Housing Rehabilitation Funds Available For Century Homeowners
November 17, 2014
On December 1, the Town of Century will begin accepting applications to assist 15 very low and low income homeowners in the rehabilitation of their homes.
Funding will be available in amounts from $2,000 to $5,000 for rehabilitation activities that will contribute to the overall health, safety and well being of the homeowner. Applicants must reside within the town limits, own their single family detached home (no mobile homes) and meet income guidelines based upon family size.
The town will set up and maintain a housing assistance waiting list for this program only. To apply, homeowners should call the Century Town Hall at (850) 256-3208 between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. beginning December 1. Callers prior to December 1 will not be placed on the waiting list.
The program is funded though USDA Rural Development Housing Services. Applications will be funded on a first come, first served basis.
Watercolors On Display This Month At Molino Branch Library
November 17, 2014
The art of Patsy Pennington is on display this month at the Molino Branch Library.
Pennington’s favorite subjects are usually found in nature which she depicts in an almost abstract manner for the full advantage of the transparency and flow of the watercolors. Her works have earned her membership in numerous watercolor societies throughout the nation and innumerable awards.
She has illustrated four books for Peter Pauper Press – “Friends Make the Difference, “GIft of Friendship”, “Friends Make the Best Presents” and “Teachers Make a Difference”.
Courtesy photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Overall Crime Down In Escambia County, Across Florida
November 16, 2014
Crime was down across the board in the first half of 2014, according to data released Friday by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
In Escambia County, overall crime was down 11-.5 percent during the first six months of the year. All major crime categories saw a decrease in the county from the same period last year.
The number of murders dropped from 10 to 7, rapes were down from 84 to 29, robberies dropped from 243 to 167, aggravated assaults fell from 818 to 753, burglaries from 1,559 to 1,384, larcenies went from 4,752 to 4,285, and motor vehicle thefts dropped from 400 t 296 during the first half of 2014.
The Escambia County data includes crimes investigated not only the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, but also the Pensacola Police Department, University of West Florida Police, Florida Highway Patrol and other agencies.
During the first six months of the year, the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office cleared 26.8 percent of cases, while the Pensacola Police Department cleared 44.7 percent.
Overall crime was down 18.8 percent during the first six months of this year in Santa Rosa County.
Across Florida, the crime volume dropped 2.4 percent or 8,133 fewer crimes committed compared to the first six months of 2013.
“Florida is on a path to a 44 year crime low, which is great news for Florida families, communities and visitors. It is thanks to the hard work of our brave law enforcement officials that Florida is reaching these historic crime lows, and we’ll continue working to keep Florida a great and safe place to find opportunities, raise a family and live the American dream,” Gov. Rick Scott said.
While crime was down overall in Florida, violent crime was up slightly, 0.1 percent. Nonviolent crime was down 2.8 percent. Index crimes including robbery, burglary and larceny all fell statewide during this reporting period while murder, forcible sex offenses, aggravated assault and motor vehicle thefts increased.
Four Shot, One Dead, Saturday In Escambia County
November 16, 2014
Four people were reportedly shot Saturday in Escambia County in two separate incidents.
Three people were shot Saturday night in southwest Escambia County off San Jose Drive near Kathryn Drive. One of the three victims died on the way to the hospital, according to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office. The suspect was one of the three injured and was taken into custody in the apparently drug related shooting, deputies said.
In an unrelated incident, one person was shot on Yonge Street. The victim was taken to an area hospital for treatment. No suspects or persons of interest were named in the shooting
Further details, including the names of those involved, have not been released in either incident by the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office. Anyone with information on either shooting is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (850) 433-STOP.
Pictured top: The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office on the scene of a triple shooting Saturday night on San Jose Drive. Pictured top: One person was shot Saturday morning on Yonge Street. Photos courtesy WEAR for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Tate High Varsity Cheerleaders Tops At Battle At The Beach
November 16, 2014
The Tate High School Aggie Varsity Cheerleaders won first place and overall champions Saturday during the Battle at the Beach competition in Fort Walton Beach. Courtesy photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Home Near Flomaton Destroyed By Late Night Fire
November 16, 2014
Fire destroyed a single residential home just northeast of Flomaton late Saturday night.
The fire was reported just before midnight Saturday in the 3600 block of Wolf Log Road, near Jordan Road. The home was fully engulfed by flames when the first firefighters arrived on scene.
The occupants of the home were able to escape without injury. The cause of the blaze remains under investigation.
The Flomaton, Friendship and Lambeth volunteer fire departments from Alabama and the Century Station of Escambia Fire Rescue from Florida were among the units responding to the fire.
First Baptist Bratt Will Serve As Operation Christmas Child Central
November 16, 2014
Volunteers will soon be busy at the First Baptist Church of Bratt during “National Collection Week” for Operation Christmas Child. For the 21st year, the simple, gift-filled shoe boxes will bring Christmas joy and evangelistic materials to children in over 130 countries across the world.
National Collection Week for OCC is November 17-24. The First Baptist Church of Bratt will be the official OCC Relay Center for the north end of Escambia County, FL. The FBC Bratt will also accept boxes from individuals, groups or churches in Escambia County, AL, again this year.
“This is not about the FBC of Bratt”, says Student Pastor Tim Hawsey, Relay Center coordinator. “This is about being a blessing and bringing God’s love and hope to children in poverty around the world that would not receive it otherwise. We have gone through the intense process of been approved as a church to be a Relay Center to collect the boxes from individuals, families, and churches of our area, document and pack them into special cartons and take them to the next level for Samaritan’s Purse, and we are blessed to do it.”
Collection hours at the First Baptist Church of Bratt will be:
- Monday, Nov. 17: 8 a.m. – noon, 4-6 p.m.
- Tuesday, Nov. 18: 8 a.m. – noon
- Wednesday, Nov. 19: 8 a.m. – noon, 4 PM – 6 PM
- Thursday, Nov. 20: 8 a.m. – noon
- Friday, Nov. 21: 8 a.m. – noon
- Saturday, Nov. 22: 8 a.m. – noon
- Sunday, Nov. 23: 8 a.m. – noon, 4-6 p.m.
- Monday, Nov. 24: 8 a.m. – 11 a.m.
Operation Christmas Child boxes should be packed in a specific manner, and there are changes this year. For more information, call Hawsey at the First Baptist Church of Bratt at (850) 327-6529, visit www.samaritanspurse.org/occ, or call (800) 353-5949. Resources are available for churches that wish to participate.
Pictured: Some of the Operation Christmas Child boxes collected at Ray’s Chapel Baptist Church in Bogia. Photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Out Of The Woods: What You Need To Know About Hunting Season
November 16, 2014
November means the 2014-15 huntin’ season is in full swing. In this month’s column, I cover almost everything you need to know about general gun, fall turkey, quail, snipe and the second phase of mourning and white-winged dove season.
The first thing you need to do is pick up a $17 Florida resident hunting license. Nonresidents pay $46.50 for a 10-day license or $151.50 for 12 months.
If you plan to hunt one of Florida’s many wildlife management areas (WMAs), you’ll also need a $26.50 management area permit, but don’t forget to study the brochure for the specific area you plan to hunt, because dates, bag limits and rules can differ greatly from area to area.
You can get these brochures at the tax collector’s offices in close proximity to the WMA, or you can download them from MyFWC.com/Hunting.
You can buy your license and permits by calling 888-HUNT-FLORIDA or going online at License.MyFWC.com. But have your credit card ready. You also can purchase them from a tax collector’s office and most retail outlets that sell hunting and fishing supplies.
The general gun season in Zone D (including Escambia, Santa Rosa and Okaloosa counties) always starts Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 27) and lasts four days until Nov. 30. Two weeks later, the season reopens Dec. 13 and runs through Feb. 22.
Regarding deer, hunters may take only legal bucks, and they must have the $5 deer permit. On private lands, the daily bag limit for deer is two, but during some quota hunts on WMAs, the bag limit is only one deer, so read the particular WMA brochure before you hunt.
On private lands, hunters can take wild hogs year-round with no bag or size limits. On most – but not all – WMAs, there’s also no bag or size limit on wild hogs, and hunters can take them during any hunting season except spring turkey. Again, check the WMA brochure to be certain.
On private lands only there’s the highly anticipated antlerless deer season. In Zone D, there’s been a change. The antlerless deer season used to run seven consecutive days, but now it’s been changed to a Saturday-Sunday (weekend) format. North of Interstate 10 in what is now called Deer Management Unit (DMU) D2, these new antlerless deer weekends are Nov. 29-30 and Dec. 6-7, 20-21 and 27-28. In DMU-D1, which is south of I-10, the doe weekends are Nov. 29-30 and Dec. 27-28.
During antlerless deer season, the daily bag limit is one legal buck and one antlerless deer, or two legal bucks. You may not take two antlerless deer in one day like you can during archery season, and spotted fawns are never legal game. By the way, WMAs do not have an antlerless deer season, so this opportunity applies to private property only.
Fall turkey season in Zone D is Nov. 27-30 and Dec. 13 – Jan. 18, except for Holmes County, where there is no fall turkey season.
Only bearded turkeys and gobblers are legal game; you must have a turkey permit ($10 for residents; $125 for nonresidents) to hunt them. You may now take up to two turkeys in one day on private lands, but there’s still the two-bird fall-season (archery, crossbow, muzzleloading gun and fall turkey seasons combined) limit. And on WMAs, you may still shoot only one turkey per day.
