Sheriff Donates Command Vehicle To Escambia Search And Rescue
January 22, 2015
Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan donated his former command bus to Escambia Search and Rescue on Wednesday.
ESAR volunteers assist emergency responders with search and rescue operations in South Alabama and Northwest Florida. They were working out of an aging and outdated command center.
The Sheriff’s Office donated their former command center to ESAR because of their on-going partnership responding together in searches and natural disasters. The ECSO purchased a new command center last year using Local Option Sales Tax funds.
Pictured top: Sheriff David Morgan with members of Escambia Search and Rescue. Pictured inset: Morgan hands over the former ECSO command bus keys to ESAR Director Skip Bollens. Courtesy photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Florida Prison Health Care Brings Back Old Worries
January 22, 2015
For more than 20 years, the state of Florida and lawyers representing prisoners wrangled over inmates’ health care, resulting in nearly a decade of federal-court oversight of health services in the Department of Corrections.
Now, lawyers who represented prisoners in the mid-1970s say conditions may be worse today than they were when attorneys for Michael Costello, an inmate at Florida State Prison, convinced a federal judge that inadequate health care amounted to a violation of Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
“It’s going backwards, backwards, backwards,” said Jacksonville lawyer William Sheppard, one of the lawyers in the landmark Costello v. Wainwright lawsuit. Sheppard played an integral role in the settlement of the case, which included a court-appointed special master and monitor to ensure that prisoners received the health care they needed.
“It was the number of people that were dying, and that really caused the federal court to appoint the special master back in the 1980s who worked for 10 years to enforce the order,” Sheppard said. “It’s not going to get better. It’s going to get a lot worse. And when it gets to the breaking point, there are going to be lawsuits. It’s as simple as that.”
Less than two years ago, private companies took over health care for the state’s 100,000 inmates. But newly appointed Department of Corrections Secretary Julie Jones is now threatening to cancel the companies’ contracts, renegotiate or put them out to bid again.
“The department has maintained a clear message that the care of inmates is the number one priority in the provision of health-care services. I have personally met with our health-care contractors to express my expectations of excellence in quality care. I will continue to take steps to ensure that the department’s expectations are met and that all parties are held to the highest standards of transparency and accountability. Anything short of timely, effective and appropriate health care will not be tolerated,” Jones, who took over as secretary less than three weeks ago, told The News Service of Florida on Wednesday.
Jones, appointed by Gov. Rick Scott to take over the agency in the aftermath of reports of questionable inmate deaths and brutality by prison guards, told the Senate Criminal Justice Committee on Tuesday that she is in discussions with Corizon Health and Wexford Health Services about possibly terminating the contracts, which would require 60 days notice from the agency or 120 days notice from the companies.
Corizon is being paid $1.2 billion over five years to provide health care to more than 74,000 prisoners in North and Central Florida, as well as part of South Florida. Wexford will receive $240 million over the same period for health care for about 15,000 inmates at nine South Florida facilities.
Jones also accused the companies of failing to live up to the agreements and of putting inmates at risk by providing inadequate health care.
“Wexford Health appreciates and shares Secretary Jones concerns about the level of prison health services being offered. However, we are confident the overwhelming majority of those concerns do not apply to the 15,000 inmates under our care in South Florida,” Don Hulick, director of operations for Wexford Health Care in Florida, said in a statement.
Jones’ threats came just months after the two companies were promised extra money in exchange for agreeing not to walk away from the contracts.
On July 29 — less than four months before Scott, who pushed for the privatization, was re-elected — former Department of Corrections Secretary Michael Crews quietly agreed to pay the companies another $3.2 million to stay on the job for another year.
In the amendments signed by Crews in late July, the state agreed to pay Corizon an additional $2.9 million and Wexford an extra $300,000. Both companies complained that they had not received medical cost-of-living increases — about 3 percent — which were contingent on authorization by the Legislature, which did not approve the hikes. Crews used money set aside by the Legislature in the budget for growth in the prison population to underwrite the contract amendments.
Two months after he inked the contract amendments, Crews threatened to stop payments to Corizon, saying the Missouri-based company failed to follow through after audits revealed shortcomings in multiple areas, including medical care, nursing and staffing.
“We consider it our mission to care for patients as we would our own family — with integrity and respect — and to deliver the very best treatment possible despite often challenging circumstances. We take this responsibility seriously and remain steadfast in our commitment to creating and strengthening a culture of patient safety. We share Secretary Jones’ commitment to patient care and look forward to working with her and her team in this endeavor,” Corizon spokeswoman Susan Morgenstern said in an email.
Jones’s scrutiny of the contracts came in tandem with her push for more oversight of prison health care. Right now, Jones and lawmakers rely on the Correctional Medical Authority to audit the companies, which are then responsible for fixing their own shortcomings. The Correctional Medical Authority doesn’t have the ability to impose fines or other punitive measures on the vendors.
The Correctional Medical Authority was created in 1986 as part of the settlement in the Costello case. The state’s prison health system stayed under federal oversight until 1993, when a judge decided that the federal government could relinquish its role as long as Florida remained committed to using monitors like the authority to ensure that prisoners’ rights were not being violated.
In the midst of deciding to privatize prison health care in 2011, lawmakers shuttered the agency by eliminating its $717,000 budget. That same year, Scott vetoed a measure that would have done away with the authority, calling it a “valuable layer of oversight.” The next year, House and Senate leaders allocated $580,000 to revive the agency, shrunk from 12 workers to six with an oversight board of seven governor-appointed members.
But critics of the revived authority say the agency no longer has the power it held when U.S. District Judge Susan Black agreed to end federal oversight.
Sheppard said his office receives requests for assistance almost daily from inmates who say they are unable to get medical services ranging from treatment for chronic illnesses like multiple sclerosis to more run-of-the-mill conditions like hernias.
The complaints echo those he fielded three decades ago at the height of the Costello litigation, Sheppard said in a telephone interview.
“It’s the same piece — they don’t treat me. It’s getting access, and then once you get access it’s being seen properly and then what the doctor orders, you don’t receive,” Sheppard said. “You’ve got a lot of people dying and you’ve got a lot of unexplained deaths that are floating around here.”
Last year, 346 of the state’s 100,000-plus inmates died behind bars. More than half of those deaths — 176 — were initially unclassified, meaning that state investigators had no immediate explanation for the causes of death. According to the Department of Corrections website, 146 inmates died due to heart attacks, cancer, gastrointestinal diseases or other medical problems.
“To me, it seems like (Florida) would be ripe for a lawsuit now. That’s if the federal government doesn’t step in first,” said Mike Manguso, a senior research fellow at the Tallahassee-based Project for Accountable Justice.
Manguso worked for the Department of Corrections for nearly three decades and served as a policy analyst for governors Jeb Bush, Charlie Crist and Scott.
“(Inmates) don’t deserve a little bit less than someone on the outside. They deserve to be treated as humans. It’s just ridiculous. The state has a responsibility. If we have custody of them, under the constitution, we’re required to give them a certain level of care,” he said.
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Pictured: Inmate medical facilities inside the Century Correctional Institution. NorthEscambia.com file photo, click to enlarge.
Ballot Proposal Seeks More Solar Power In Sunshine State
January 22, 2015
Businesses and property owners would be able to sell a limited amount of solar energy under a ballot initiative rolled out by a coalition that brings together free-market conservatives, retailers and alternative-energy supporters.
The proposed constitutional amendment is expected to face opposition from large power companies, which offered little comment Wednesday.
Backers of the initiative said during a news conference in Tallahassee that they are using the constitutional amendment route because well-funded utilities have repeatedly lobbied the Legislature and the Florida Public Service Commission against expanding solar and other alternative-energy choices.
“Using a constitutional amendment to the ballot is not the best way to make energy policy,” said Stephen A. Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. “But if the system is broken, and we have no other way to actually get good policy in the state and allow such a positive thing as solar power to flourish, then we have to take it straight to the people.”
Tory Perfetti, chairman of the coalition dubbed “Floridians for Solar Choice,” said it remains to be seen how the utilities will react to the ballot drive, but he expects they will mount a sizable opposition.
In addition to the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, the coalition includes the Florida Retail Federation, the Florida Solar Energy Industries Association, the Florida Alliance for Renewable Energy, the Christian Coalition of America, the Libertarian Party of Florida, the Republican Liberty Caucus of Tampa Bay and the Republican Liberty Caucus of Florida.
Smith estimated that the coalition might have to raise $8 million to $10 million to counter the anticipated opposition.
“If we can get this thing on the ballot, it will pass,” said Alexander Snitker, vice president of the Libertarian Party of Florida. “Who is the opposition? The opposition is the people who are profiting off the current monopoly they have right now.”
Asked about the proposed amendment, Duke Energy Florida spokesman Sterling Ivey said in an email Wednesday that solar and other renewable sources will be an important part of Florida’s energy future.
“We are committed to energy policies where solar options are fair and beneficial to all of our customers,” Ivey said in the email. “Our 4,000 Florida employees will continue to work hard every day to ensure we are providing reliable and safe electricity to our 1.7 million customers.”
A spokeswoman for Florida Power & Light declined to comment.
The amendment, in part, would allow businesses to generate and sell up to two megawatts of power to customers on the same or neighboring properties.
Smith estimated that the two-megawatt total would cover the daily use at a typical Wal-Mart.
The initiative, which was filed Dec. 23 with the Department of State, will require Floridians for Solar Choice to get the signatures of roughly 700,000 voters to get on the November 2016 ballot. Also, the ballot language would have to be approved by the state Supreme Court.
The press conference came less than two months after the Public Service Commission narrowly accepted a controversial staff recommendation that will reduce overall energy-efficiency goals for power companies.
The changes to the energy-efficiency standards didn’t go as far as FPL, Duke, Tampa Electric Co., Gulf Power Co. and JEA in Jacksonville had requested, but utility officials called the staff-backed changes “realistic.”
Utility officials have argued that the economic advantage of conservation has waned as reliance on natural gas has grown and that the state’s solar-rebate program has not attracted widespread use.
FPL’s solar-installation program has been used by about 900 of its 4.7 million customers at a cost of $16.5 million over the past three years. Last year, Duke spent $1.4 million for solar programs, which were approved for about 150 of its 1.7 million customers.
Identity Released: Body Washes Up At Port Of Pensacola
January 22, 2015
The name of a man whose body was found near the Port of Pensacola Wednesday afternoon has been released.
Detective Dylan Stackpole said the man – Alvin Gray, 66, of the 900 block of Massachusetts Avenue – was last seen around 1:10 a.m. Tuesday when he left home and told his sister he was going to the store. Stackpole said Gray’s sister contacted the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office around 1:35 p.m. Tuesday and reported him missing.
It has not yet been determined how long Gray was in the water. Stackpole said a police officer found Gray’s car at Plaza DeLuna, which is located directly across from the port, around 1:40 p.m. Wednesday.
A fisherman found Gray’s body near 700 S. Barracks Street around 12:50 p.m. Wednesday and contacted police. His body was found on the rocks on the east side of the port. Lt. Chuck Mallett said there were no obvious signs of foul play, but an investigation continues into Gray’s death.
Man Charged With Strangulation Following Alabama Manhunt
January 21, 2015
A man was charged with strangulation after being captured during a manhunt near Flomaton Wednesday morning that involved law enforcement agencies from two states.
Nicholas Dewayne Smith, 22, was charged with domestic violence strangulation, domestic violence interference with an emergency call, attempting to elude law enforcement, possession of drug paraphernalia and second degree possession of marijuana. He was booked into the Escambia County (AL) Detention Center in Brewton.
About 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, the Flomaton Police Department received a 911 call from the victim on Jordan Road stating that Smith had choked her. Smith fled the from the residence as officers arrived. Deputies responded from the Escambia County (AL) Sheriff’s Office and the Escambia County (FL) Sheriff’s Office to assist in the manhunt for smith. K-9 teams from Century Correctional and Fountain Correctional in Atmore were used to track and capture Smith.
The manhunt lasted less than two hours.
Man Charged With Stealing Tons Of Steel From Employer, Fraudulent EBT Card Use
January 21, 2015
An Escambia County man has been charged with stealing over 15 tons of steel from his employer and fraudulently using a state EBT card for years.
Barry Paul Fehr, 53, was employed at Highway Specialties, Inc. on Pine Barren Barren Road in McDavid since 2001. Between May 2011 and May 2014, Fehr sold 30,145 pounds of steel highway guardrail components in 19 transactions to Wise Recycling without permission of the company’s owner, according to an Escambia County Sheriff’s Office arrest report, receiving a total of $3,428. The investigation also found Fehr in possession of additional guardrail components owned by Highway Specialties and valued at $2,135, the report states.
Several times, Fehr represented himself in a capacity to complete jobs and accept payment without proper invoicing and receipts, investigators said. Within the past two years, deputies said Fehr and his crew installed 150 feet of guardrail on I-10 and was paid $5,200 outside the scope of Highway Specialties.
During an interview with the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, Fehr stated that he never sold property that would not have been discarded anyway upon the completion of a job.
Fehr was also accused of paying cash at one-half the face value for an individual’s State of Florida EBT card each month for the past 60 months. He then used the card as his own, fraudulently obtaining about $10,500 worth of benefits, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Fehr was charged with one felony count of a grand theft and one felony count of fraud – unauthorized user of public assistance. He was released from the Escambia County Jail on $2,500 bond.
Escambia School Board Honors Sara Calhoun, Florida’s Top Elementary Reading Teacher
January 21, 2015
The Escambia County School Board honored a Molino Park Elementary School teacher Tuesday night for being named the top elementary school reading teacher in the entire state.
Sara Calhoun was named the Florida Reading Association’s Elementary School Teacher of the Year for 2014-2015. She was honored with an award presentation last October at the Third General Session of the Florida Reading Conference in Orlando.
“Teaching and leading a child to read is the most incredible privilege, second only to leading another soul into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. This is clearly the most exciting and humbling highlight of my career,” Calhoun said, as she praised the work of other Molino Park and district educators.
“We are all so proud of Mrs. Calhoun and know that this award is well deserved,” Molino Park Principal Alice Woodward said in a September 2014 NorthEscambia.com story. “We are so blessed to have her as part of our Molino Park team.”
Calhoun has taught first grade at Molino Park Elementary for three yeras. She has been married to her husband, Brian, for the past 18 years, and they have two children. The family moved to Molino seven years ago when Brian was called to be the pastor and Highland Baptist Church.
The Florida Reading Association is an affiliate of the International Reading Association (IRA), a 52,000 member nonprofit educational organization devoted to the promotion of lifetime reading habits and the improvement of language and literacy instruction.
Photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Helicopter Company Landing In Santa Rosa County With High Paying Jobs
January 21, 2015
A new helicopter company is locating in Santa Rosa County, bringing dozens of high paying jobs.
Aerosync Support, Inc., a leader in helicopter repairs, modifications and upgrades, is moving into the Santa Rosa Industrial Park in Milton. Aerosync has purchased the former West Coat Metal Roofing building and is making a capital investment of over $1.75 million to the facility. With the anticipated creation of 25 jobs at an average rate of $60,000, Aerosync qualified for a performance-based incentive program aimed at increasing high-skilled, high-wage jobs in Florida.
Aerosync provides global on-site labor support for Bell and Sikorsky helicopter products. They service both commercial and military markets, specializing in depot level upgrades/modifications with heavy or crash damage repairs. In addition Aerosync designs and builds precision tooling and aircraft support equipment specialized for the aerospace market. The new facility in the Santa Rosa Industrial Park joins the company’s locations in Wichita, KS and Bogotá, Colombia.
Greg Bartlett, president of Aerosync, said many factors brought them to Santa Rosa County, “There is a large aerospace market in both commercial and military sectors that are in need of the services we offer. Milton and the Santa Rosa Industrial Park is a great location for us with room to expand as future demands increase. We are very excited about being here and look forward to employing many talented folks in this area.”
Aerosync was approved for a Qualified Target Industry Tax Refund, also known as QTI, as an incentive available to companies that create high wage jobs in targeted high value-added industries. Pre-approved applicants who create jobs in Florida receive tax refunds, the amount based on the number of jobs, average annual salary and location. Santa Rosa County contributes 20 percent of the refund as part of this program. A resolution for the county’s portion, or $100,000, of the incentives was passed by the Santa Rosa Board of County Commission on October 23, 2014, as “Project Airwolf.”
For more information on Aerosync Support, Inc. visit http://aerosyncsupport.com.
Guns On Campus Bill Clear First Hurdle
January 21, 2015
In the wake of a shooting on the Florida State University campus just a few miles away and after an hour of sometimes-emotional debate, a House panel Tuesday approved a bill that would allow concealed weapons to be carried at colleges and universities.
The House Criminal Justice Subcommittee voted 8-4 along party lines to pass the measure (HB 4005), which would allow anyone with a concealed-carry permit to have a weapon — usually a firearm — on campus. Currently, people are banned from carrying such weapons at Florida colleges and universities, with the exception of stun guns or similar devices.
But Rep. Greg Steube, the Sarasota Republican sponsoring the bill, said the new measure would empower the likely small number of college students who have concealed-weapons licenses to defend themselves and their fellow students. Steube said only 2,271 of the state’s 21-year-olds have concealed-weapons licenses; no one under 21 is allowed to receive a permit. There are almost 1.2 million college students in Florida.
State data show that 246,632 Floridians between the ages of 21 and 35 have the permits, according to an analysis of the bill by legislative staff.
Steube said he had worked on the legislation before the shooting at FSU in November, but the attack highlighted the need for the bill. Only the gunman was killed in that incident, though one of the three victims of the shooting was paralyzed from the waist down.
“What I’m trying to do is prevent further loss of life by giving God-fearing and law-abiding citizens who have gone through background checks and all the things they have to do to get a (permit) to be able to defend themselves and their family,” Steube told the committee.
Supporters said current law actually makes students on campus less safe.
“This bill eliminates a possible pool of victims,” said Brant Hargrove, a member of the public who spoke in support of the legislation. “Predators know where victims are. They’re in places where people cannot defend themselves.”
But opponents, including several students and faculty members who showed up to argue against the legislation, said drugs, alcohol and stress prevalent on college campuses made the atmosphere particularly bad for allowing guns.
“I can only imagine walking through mid-terms week or finals week and being afraid, because these people, at times, college students break down, especially when they’re in engineering and in the sciences and mathematics,” said John Quiroz, a 22-year-old political-science student at the University of South Florida. “I just want to remind you all that these are young men and women trying to better themselves. They don’t need … this constant fear of violence being on their college campuses.”
Marjorie Sanfilippo, an associate dean of faculty at Eckerd College, said she often has to deal with angry students — and sometimes asks campus security officials to be on hand. She also pointed out that concealed weapons aren’t allowed at legislative meetings.
“That protects you,” she said. “I only ask that you give us the same respect in college settings.”
But Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, said the presencesof drugs, alcohol and parties at college campuses argued for the bill.
“Folks, if you’re living in that kind of environment, you better carry a firearm. Because you could get raped, beaten, or worse,” he said.
Steube’s bill still has to clear the Higher Education and Workforce Subcommittee and the Judiciary Committee before heading to the full House. A Senate version (SB 176) filed by Sen. Greg Evers hasn’t been scheduled for a hearing in any of its four committee stops.
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Scott Calls For Tax Cuts On Cell Phone Bills, Cable And Satellite TV
January 21, 2015
Gov. Rick Scott is asking lawmakers to cut taxes on cell-phone bills and cable and satellite television to meet the first half of his re-election campaign’s $1 billion tax-cut pledge.
The proposal, announced Tuesday by Scott, would reduce state tax dollars by a projected $470 million. The governor’s office said it would save about $43 a year for a family that spends $100 a month on cell-phone and cable services, though spending on such services varies widely by household.
“With our cell phone and TV tax cut, every Florida family is saving real money — around $40 a year for spending as little as $100 a month between cell phone, cable and satellite bills,” Scott said in a prepared statement.
Scott’s proposal would reduce what are known as “communications services tax” rates, which are now 9.17 percent on nonresidential landlines, cell phone, and cable services and 13.17 percent on satellite services. The tax has generated about $1.4 billion in annual collections in recent years, according to the Florida Tax Handbook.
Scott was flanked by telecommunications executives while announcing the proposal Tuesday morning at the Seminole County Regional Chamber of Commerce. The proposal got quick praise from business lobbying groups.
“Governor Scott continues to prioritize fostering a business-friendly environment so that our state’s businesses can continue to grow and we continue to attract new and innovative businesses to the state of Florida,” Associated Industries of Florida President & Chief Executive Officer Tom Feeney said in a prepared statement.
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers, who have been noncommittal about how much of the state’s surplus they will devote to Scott’s priorities in the budget for the coming year, called Scott’s proposal “a starting point” as they begin to review tax proposals. A final tax-cut package will be negotiated this spring as lawmakers finalize a budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1.
“In my committee, no tax is safe,” House Finance & Tax Chairman Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, said. “It is the goal of the House of Representatives to find even more ways to decrease the tax burden on Florida’s families.”
Senate Finance and Taxation Chairwoman Dorothy Hukill, R-Port Orange, has pushed similar, though somewhat smaller, measures than what Scott offered.
Hukill, who met with Scott on Monday, said she expects the communications-services tax to be a significant part of any final tax package.
“This is not something that is for a small number of people,” Hukill said. “We have almost as many cell phones as we have citizens in the state of Florida.”
House Minority Leader Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach, and Senate Minority Leader Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, said Tuesday they had not yet reviewed Scott’s proposal.
Scott made cutting taxes and fees a focus of his two successful election campaigns and his first term in office. Scott and lawmakers last year made about $500 million in cuts, with much of that going to reducing vehicle-registration fees.
The Republican governor touted the fee cuts during last year’s campaign and pledged to make about $1 billion in tax cuts during the next two years.
At campaign stops, Scott maintained support for a number of sales-tax shopping holidays, along with touting plans to cut the communications-services tax, eliminate a manufacturing sales tax, phase out the corporate-income tax and a sales tax on commercial leases and enact a constitutional amendment that would prevent residential property taxes from being increased when home values don’t go up.
by Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida