or law enforcement.
Another controversial measure that would allow people with concealed-weapons licenses to carry guns on the campuses of Florida colleges and universities (SB 176) also has been bottled up in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“I’ve polled the members of the Senate, and there doesn’t seem to be too much support for that bill,” committee Chairman Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, said last week.
Evers represents the North Escambia area.
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Escambia Man Convicted On Child Porn Charges
April 16, 2015
A federal trial jury convicted Thomas Victor Sway, 24, of Pensacola, of receipt, attempted receipt, and possession of child pornography.
At trial, the government presented evidence that, between November 2012 and May 2013, Sway received and possessed child pornography, including videos depicting images of minors less than 12 years of age engaged in sex acts. Undercover law enforcement officers discovered and downloaded the pornographic files from a public file sharing network that could be traced to Sway’s computer.
After agents executed a search warrant at Sway’s residence, a forensic analysis of his hard drive revealed at least 140 video files containing images of child pornography. Additionally, the system file history indicated a pattern of Sway using dozens of distinct search terms to locate child pornography on the internet.
Sway faces a minimum of five years in prison and a maximum of 20 years in prison. Sentencing has been scheduled for June 30 before Chief United States Judge Casey Rodgers in Pensacola.
United States Attorney Marsh praised the work of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Pensacola Police Department, and the other agencies that are part of the Northwest Florida Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, whose joint investigation led to the charges in this case. I
Editor’s note; The “Inmate” watermark on the pictured mugshot was placed by the Santa Rosa County Jail where Sway is being held.
Tate Students Get Real World Voting Experience
April 16, 2015
Students at Tate High School got a little real world voting experience Wednesday. They voted for class officers and student council officers during lunch, using real ballots and real voting equipment provided by the Escambia County Supervisor of Elections Office.
Students cast 501 ballots, the Elections Office was able register 21 students to vote in real elections.
Absentee ballots will be available Thursday for students that missed voting on Wednesday, and the winners be announced on Friday.
Tate Juniors also cast ballots for their prom court, king and queen.
Courtesy photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