Quail season runs statewide Nov. 8 – March 1, and the daily bag limit is 12.
Shooting hours for deer, turkey and quail are a half-hour before sunrise to a half-hour after sunset. All legal rifles, shotguns, muzzleloaders, bows, crossbows and pistols are legal for taking these resident game animals during the general gun, antlerless deer, fall turkey and quail seasons.
Snipe hunting in Florida ranks second in the nation in number of birds harvested each year, and the season always runs Nov. 1 – Feb. 15 statewide. The second phase of the mourning and white-winged dove season also comes in this month and runs Nov. 8 – Dec. 1. Shooting hours for migratory game birds are one-half hour before sunrise to sunset. The bag limit for snipe is eight; for doves, the bag limit is 15.
You must get a no-cost migratory bird permit if you plan to hunt snipe, doves or any other migratory game birds.
The FWC even provides an online “Dove Hunters’ Hotline,” which gives up-to-date information on Florida’s public dove fields. The address is MyFWC.com/Dove, and it is updated every Thursday throughout dove season. Information includes dove densities, previous week’s harvests and field conditions.
Whether small-game hunting with friends and family or hunting solo, going after that monster buck, boar hog or big tom, November brings loads of great hunting opportunities.
Here’s wishing you a happy Thanksgiving and a successful hunting season
Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: A Big Supply Of Demand
November 16, 2014
.It was a demanding week in Tallahassee.
The Florida Supreme Court demanded that a Republican political consultant turn over documents related to the state’s 2012 redistricting process, continuing a legal battle that has raged for more than two years. That ruling will also give the public a look at documents that a Leon County judge said were key to his decision over the summer to toss the state’s congressional districts.
Florida Democratic Chairwoman Allison Tant demanded that a group of Democratic “bed-wetters … shut up” instead of continuing their attempt to unseat incoming House Minority Leader Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach. Pafford and his allies spent the week more quietly attempting to show that the challenge would die out on its own.
And a group of students demanded that new Florida State University President John Thrasher make a series of changes to prove that the university wouldn’t be in the thrall of conservative forces.
Of the demands, the only one that seemed certain to produce results was the one by the Florida Supreme Court, which has the authority to compel people to follow its orders.
‘DESIGNED TO DELAY AND OBFUSCATE’
Two things stood out in the Supreme Court’s decision to reject GOP consultant Pat Bainter’s efforts to keep his redistricting records private: the harshness of the language used by the majority opinion in the case, and the fact that all seven justices on the famously divided court agreed that Bainter’s documents should be publicly released.
The decision means that evidence from Bainter and his consulting firm, Data Targeting, Inc., will no longer be kept under seal. Justices said Bainter waited too long to argue that releasing some of the documents would violate his First Amendment rights. And in writing for five members of the court, Justice Barbara Pariente accused Bainter of stalling at best and dishonesty at worst.
“We simply do not countenance and will not tolerate actions during litigation that are not forthright and that are designed to delay and obfuscate the discovery process,” Pariente wrote.
Joining Pariente in the opinion were Chief Justice Jorge Labarga and justices R. Fred Lewis, Peggy Quince and James E.C. Perry. In a separate opinion, justices Ricky Polston and Charles Canady supported the outcome.
The documents were used during the summer as part of a trial over a challenge by voting-rights groups, including the League of Women Voters of Florida, who argued that the Republican-dominated Legislature drew congressional districts that violated a constitutional ban on gerrymandering.
But the documents have remained under seal, and the public was barred from the courtroom during Bainter’s testimony.
“Today’s ruling from the Florida Supreme Court will finally force sunshine into the shadow process that has robbed the citizens of Florida of their right to fair representation in Congress,” said David King, one the coalition’s lawyers, in a statement following the decision. ” … We think it is beyond time to lift the veil of secrecy and ensure that all proceedings going forward are open and fully transparent.”
Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis ruled in July that GOP consultants managed to taint the redistricting process by submitting maps under the name of another individual. In his decision throwing out two congressional districts that he said were unconstitutionally gerrymandered to benefit Republicans, Lewis wrote that the documents were “very helpful to me in evaluating whether (the voting rights groups) had proved that first prong of their theory.”
The maps were later redrawn during a special session in August.
‘MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH’
The fact that Tant was upset with House members threatening a revolt against Pafford doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Depending on what you count as a decision to keep or get rid of a leader, Democrats in the chamber have made seven such decisions in the last two years.
But it was a little surprising that Tant held so little back in a lengthy criticism of those backing a rebellion by Rep. Dwayne Taylor, D-Daytona Beach. The rebellion came after Democrats lost the governor’s race and six House seats in the Nov. 4 elections.
“I’m ready for the bed-wetting to stop. You know, you can go ahead and continue to whack each other over the head about what went wrong, what didn’t go right, what we could have done better — the coulda shoulda woulda,” Tant told The News Service of Florida in an interview this week. “Meanwhile, back at the ranch, it’s a done deal!”
The statement came in a five-and-half-minute harangue aimed at the dissidents. It was a none-too-subtle message to drop the challenge before a caucus meeting Monday.
Whether that will happen is another matter entirely. Incoming Rep. Evan Jenne, D-Dania Beach, said Wednesday that Pafford has “more (votes) than he had the last time he ran,” when Pafford won on a 29-12 vote with one abstention.
Jenne said he hoped the caucus could avoid a contested election next week.
“It’s just not necessary,” he said. “The votes are where they are.”
Meanwhile, Pafford announced that he would keep Rep. Mia Jones, D-Jacksonville, as the No. 2 Democrat in the House. Rep. Darryl Rouson, a Democrat who was supposed to be leader before a fundraising dispute with Tant, narrowly defeated Jones last year when he won the initial race to head up the caucus.
“I look forward to working with Mark to solidify the caucus as one body, to recognize the importance of standing as one, and fighting as one, for the things we believe in,” Jones said in a release announcing her appointment. “Now it really becomes a greater responsibility to stand united as Democrats to fight for what’s most important to us.”
‘A PRODUCTIVE DIALOGUE’
There are many ways Thrasher could have spent his first morning as FSU president: Measuring the drapes is a popular cliché. He could have learned how the coffeemaker worked.
Instead, the 70-year-old former state senator from St. Augustine spent the first hour in his new position engaging with a group of about 25 confrontational students who had vocally opposed his recent appointment and now refuse to recognize him as the school’s new president.
If there was good news in the confrontation, it’s that the students were not uncompromising in their position toward Thrasher. Instead, they came with demands.
Those demands included ensuring that grants and agreements involving the school and the FSU Foundation were open to public review, and ending a 2008 contract the school has with the Charles Koch Foundation to help fund the economics department.
Rather than agreeing to or rejecting each item, Thrasher said he would need time to research the demands.
“As long as they want to have a productive dialogue, I’m more than willing to do it,” Thrasher said after the meeting. ” … This university, by the way, has 42,000 students, and I’m interested in all of their interests and making sure the university thrives.”
The students, who also listed in their demands that Thrasher admit he “lied” to the students about campaign funding received from the politically influential Koch bothers, called his refusal to accept their demands “insulting” and “disappointing.”
“We’re going to keep pushing the administration to protect the university from violations of academic freedom,” said Ralph Wilson, a seventh-year graduate student who is among the leaders of the student group. ” … We have to harness the power that students have, and thanks to people like John Thrasher and politicians, it’s a decreasing amount of power that students have.”
Meanwhile, the chain reaction of special elections set off by Thrasher’s resignation from his Senate seat kicked up a stampede of lawmakers and politicos hoping for their chance at legislative fame (or infamy, depending on what you think of the Legislature).
On Monday, Gov. Rick Scott set elections for Thrasher’s seat and the seats of two House members who have decided to run to succeed Thrasher. Voters will fill the seat in Senate District 6, Thrasher’s Northeast Florida district, along with the House District 17 seat held by state Rep. Ronald “Doc” Renuart, R-Ponte Vedra Beach, and the House District 24 seat held by Rep. Travis Hutson, R-Elkton.
Special primaries for the three seats would be held Jan. 27, with the special general elections set for April 7. District 17 is in St. Johns County, while District 24 includes Flagler County and parts of St. Johns and Volusia counties.
At least three Republicans were already lining up to succeed Hutson. Paul Renner, who recently moved to Palm Coast after running for a Jacksonville-area House seat, and Sheamus McNeeley of St. Augustine have both filed for the special election. Also, Palm Coast Republican Donald O’Brien has opened an account to run for the seat in 2016, a move that could be a precursor to running in the special election.
STORY OF THE WEEK: The Florida Supreme Court orders the release of redistricting records belonging to GOP consultant Pat Bainter.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “We have to marshal our energies, put on our big-girl pants and move the heck down the road. The bed-wetters need to shut up, and we need to move on.”—Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Allison Tant, on a fight within the House Democratic caucus over the leader for the coming legislative session.
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Serious Injuries In Friday Night Cantonment Crash
November 15, 2014
At least two people were transported to area hospitals as “trauma alerts” following a crash at Highway 29 and Woodland Street in Cantonment Friday night.
The two people were in a pickup involved with a collision with a passenger car. At least one was partially ejected from the truck, while the other was trapped in their vehicle following the crash.
The Ensley, Molino and McDavid stations of Escambia Fire Rescue responded to the crash, along with the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office and Escambia County EMS. The accident remains under investigation by the Florida Highway Patrol; further details have not been released.
NorthEscambia.com photos by Kristi Price, click to enlarge.
