Kiosks Could Help Floridians Get Access To Legal Aid
May 18, 2015
People needing help with divorces, foreclosures or child support could use public computers at libraries, shopping malls or courthouses as a type of legal “triage” under a proposal approved by the Florida Commission on Access to Civil Justice.
Also, non-lawyers could provide courtroom assistance to poor and middle-income people under another idea considered by the panel, the brainchild of Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Jorge Labarga.
Labarga created the commission to explore ways to increase access to the courts for indigent or working-poor Floridians as financial support for legal-aid programs has shriveled over the past few years. While funding has declined, demands for court services — including cases involving foreclosure, domestic violence and child support — have increased.
At the commission’s second meeting, the panel unanimously approved the creation of a “statewide gateway portal” as an entry point to enable users to figure out what kinds of legal help they need.
“The statewide portal will be a software-based access point that would be in libraries, courthouses, shopping malls that would be the point at which a person with a legal problem could go find someone to solve their problem, or even get forms or education to find out how to do it themselves,” said commission member William Van Nortwick, a Jacksonville lawyer and former appellate .
Individuals could access the portal through kiosks, public libraries or public computers in courthouses by the end of the year in certain areas, Van Nortwick said.
Unlike other professions, lawyers have been slow to embrace technology, said Florida International University College of Law Dean Alex Acosta. Some studies have shown that 80 percent of the legal needs in Florida are unmet.
“We could double the size of legal services. We could triple the size of legal services. We’re still not going to be able to address the need,” Acosta said. “Lawyers alone I don’t think are going to be able to fix this. Lawyers are afraid. What’s going to happen to our profession as it changes? We need to get over that fear.”
Labarga created the panel last year just days before the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case about whether attorneys should foot the bill for increasing demands for legal aid through a hike in annual Bar fees. The court has not yet ruled on the issue.
The commission is also exploring whether to allow non-lawyers to accompany people to court, something that can be a daunting process, especially for those in crisis. Labarga pointed to courtroom “navigators” programs in New York and California as examples of what Florida could implement.
Labarga also praised a New York program that allows law-school graduates to take the Bar exam early if they perform 50 hours of pro bono assistance.
A wholesale restructuring of the way legal services are provided — and who offers them — might be hard for the profession to accept, Labarga conceded.
“Change is something that is very difficult. As an example, I just issued a new rule of judicial administration that requires judges to wear black robes. I’m getting resistance from some judges. They don’t like to be told what to do. I’m sorry, but we need uniformity,” he said. “It’s going to be difficult. But we’re hoping that eventually things will change and these people can have representation.”
Labarga, who came to the U.S. from Cuba as a child, kicked off the three-hour meeting by asking why access to social justice is a problem that affects all of society.
“As we have a growing wealth disparity in this country, people work harder but they’re not getting ahead. If they can’t resolve their legal problems, they will resolve it another way,” said Florida Bar Foundation President Emerson Thompson. “The appearance of justice is just as important as justice. …You have to have some place where people feel like they’re getting a fair shake. We can see what happens in a community where people think the courts or the police aren’t fair.”
Labarga used his native country’s history under a dictator “with an ugly beard and a horrible tailor” to illustrate the threat of inequality in the justice system.
Cuba and the U.S. had nearly identical constitutions prior to Fidel Castro’s takeover, the chief justice said.
“Constitutions are basically just words on paper. At the end of the day, it is up to we the people to make it work. In Cuba, it did not work because the people did not believe that the rule of law” would prevail, he said. “In this country, we expect the rule of law to be held … and when the rule of law fails, look what happened in Cuba. And right now I fear that many people in this country … feel that the rule of law is for somebody else. It’s not for me.”
The commission also discussed the importance of educating businesses about how legal problems can affect their workers as a way of getting corporations to underwrite legal aid. Also on the table: steering money left over from settlements in class-action lawsuits to legal aid organizations.
The committee will meet again in September before providing its final report in October.
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Mississippi Downs The Wahoos In Second Straight Game
May 18, 2015
The Pensacola Blue Wahoos love the grass and spectacular waterfront view at Pensacola Bayfront Stadium as much as the fans.
But after a second heartbreaking loss to the Mississippi Braves, 3-2, in 10 innings they are now 6-12 at home and 9-10 on the road.
Pensacola came through in the ninth inning with two runs to tie the game up with Mississippi at 2-2 and send it into extra innings Sunday in front of the 112th sellout crowd of 5,038 fans in 219 games since the team opened its gates in April 2012.
The night before on Saturday, Pensacola loaded the bases in its final at-bat with no outs but couldn’t get a run across and lost that game, 1-0.
“Obviously, it’s a little tough to lose like we have the past couple of games,” said Adleman, the Blue Wahoos starter who posted 17 straight scoreless innings dating back to his relief appearance May 1. “A loss is a loss. Both of them were pretty tough.”
Adleman’s scoreless streak ended when third baseman Rio Ruiz doubled in right fielder Chris O’Dowd for a 1-0 Mississippi lead in the fifth inning. It was only the second run that Adleman has given up in May. He threw seven innings, allowing four hits and two walks and striking out five.
Still, Pensacola had a chance to win after tying the game, 2-2, in the ninth inning when catcher Kyle Skipworth doubled and scored on center fielder Juan Silva’s hopper that went down the right field line bouncing off Mississippi first baseman Seth Loman’s glove to make the score, 2-1. Marquez Smith then got all of a fly ball to center that scored pinch runner Beau Amaral from third to knot it, 2-2.
Mississippi came right back in the 10th inning, though, when center fielder Mallex Smith singled in second baseman Eric Garcia to put the Braves back on top, 3-2.
Braves reliever Tyler Jones came on in relief in the 10th and stuck out Ryan Wright, Jesse Winker and Kyle Waldrop—the heart of the Blue Wahoos lineup—for his second save of the season and Mississippi’s second straight win of the five-game series. Wright, Winker and Waldrop were a combined 1-15 for five Ks and two ground outs into double plays.
Pensacola Manager Pat Kelly said the Blue Wahoos have just run into two of Mississippi’s best pitchers—Tyrell Jenkins, the Braves No. 12 prospect, Sunday and Jason Hursh, the No. 6 prospect in the organization on Saturday.
Kelly expects the Pensacola offense to pick up again where it left off when the Blue Wahoos won seven of eight games before its recent homestand.
“We have to tip our cap to their pitching,” Kelly said. “They really pitched our left-handers tough. We face two pretty good pitchers.”
The Parts Of Dying No One Talks About – Esquire Magazine Features Northview Graduate
May 17, 2015
It’s not often that a local resident is featured in major national publication. The May edition of Esquire magazine features an article about Nicole Rolin Teague, Northview High School graduate.
Nicole Rolin, a native of Poarch, was a member of Northview’s first graduating class in 1996. She went on to marry Matthew Teague, and they resided in Fairhope. At the young age of 34, as the mother of two beautiful children, she received the devastating news that she she cancer. Not just cancer. But cancer everywhere in her abdomen. Everywhere.
Hundreds, thousands of us followed her battle in person, through friends, or through the internet. There were the moments of improvement, those glimmers of hope, that we saw. But in between those moments of perceived improvement and her death at age 36, were the parts where the cancer reared its ugly head, the parts of dying that no one talks about.
Matthew penned a lengthy essay for Esquire magazine about what watching his loved one dying was really like. It was not “she slipped away peacefully in her sleep”. It was not “she felt no pain”. It was not pretty.
“We don’t tell each other the truth about dying, as a people. Not real dying. Real dying, regular and mundane dying, is so hard and so ugly that it becomes the worst thing of all: It’s grotesque. It’s undignified. No one ever told me the truth about it, not once,” Matthew wrote in Esquire.
We preface the link to the Esquire article by saying this…
The article is long. You’ll want to allow time to sit, read and digest. You’ll want a fresh box of Kleenex. It will be nauseatingly painful to read; it will tear at the core of your being.
If you knew Nicole, you may not want to read it. If you didn’t know Nicole, you still may not want to read it. It is, as Matthew wrote, “the parts of dying that no one talks about”.
It is painful, it is vile, it is brutal, it is raw, it is without dignity, it is offensive, it is unbearable. It will alter your very soul.
You have been warned. Cancer sucks.
Matthew Teague’s article in the May 2015 Esquire magazine about the life stolen from his wife, 1995 Northview High graduate Nicole Rolin Teague: How My Friend Saved Me When Death Took the Mother of My Children.
Reimagine Century Breathes New Life Into A Community In Need
May 17, 2015
Reimagine Century’s goal was to breathe new life into Century, where the faithful reached out to touch the hearts and lives of area residents in need.
The event included a wide variety of activities, including a 15,000 pound food giveaway, health screenings, AIDS testing, diabetes information, live music, fishing lessons from Mission Fishin’, free manicures, information from community agencies, a clothing giveaway, free lunch, and more.
Reimagine Century is sponsored in part by numerous organizations, including NorthEscambia.com.
Pictured: Saturday morning at Reimagine Century. NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Florida Republicans Approve Winner Takes All Primary
May 17, 2015
The Republican Party of Florida’s executive board formally voted Saturday to make the state’s presidential primary a winner-take-all contest, meaning whoever carries Florida will get 99 delegates to the Republican National Convention.
Party leaders hope the move, made possible by legislation approved this spring, will bring more attention to the state. “The road to the White House runs through Florida,” party Chairman Blaise Ingoglia said in a statement released after the board approved the change in a closed session. “This now confirms that the road to the Republican nomination for president will run through Florida as well.”
Earlier in the day, Ingoglia demurred when asked whether the change could favor U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio or former Gov. Jeb Bush, two Florida figures in the nomination fight.
“I think a winner-take-all favors the person who wins,” said Ingoglia, whose party is remaining neutral in the race. In March, the Legislature unanimously approved moving the 2016 presidential primaries back two weeks, to March 15, so that the party could make the contest winner-take-all without running afoul of national GOP rules.
Democratic Party delegates are awarded proportionally regardless of when a state’s primary is held.
by The News Service of Florida
Firefighters Battle Saturday Wildfire
May 17, 2015
Firefighters from Beulah and Bellview battled a brush fire on Hurst Hammock Road Saturday, along with the Florida Division of Forestry. There was no word on the cause of the fire. Photos by Dalton Young for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Perry Receives UWF Award For Historical Writing
May 17, 2015
Tate High graduate Austin Perry has received the University of West Florida’s Carolyn A. Knefely Award for Excellence in Writing.
Perry studied history at UWF from January 2011 until graduating in May 2015. During that time, he also studied Arabic as a part of UWF’s foreign language program.
His focus in the history department was Western European history with a strong emphasis on English history and the history of the Church from the late 1300’s through the Reformation.
Perry received the Carolyn Knefely Award for his paper “Catherine of Siena: The Politics of Mysticism” that he completed as a part of Dr. Marie Therese Champagne’s Medieval Women course. His research focused on the depiction of St. Catherine of Siena by comparing her own writings with those of her biographer, Raymond of Capua, in addition to exploring the political nature of his biography.
Perry’s other historical interests include Anglo-Saxon society during the Norman Conquest, Western Christianity from the Great Schism through the early Protestant Reformation, and modern British society and subcultures. Perry plans to teach history at the high school level and eventually return for graduate school.
Top Achievers Honored During Annual Northview FFA Banquet
May 17, 2015
The Northview High School FFA held their 18th annual banquet Friday night.
The event includes a somber retirement ceremony for the chapter’s graduating senior officer…Tiffani Cruce slowly removed her signature blue FFA jacket and hung it up for the last time.
The night also included many awards for Northview FFA members and supporters.
Awards and honors presented included:
Extemporaneous Speaking: Tiffani Cruce
Prepared Public Speaking: Mitchell Singleton
Parliamentary Procedure: Mitchell Singleton, Haylee Weaver, Courtney Weekley, Bethany Reynolds, Moriah McGahan, and Cody Kite
Safe Tractor Operations: Hunter Kite
Agricultural Mechanics: Hunter Kite, Tiffani Cruce, Zach Steele, and Jack Parr
Livestock Evaluation: Courtney Weekley, Haylee Weaver, Grady Rigby, Mitchell Singleton, and Cole Hassebrock
Horse Evaluation: Bethany Reynolds, Tamara Barrows, Kaitlyn Kleinatland, Zach Steele, and Hunter Kite
Beef Showmanship: Austin Cunningham and Haylee Weaver
Swine Showmanship: Tabitha Chavers and Wesley Hardin
Forestry: Kaitlyn Kleinatland, Jacob Johnson, Tabitha Chavers, Grady Rigby, Hunter Kite, Cody Kite, Charlie Shacchle, Dalton Hadley, and Wesley Hardin.
Essay Contest: Courtney Weekley and Haylee Weaver. Haylee Weaver received 2nd place.
