Florida House Keeps Guns, Ammo In Proposed Sales Tax Holiday
April 1, 2015
Guns and ammunition remain in a proposed Independence Day sales-tax holiday on hunting gear that is part of a wide-ranging tax cut package that advanced Tuesday in the House.
In supporting the $690 million tax-cut package (PCB FTC 15-05), the House Finance & Tax Committee rejected efforts by Democrats to remove firearms and ammo from a proposed one-day sales tax holiday for July 4. Also, it rejected a separate amendment to remove a tax exemption on admissions and membership fees for gun clubs.
The tax package, which is expected to next go to the House Appropriations Committee, awaits a Senate counter offer.
“I think we’ve got a great broad-based tax package that’s going to help millions of Floridians, all 20 million of them,” said House Finance & Tax Chairman Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach.
Rep. Jose Javier Rodriguez, D-Miami, sought to remove firearms and ammo from the Independence Day tax holiday. He said the proposal sends mixed messages, as law enforcement will be telling people at the same time not to fire guns into the air.
“It’s not an exaggeration to say that it really is a bad policy when we have law enforcement expending resources to address a public safety issue and in our tax code he have the exact opposite incentive and we’re encouraging people to purchase ammunition for the holiday,” Rodriguez said.
But Rep. Frank Artiles, R-Miami, said the proposal could help increase tourism by promoting hunting and fishing in the state.
In addition to rifles, shotguns, spearguns, crossbows, and bows, the July 4 sales-tax event would cover camping tents and fishing gear.
“While I understand my Democratic colleagues don’t like firearms and ammunition, the reality is that fish hooks also kill fish,” Artiles told Rodriguez. “But apparently fish are not important to you.”
National Rifle Association lobbyist Marion Hammer called the Fourth of July tax holiday “tremendously appropriate.”
“On Independence Day honoring our founding fathers, who used firearms and ammunition to purchase our freedom, is not only symbolic, it is a tribute to the patriots who carried firearms and ammunition against our enemies and built our new nation,” Hammer said.
The committee, in being asked to consider 15 amendments to the tax plan, agreed to a couple of minor changes, including one that would maintain a tax credit for groups such as Habitat for Humanity and Building Homes for Heroes when those projects are within areas of former enterprise zones.
Lawmakers are allowing the reauthorization of enterprise zones to die at the state level, Artiles said.
The Senate, which continues to review individual bills offering tax cuts and business incentives, has held off on introducing a tax package as Florida continues to negotiate with the federal government over funding for the Low Income Pool program. The program helps pay for health care for low-income and uninsured patients.
Katie Betta, a spokeswoman for the Senate President Andy Gardiner, said in an email Tuesday that no timetable has been set for the Senate’s tax-cut package.
The House tax-cut proposal is $17 million larger than a $673 million package requested by Gov. Rick Scott. Both packages are highlighted by a Scott proposal to reduce taxes on cell-phone and pay-TV bills by 3.6 percentage points.
The House package also includes such moves as eliminating sales taxes on college textbooks and cutting a tax on commercial-real estate leases from 6 percent to 5.8 percent.
The package also would lead to a three-day period starting July 31 when back-to-school shoppers would be able to avoid paying sales taxes on clothes and other school-related items. Also, the House has proposed a small-business tax holiday two days after Thanksgiving.
by The News Service of Florida
Mira Awards Honor Escambia County’s Most Creative High School Seniors
April 1, 2015
About 70 of Escambia County’s most creative high school seniors were honored recently during the 2015 Mira Creative Arts Awards Banquet at New World Landing.
Mira Creative Arts Awards recipients were nominated for the award by their high school teachers and will receive commemorative engraved medallions as well as Certificates of Special Congressional Recognition from Congressman Jeff Miller.
Northview High School
- Autumn Leanna Ates, Visual Arts
- Tristan Brown, Theatre
- Ryan Chavers, Prose Writing
- Desiree Elliard, Prose Writing
- Julie Hester, Dance
- Jessica L. McCullough, Graphic Design
- Natassja Scott, Visual Arts
- Shania Lynn Ward, Graphic Design
- Tristan Williams, Instrumental Music
Tate High School
- Sarah Colburn, Instrumental Music
- Chandler Cotton, Instrumental Music
- Reema Eqab, Fine Arts
- Jamie Hendren, Vocal Music
- Jacob Howard, Instrumental Music
- Abreona Nixon, Mock Trial
- Gabriele Pyron, Visual Arts
- Kara Rhodes, Photo Journalism
- Jessica Roser, Ceramics
- Kristin Wheeler, Drama
West Florida High School
- Delaney Anderson, Journalism
- Ashley Cobb, Theatre
- Addie Leah Davila, Graphic/Digital Design
- Katarina Dombek. Visual Arts
- Lewis Elliott, Musical Theatre
- Antonio (Kai) Estrada, Photography
- Dalton Kristopher Merritt, Instrumental Music
- Hannah Power, Visual Arts
- Kaitlyn Tran, Graphic/Digital Design
- Devin Walker, Instrumental Music
Pine Forest High School
- Taylor Erdman, Carpentry
- Jada Espinoza, Design Services
- Alesandra Fatcheric, Visual Arts
- Ashley Frye, Vocal Music
- Nathan Kirk, Visual Arts
- Tyler Meatte, Instrumental Music
- Bekah Potter, Yearbook
- Destiny Redd, Technical Theatre
- Shayanne Ridenour, Theatre
- Alyssa Webb, TV Production
Escambia High School
- Ryan Berg, Instrumental Music
- Charlotte Blessing, Digital Media
- Drew Coats, Visual Arts
- Holly Coker, Vocal Music
- Savannah Daw, Yearbook
- Melvini’Quie Gordon, Visual Arts
- Evan Dawn Harris, Theatre
- Josh Johnson, Instrumental Music
- Johnathan Pierce, Instrumental Music
- Kirsten Serene White-Wood, Culinary Arts
Pensacola High School
- Erik Blount-Douglas, Instrumental Music
- Claire Escobedo, Visual Arts
- Matthew Ferguson, Drama
- Chelsea Gay, Instrumental Music
- Dana Jaalouk, Photography
- Caroline Johnson, Instrumental Music
- Elizabeth Parra, Visual Arts
- Heather Sartain, Creative Achievement
- Anne Schultz, Drama
- Nigel Walden, Drama
Washington High School
- Kaleb Broom, Instrumental Music
- Aleina delaCruz, Drama
- Samantha Marie Johnna Earley, Visual Arts
- Hallie Rana Friedman, Drama
- Allison Leigh Fuller, TV Production
- A. J. Pryor, Vocal Music
- Stephanie Rosemore, Visual Arts
- Alicia Katherine Diane Umbreit, Vocal Music
- Natalie Williams, Nonfiction Writing
- Avion Wright, Instrumental Music
In 1987, a group of teachers at J. M. Tate High School created the Mira Awards to recognize talented and creative students in the arts and sciences. The following year, the committee approached the Escambia County Public Schools Foundation to bring the awards under its umbrella and to initiate county-wide student participation each year in the areas of writing, performing and visual arts, and other creative disciplines. The term “Mira” is Latin for the name of the brightest star in the constellation Cetus.
Pictured top: Mira Award winners from Tate High School. Pictured below: Northview High School Mira winners. Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Health Department To Offer Immunization Clinics For Kids In Century And Molino
April 1, 2015
Mark your calendars….the Florida Department of Health Escambia County will hold three walk-in immunization clinics for children ages six weeks to 18 years in Molino and Century.
The clinics will be held at the Molino Service Center at 3470 Highway 29 on Thursday, April 23 and Thursday, May 21 from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m., and Wednesday, June 17 from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. at Healthy Start in Century, 501 Church Street.
For more information call (850) 595-6500 ext. 1700.
State Colleges No More?
April 1, 2015
The battle over how far Florida colleges should be allowed to go in offering four-year degrees, once largely the responsibility of state universities, has spawned a new effort to more strictly limit those opportunities.
The newest measure is sponsored by Sen. Joe Negron, a Stuart Republican who could become Senate president after the 2016 elections and has worked before to limit college offerings that he says overlap with what four-year universities already provide.
“One of my goals over the next several years is to make our good universities great,” Negron said. “And you can’t find the funding to do that when you have unnecessary duplication of effort.”
Under Negron’s proposal, which was attached to an existing measure on higher education (SB 1252), colleges would have to give notice a year before they expect to start offering new four-year degrees, up from 60 days in the current law. It would cap at 5 percent the share of a college’s enrollment that could be made up of students pursuing baccalaureate degrees.
And in a shot to the marketing of the colleges — which used to be called “community colleges” — the institutions would no longer be allowed to use “state” in their names. Sixteen colleges would have their names changed to comply with that rule, in addition to Florida Gateway College being renamed Lake City College.
Negron said that part of the proposal would refocus the colleges on their regional missions. Each state college has an area of the state which it is supposed to serve spelled out in state law.
“As far as the use of the term ’state,’ it’s a misleading, inaccurate term,” he said. “When you say ‘Florida State College,’ that college does not serve all of Florida, it does not serve all the state.”
There has long been tension between colleges, which are overseen by the State Board of Education, and universities, which are managed by the Florida Board of Governors, about whether the Board of Education is too quick to grant four-year degrees to its institutions.
Last year, when he chaired the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, Negron threatened to slash $3.5 million from state colleges and give it to universities to try to force a change. Senators also considered taking away the Board of Education’s authority over four-year degrees.
Eventually, lawmakers settled on a moratorium on new four-year programs at state colleges.
Negron’s new proposal would do away with that moratorium, as would a House bill (HB 7127) approved Tuesday by the House Education Appropriations Subcommittee. However, the House measure doesn’t have Negron’s further language about the colleges and four-year degrees.
A spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Education said through email that officials there “prefer to not comment on proposed legislation since it may change.”
Jim Henningsen, president of the College of Central Florida, speaking to a Senate committee last week on behalf of college presidents, said colleges were focused on the narrow goal of the original authority for them to offer four-year programs.
“Our goal in our system is to support exactly as you stated, that regional approach to economic development, workforce training in those areas. … There are some (situations) where universities as well as the colleges work together and find a baccalaureate solution that was needed for that specific region,” he said.
But there have been some concerns raised about the enrollment cap, which Negron has conceded might need to be modified. St. Petersburg College, which was one of the earliest schools to offer four-year degrees, now has about 12 percent of its students enrolled in those programs, according to senators.
Negron said he would be open to language capping that school’s four-year enrollment at 15 percent, along with other levels for colleges that already have more than 5 percent of their students pursuing those degrees. Institutions with less than 5 percent of their students in those programs might still face the lower cap.
Sen. David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, said he doesn’t want the proposal to come across as adversarial, highlighting especially the impact of striking “state” from the names of the colleges.
“That means that the students are the ones that end up bearing the brunt of this,” he said.
But Negron said he doesn’t believe the institutions would lose any prestige under his proposal, which would change the name of the system to the Florida Community College System but would give the schools themselves names without that term, like Daytona College.
“To me, let’s agree on the place of the community colleges in our overall educational system,” he said.
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Northview Beats PCA; Jay Gets Four-Homer Win Over Holmes
April 1, 2015
BASEBALL
Northview 12, PCA 1
The varsity Northview Chiefs beat Pensacola Christian Academy in Pensacola Tuesday 12-1. The Chiefs will take a week break before their next game on April 7 as they host the Jay Royals in a district game.
SOFTBALL
Jay 7, Holmes County 5
Destiny Herring and Samantha Steadham each had a home run for the Royals, and Emily Dobson had two including a two-run homer for the win in the seventh. Herring pitched seven for Jay, striking out three. The Royals will travel to Baker on Thursday.
Pictured: Northview at Pensacola Christian Tuesday. NorthEscambia.com photos by Ramona Preston, click to enlarge.
Governor Appoints Two To PSC Board Of Trustees
April 1, 2015
Tueday, Governor Rick Scott announced the appointments of Patrick Dawson and Kevin Lacz to the Pensacola State College District Board of Trustees.
Dawson, 49, of Milton, is the general manager of G4S Secure Solutions (USA) Inc Pensacola. He is a retired command sergeant major with the United States Army Military Police. Dawson currently serves as a board member for Santa Rosa Kid’s House. He received his bachelor’s degree from Baker College. He succeeds John O’Connor and is appointed for a term beginning March 31, 2015, and ending May 31, 2017.
Lacz, 33, of Gulf Breeze, is a physician assistant for Regenesis LLC. He was a platoon sniper, breacher, and combat medic with the United States Navy SEAL Team 3. Lacz received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Connecticut and his master’s degree from Wake Forest University. He succeeds Stephania Wilson and is appointed for a term beginning March 31, 2015, and ending May 31, 2018.
The appointments are subject to confirmation by the Florida Senate.
One Day Only – Save 27% On Past Due Traffic Tickets, Court Costs, Fines, Fees
March 31, 2015
If you have unpaid traffic tickets, court costs, fines, or fees, Pam Childers, the Escambia County Clerk of the Circuit Court & Comptroller, is giving you a break by putting the brakes on collection fees – for one day only.
The Clerk’s office is offering convenient Saturday hours and opening to the public for “Operation Green Light” on April 18. This special program allows anyone with unpaid traffic tickets, or misdemeanor or felony court costs, fines, or fees to make payment in full without paying the 27 percent collections surcharge. You will also be able to restore your driving privileges which may have been suspended for non-payment once all outstanding traffic tickets, court costs, fines, and fees are paid.
There are thousands of people in Escambia County who have unpaid traffic tickets, court costs, fines, and fees. As a result, many are driving with suspended licenses. Operation Green Light is a chance for people to pay their traffic tickets, court costs, fines, and fees without paying the 27 percent collections surcharge and restore their driving privileges. By opening on a Saturday, we’re making it convenient for those who need it.
Late fees will not be waived, but anyone paying traffic tickets, court costs, fines, and fees during Operation Green Light won’t have to pay collections surcharges. That’s a savings of $55.62 on a $206 ticket.
Operation Green Light is scheduled from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 18, at the main courthouse at: M. C. Blanchard Judicial Building, 190 West Government Street, Pensacola.
Payments in full will be accepted by cash, personal or cashier’s check, money order, or credit card.
Walnut Hill Man Charged With Dealing In Stolen Property
March 31, 2015
A Walnut Hill man has been charged with dealing in stolen property after an east Alabama man just happen to spot his stolen trailer in a yard as traveled along Highway 97.
The victim contacted the Tallapoosa County Sheriff’s Office in Alabama to reported that he had found his stolen utility trailer valued at $2,000 at a home in the 7000 block of Highway 97. After the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office investigated, it was determined that Tucker was also in possession of a 1990 Yamaha Rhino and a pressure washer that were also reported stolen in Alabama, according to an arrest report.
Tucker told deputies that he had paperwork concerning ownership, but those documents were never provided, the report states.
Tucker was charged with second degree felony dealing in stolen property. He was released from the Escambia County Jail on a $7,5000 bond.
ECUA Opens Cantonment’s First Residential Cooking Oil, Grease Disposal Station
March 31, 2015
Cantonment area residents can now dispose of their FOG — fats, oils and grease — for free in Cantonment.
Monday, ECUA installed a new residential cooking oil and grease disposal station at the Grocery Advantage, 736 North Highway 29. The station provides easy access and allows residents to dispose of their household cooking oil and grease in an environmentally safe and effective manner.
A majority of all sanitary sewage overflows are caused by the improper disposal of residential cooking fats, oils, and grease (FOG). These overflows are not just public health issues; they can potentially cause serious damage to the environment and pollute the water supply, according to ECUA.
ECUA Vice-Board Chairman (District Five) Dr. Larry Walker said, “The free empty container can be picked-up, filled and exchanged for another empty one, ready to repeat the process. Once the cooking oil or grease is collected it’s then recycled as biodiesel fuel.” The free containers are available in a variety of sizes.
To reduce the amount of FOG, homeowners and businesses are asked to adhere to the following methods when disposing of fats, oils and grease:
- Never pour FOG down the drain, sink or garbage disposal.
- Pour FOG into jars, cans, and plastic tubs. Let contents cool and solidify. When the container is full, throw away with your trash.
- Mix cooking oil with an absorbent material such as cat litter or coffee grounds, place in a container (lid securely fastened) for disposal with your trash.
- For greasy pans, pour off the grease into a container, and use a paper towel to wipe out the remaining grease in the pan prior to washing.
- Store the container in the freezer, which will keep the grease solid, and pull it out whenever you have fats, oils and grease to dispose of. When it gets full, dump the whole container into the trash.
For more information on the ECUA FOG program and to locate other disposal stations, visit www.ecua.fl.gov or contact ECUA customer service at (850) 476-0480.
Pictured: Cantonment’s first cooking oil disposal station. (L-R) ECUA FOG Inspector Kenny Lyons, Grocery Advantage Store Manager Wayne Wright, and ECUA FOG Inspector Kenyore Edwards. Photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Motorcyclist Dead After Falling Off I-110 Bridge
March 31, 2015
A Navarre man was killed when he flipped his motorcycle off a downtown I-110 bridge near the civic center Monday evening.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol, 20-year old Timothy Ryan Davey was southbound on I-110 exceeding the posted speed limit. He failed to maintain control of his 2015 Suzuki GSXR as it entered a downhill curve. He struck a sound barrier wall and was ejected off the bridge while his motorcycle continue in an upright position around the curve and into a grassy median at the Gregory Street exit.
Davey was pronounced deceased at the scene.