Honorary Members: Sharon Kite, Dwayne and Lisa Singleton, Linda Till, and Kay Campbell
Blue and Gold Awards: Kaitlyn Klienatland, Bethany Reynolds, Courtney Weekley
Outstanding Freshman and Star Greenhand: Donnie Dixon
Outstanding Sophomore: Mitchell Singleton
Outstanding Junior: Haylee Weaver
Outstanding Senior/Dekalb Agriculture Accomplishment Award: Tiffani Cruce
High Point Award: Haylee Weaver
Tommy Weaver Scholarship: Tiffani Cruce
Northview FFA Alumni Scholarship: Tiffani Cruce
Walnut Hill Ruritan-Glynn Key Scholarship: Tiffani Cruce
The new Northview FFA officers for the 2014-2015 school year were named: President- Haylee Weaver, Vice President- Mitchell Singleton, 2nd Vice President- Bethany Reynolds, Secretary- Courtney Weekley, Treasurer- Tamara Barrows, Reporter- Kaitlyn Kleinatland, Sentinel- Tabitha Chavers, Chaplain- Cody Kite, Historian- Donnie Dixon, Photographer- Breanna Campbell, and Public Relations- Emma Fennell.
The Northview High School FFA has been continuously honored at top chapter in Florida and the nation.
Pictured top: New Northview FFA honorary members Linda Tell, Sharon Kite, and Lisa and Dwayne Singleton (not pictured Kay Campell). Pictured inset: Retiring senior office Tiffani Cruce.
Mississippi Ends The Blue Wahoos’ Win Streak
May 17, 2015
The Pensacola Blue Wahoos looked good in its special jerseys by marine artist Guy Harvey with the big game fish seemingly swimming off of the front.
When they loaded the bases with none out on three straight singles in the bottom of the ninth inning, they felt even better. With a four-game win streak on the line, the fans and players just knew, just knew the team would win a fifth in the row.
Up to the plate came Pensacola catcher Kyle Skipworth, who reached base in his first three plate appearances. However, after fouling four straight pitches off with two strikes, Skipworth struck out on the ninth pitch from Mississippi Braves reliever Ryan Kelly.
A pop out to shortstop and strike out later and Mississippi stole a, 1-0, victory from the jaws of the Blue Wahoos in front of a sellout crowd of 5,038 at Pensacola Bayfront Stadium. The Braves lone run came in the first inning on a homer—his first of the season—that was crushed by 6-4, 230-pound right fielder David Rohm that appeared to fly about four feet over a leaping Jesse Winker’s glove at the wall.
Pensacola starter Keyvius Sampson, who picked up the loss (1-2), threw six innings, gave up three hits, walked three and struck out five. He lowered his ERA to 2.05.
No one was rooting harder than Sampson in the locker room, where he was icing his arm, for Pensacola to score in the ninth.
“You never want one pitch to decide the game,” Sampson said afterward. “I was inside rooting for them. Our team could have easily gave in and gone 1-2-3 and called it a day but they kept fighting.”
The Braves looked like they would score again in the fourth inning but catcher Matt Kennelly was gunned down by a perfect throw at the plate by Blue Wahoos center fielder Beau Amaral.
Mississippi pitcher Jason Hursh, the Braves No. 6 prospect, matched Sampson inning for inning. After allowing five or more runs in four of his last five outings, Hursh threw six scoreless innings against Pensacola, giving up three hits, one walk and striking out four.
Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: Whose Special Session Is It Anyway?
May 17, 2015
There was a time, as recently as the meltdown of the regular legislative session, when Gov. Rick Scott was accused of taking a hands-off approach to running the state.
House and Senate lawmakers were in a standoff about expanding health-care coverage. Scott, meanwhile, was flying to California to promote Florida and making appearances to tout the opening of a Wawa convenience store in Fort Myers and the Orlando Eye, a giant Ferris wheel.
Now, some people in the Capitol might be looking back at those times fondly.
SCOTT WINS THE HEADLINES
Legislative budget chiefs quietly sat down this week to start working out the details of an upcoming special session and, more important, to determine if detente is possible in the state’s cold war over health-care funding.
But it is Scott who has been trying to set the tone for the special session. And he’s been doing so in a manner that warms the hearts of headline writers.
After earlier calling for hospitals to share profits like Major League Baseball teams, Scott, a well-heeled former hospital executive, kicked off this week by cobbling together a commission — made up mostly by people with limited medical experience — to examine the economics of health care and hospitals in Florida.
Scott would later give hospitals and health insurers less than a week to provide a wide range of data, including information about local tax revenues and average costs per patient per day, to help the commission in its research.
Scott also went to Washington, D.C., where he got U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., to agree to have the House Energy & Commerce Committee look into the governor’s allegations that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is trying to illegally coerce Florida into accepting Medicaid expansion.
“They want us to take on more of Obamacare,” Scott said in a release. “They want us to adopt their policy the way they want us to — or else. This is the Sopranos.”
Scott also stopped by FOX News while in Washington, where he said that a massive tax-cut package and his push for a “historic” increase in education funding could be in jeopardy due to the Legislature’s health care-fueled budget impasse.
“We’ll just do what we’ve done this last year,” Scott said during an interview with Greta Van Susteren. “We won’t put more money into schools, which I wanted to do. We won’t cut taxes, which I wanted to do. We’ll just leave the money there and deal with it in our next session, which starts in January.”
Once back in the Sunshine State, Scott raised the possibility that state government could shut down July 1 because of the impasse. He also called on state agency leaders to outline essential services that would need to be funded through what he calls a “continuation budget” if lawmakers fail to craft a fiscal plan, and he took an apparent preemptive shot at the Senate for the budget problems.
“While we have asked the federal government for guidance on what health-care access proposals they would approve at no cost to Florida taxpayers, it is possible that Florida Senate President Andy Gardiner and the Florida Senate will not agree to any budget without the specific expansion of Medicaid (at a cost to state taxpayers of $5 billion over 10 years),” Scott wrote in his letter to agency heads.
Scott has sided with the House in opposing a Senate plan that would use federal Medicaid money to offer private health insurance to hundreds of thousands of low-income residents. The Senate plan stems, at least in part, from the scheduled June 30 expiration of the $2.2 billion Low Income Pool program, which sends money to hospitals and other medical providers that care for large numbers of low-income patients.
Earlier this month, the governor filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration to attempt to block federal officials from factoring whether the state has expanded Medicaid into their decision about extending the so-called LIP program. Federal officials say that they don’t want LIP to pay for the medical expenses of Floridians who could otherwise be covered by Medicaid.
But there has been a lot of head-scratching in Tallahassee as to Scott’s ultimate endgame.
“Florida’s constitution assigns the role of developing a state budget to the Legislature,” Katie Betta, a spokesman for Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, wrote in an email.
Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, told the Times/Herald Tallahassee bureau that Scott’s approach is “unfortunate.”
“Raising the specter of a government shutdown is not necessary at this point, and it’s meant to put political pressure on the Senate. … It’s hard for the governor to be a broker for a solution when he takes one side like this,” Latvala told the Times/Herald.
WATER OFFICIALS DOUSE CHARLIE’S SWEET DEAL
For months, legislative leaders have voiced opposition to moving forward with a deal worked out by former Gov. Charlie Crist to buy U.S. Sugar Corp. land in the Everglades.
Still, the door never appeared completely closed to environmentalists and South Florida residents, who continued to press to use money from the voter-approved constitutional initiative known as Amendment 1 to buy the land — with an estimated cost of $500 million — south of Lake Okeechobee before an October deadline.
That was until Thursday.
The South Florida Water Management District Governing Board unanimously voted to terminate an option for the U.S. Sugar land that was part of Crist’s $1 billion Everglades restoration proposal.
Board member James Moran, a Wellington attorney appointed by Scott, called the deal “a boondoggle from the day it was signed.”
“The initial purchase that was exercised in 2010 was for almost $200 million — most of which we took from our reserves here — and we ended up with land which we couldn’t even use for the purpose for which it was purchased,” Moran said.
Everglades Foundation Chief Executive Officer Eric Eikenberg said efforts will continue to restore the Everglades, to find land to serve as reservoirs and flow ways and to move more water south from the lake. But he added that the district’s action would have better served the state back in January.
“I think we would have had more time to come up with an alternative plan,” Eikenberg said. “Now what happens is this puts more of a spotlight on the upcoming special session and what steps we’re going to take with this important project.”
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “We’re clearly not going to see anything in regards to reforming the program in the special session. But I’m hopeful that, while we continue to work on updating and reforming the program, that we won’t allow it to die on the vine in the first place.” — Gus Corbella, chairman of the Florida Film and Entertainment Advisory Council, holding out hope that lawmakers will improve incentives for film and television production in the state.
by Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida