Governor’s Race Debate Blown Away By Crist, Scott Dispute Over Fan
October 16, 2014
After tens of millions of dollars worth of television commercials and the slinging of massive amounts of mud, could the Florida gubernatorial election come down to an electric fan?
In the latest strange chapter in the always-fascinating politics of Florida, Gov. Rick Scott skipped the first few minutes of a televised debate Wednesday with his Democratic challenger, former Gov. Charlie Crist, because of the presence of an electric fan at Crist’s feet.
Actually, debate organizers were unsure at first whether either of the candidates would be on stage, though Crist strode out as moderator Eliott Rodriguez tried to explain the situation to the audience.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have an extremely peculiar situation right now,” Rodriguez said.
Scott eventually came out as well, but the incident brought a whole new meaning to the “spin room,” where surrogates for the two candidates gathered and tried to make sense of a nonsensical turn of events.
The Crist camp’s description of events: They had learned that after an event last week featuring CNN anchor Candy Crowley, the stage at the remodeled venue, Bailey Hall at Broward College, was described as uncomfortably warm. Debate organizers promised to fix the problem — with fans if necessary.
“They said they were going to fix it,” said former state Sen. Dan Gelber, who signed the debate agreement on Crist’s behalf. “And they said … if they don’t, they’ll have something available.”
The Crist campaign quickly produced the copy of the rules they signed, where Gelber had written in “with understanding that the debate hosts will address any temperature issues with a fan if necessary.”
But Scott’s supporters countered that the fan violated the rules of the debate, and Rodriguez said in the opening moments of the debate that a copy of the rules showed to him by the incumbent’s campaign indicated the fan shouldn’t be on the stage.
In fact, Scott’s camp said, it was Crist who threatened to pull the plug on the event if the fan was not plugged in.
“When I got here today for this debate, I was told that Charlie Crist was going to cancel the debate, because unless there was a fan on that stage, he would not come out,” said U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. “So I think that Governor Scott was waiting to see if Charlie would actually pull that off or not.”
Scott and others said he didn’t immediately take the stage at the beginning of the debate because he wanted to make sure Crist did.
Crist’s nearly ubiquitous fan was already famous, memorialized by a Twitter account and obsessed over by MSNBC host Chris Matthews. Rubio said that “a similar incident” happened in a 2010 Senate debate between himself, former Democratic Congressman Kendrick Meek and Crist, then running as an independent, when Meek complained about the fan.
Both campaigns tried to blow off the issue Wednesday night, but only after scoring a few political points from it.
“What looked bad was this bizarre incident tonight where Charlie Crist insisted on ignoring the rules of a debate, just like he’s ignored the rules time and again when it comes to telling the truth about what he stands for on issue after issue,” Rubio said.
“Charlie Crist can bring his fan, microwave, and toaster to debates — none of that will cover up how sad his record as governor was compared to the success of Rick Scott,” Scott campaign manager Melissa Sellers said in a statement issued after the debate, an apparent effort at damage control. “Crist should buy a fan for the 832,000 Floridians who lost their jobs while he was governor.”
Crist’s campaign said Scott was afraid to address issues.
“I think it’s outrageous that he’s worried about that when he’s not worried about a million Floridians without health insurance, he’s not worried about teachers, he’s not worried about my kid who goes to a public school,” said Annette Taddeo, Crist’s running mate. “That’s what he should be worried about, not about a fan.”
Both candidates addressed the fan flap near the end of the debate, with Crist defending having his cooling system on hand.
“Is there anything wrong with being comfortable?” Crist said. “I don’t think there is.”
Once the debate did begin, the candidates continued the squabbling that started in television commercials and carried through a debate last week at Spanish-language broadcaster Telemundo.
“That’s not true,” Scott said at one point during a discussion of insurance rates.
“Oh, it’s true,” Crist shot back.
Crist once again brought up a years-old deposition in a civil case where Scott invoked his right not to incriminate himself 75 times.
“That is not the kind of leadership that Florida deserves,” Crist said.
In response to a question about gay marriage, Scott noted Crist’s evolving position on the issue — part of a narrative seeking to portray Crist as a habitual flip-flopper.
“We don’t actually know what Charlie believes on this issue, because he’s taken every side of this issue,” Scott said.
But most of the talk on social media and at the debate venue concerned the fan — and whether or not it will make any difference.
“It’s funny, but in terms of pushing people, I doubt it,” said Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida. “But it may make them watch the next one.”
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Free Hunter Safety Course Offered In Santa Rosa County
October 16, 2014
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) is offering a free hunter safety course in Santa Rosa County.
The class will be heldat Avalon Middle School, 5445 King Arthur’s Way, Milton. Instruction will be from 6-10 p.m. Oct. 21, 23, 28 and 30. The range portion of the class is Nov. 1 from 7-10 a.m.
An adult must accompany children under the age of 16 at all times. Students should bring a pencil and paper with them to take notes.
Anyone born on or after June 1, 1975, must pass an approved hunter safety course and have a hunting license to hunt alone (unsupervised). The FWC course satisfies hunter-safety training requirements for all other states and Canadian provinces.
People interested in attending this course can register online and obtain information about future hunter safety classes at MyFWC.com/HunterSafety or by calling Hunter Safety Coordinator Will Burnett at the FWC’s regional office in Panama City at 850-265-3676.
Molino Bar Wants Noise Ordinance Waived For Veteran’s Event
October 15, 2014
A Molino bar is asking the Escambia County Commission to waive the county’s noise ordinance for an all-day Veteran’s Remembrance Event and Ceremony.
The event is planned for 8 a.m. until midnight on Saturday, November 8 at Louie’s Tavern at 271 Molino Road. The event, according to the establishment’s application, is a “remembrance to celebrate life and remember the fallen”.
If approved the Escambia County Commission at their Thursday meeting, a special event permit will be issued.
Escambia Sample Ballots In The Mail
October 15, 2014
Sample ballots for the November 4 General election are being mailed to Escambia County voters beginning this week. according to Supervisor of Elections David Stafford. The sample ballot includes a ballot image, the voter’s polling location and information on early voting, absentee voting, and voting on Election Day. Sample ballots are also available at EscambiaVotes.com.
Early voting will begin Monday, October 20 and continue through Saturday, November 1.
Man Gets 15 Years For Fatal Cantonment DUI Crash
October 15, 2014
A Cantonment man has been sentenced to prison for a November 2013 traffic crash that claimed the life of his 54-year old passenger.
Melvin Lewis Pryear was sentenced by Circuit Judge Erwin Fleet to 15 years in state prison for DUI manslaughter and to one concurrent year in the county jail for DUI property damage for the death of Albertina McCarty of Pensacola
Pryear was driving under the influence when he pulled into the path of a 18-wheeler at Highway 29 and Muscogee Road near International Paper last November. The Florida Highway Patrol said that according to multiple witnesses, both north and southbound Highway 29 had a green light, but there was no green turn arrow for Pryear.
The front of the 18-wheeler struck Pryear’s vehicle causing it to rotate onto the southbound shoulder at the Raceway gas station. McCarty, Pryear’s passenger, was pronounced deceased at the scene by Escambia County EMS.
Pryear had a blood alcohol level of .196 which is over twice the legal limit. He also tested positive for use of marijuana.
Escambia Awarded $266K In Defense Related Grants
October 15, 2014
Governor Rick Scott ha announced that Escambia County and the Pensacola Chamber were awarded $266,000 through Florida’s Defense Infrastructure and Reinvestment Grant Programs. The funding will diversify the local economy, enhance military missions at Naval Air Station Pensacola and protect the installation from encroachment.
Governor Scott said, “Our investment of more than $260,000 in Escambia County to protect the jobs and quality of life for Escambia families is essential to the area. We thank Florida’s service men and women for their dedication to protecting Florida families and we will continue to support our military families.”
For more than 15 years the defense grants have been successful tools in assisting local defense partners in supporting the State’s military installations. Florida’s military and defense sector is responsible for 9.4 percent – or $73.4 billion – of the Sunshine State’s economy. This translates to 758,112 statewide direct and indirect jobs.
Escambia County was one of 12 counties to receive a Defense Reinvestment Grant, which is designed to support relationships between military installations and their community.
Escambia County was awarded $200,000 for the purpose of encroachment protection, and the Pensacola Chamber was awarded $66,000.
“Escambia County appreciates the continued financial support from Enterprise Florida’s Defense Infrastructure Grants which help protect the valuable military mission of NAS Pensacola. Working with the Pensacola Chamber of Commerce and NAS Pensacola, we are able to prioritize and purchase land adjacent to NAS Pensacola to reduce building density and buffer the base,” said Taylor Kirschenfeld, Escambia County Water Quality and Land Management Division.
Ascend, International Paper To Help Purchase Escambia County Mass Notification System
October 15, 2014
Escambia County Emergency Management, the Escambia County Health Department, ECUA, International Paper and Ascend Performance Materials are teaming up to purchase an emergency notification system.
Escambia County’s EMA has found it necessary to replace its current mass notification system that allows it to communicate with the public and other agencies and entities during emergencies.
The agencies and companies will purchase of a new internet-based mass notification system subscription at a total cost of $67,375 for a July 1 to June 30 period. Each party will contribute equally toward the annual subscription price.
The first subscription year will be prorated for eight months from November 1 to June 30, with each party contributing $8,983.20. Next year’s annual subscription will cost each party $13,475.
Escambia County will utilize federal grant funds to pay for its share of the total subscription cost. The county commission is expected to approve the plan at their Thursday meeting.
Escambia County Teachers, Support Personnel Get 4 Percent Pay Raise
October 15, 2014
Teachers in Escambia County are getting a pay raise.
The Escambia County School District, the Escambia Education Association and the Union of Escambia Education Support Personnel announced that they have reached a collective bargaining agreement that will give a four-percent pay raise to all teachers and educational support personnel.
The pay increase will be retroactive to July 1, 2014.
In addition, the school district and the EEA also reached agreement on a Performance Pay Formula to comply with Florida law.
AG Bondi Says Florida Justices Should Decide Gay Marriage Fight
October 15, 2014
Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday filed a court document arguing that the Florida Supreme Court should decide the constitutionality of the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.
The document, filed in the 3rd District Court of Appeal and first reported by The Miami Herald, comes after the U.S. Supreme Court last week declined to take up similar same-sex marriage cases from five other states.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision effectively allowed same-sex marriage to occur in those states because lower courts had found bans unconstitutional. State circuit judges in South Florida earlier this year declared Florida’s ban unconstitutional. That led Bondi’s office to appeal to the 3rd District Court of Appeal.
The request filed Monday would lead to the appeal going straight to the Florida Supreme Court, a move that same-sex marriage supporters also have backed.
“To date, no appellate court in Florida has ruled on the important issue this case presents,” the document said. “Florida’s citizens need a definitive answer, and they need it sooner rather than later.”
Separately, however, a Tallahassee federal judge in August found Florida’s ban unconstitutional. Gay-rights supporters have asked the federal judge to lift a stay on his ruling and allow same-sex marriages to be recognized in the state. That request is pending.
by The News Service of Florida
Pot Amendment: For Debilitating Diseases Or ‘Disingenuous’?
October 15, 2014
For former House Speaker Jon Mills, crafting a constitutional amendment that would allow doctors to order pot for extremely ill patients was an opportunity for the onetime University of Florida law-school dean to flex his legal know-how.
But the academic exercise became more personal a year after he started work on Amendment 2, one of three constitutional proposals going before voters this year.
Mills, diagnosed with lymphoma in 2013, is one of the amendment proponents debating the merits of allowing physicians to order marijuana for patients like him.
Opponents of the measure, led by the Florida Sheriffs Association, argue that the proposal is riddled with loopholes that will result in “a joint in every backpack” in Florida schools, legitimize drug dealers and enable doctors to order weed for a sore throat.
After his diagnosis, Mills underwent painful radiation treatment. His doctor ordered powerful narcotics, but, after taking just one, Mills said he decided he would rather suffer the pain than the discombobulation caused by oxycodone.
“I tried it and I hated it,” Mills, a Democrat who served as House speaker in the late 1980s and is now the director of the University of Florida Center for Governmental Responsibility.
The amendment would allow doctors to order marijuana for patients with debilitating conditions listed in the full text of the proposal — such as cancer, glaucoma, HIV, AIDS and hepatitis C — or “other conditions for which a physician believes that the medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the potential health risks for a patient.”
That’s a major sticking point for opponents, who use Mills’ own words last year before the Florida Supreme Court to poke holes in the proposal.
Justices asked Mills to explain what patients might tell doctors trying to determine whether their “other conditions” qualify for the marijuana treatment.
“I have throat pain, I can’t sleep, I’m having a problem eating …” a patient might say, Mills told the justices in December.
A clip of Mills’s response is highlighted in one of the many videos released by Drug Free Florida, a political committee funded heavily by Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who’s pumped $4 million into fighting the proposed amendment.
“Those aren’t debilitating diseases. This is how they created the pot-for-anyone-who-wants-it loophole,” an ad asserts.
Mills said his comments were taken out of context and that the conditions he described — extreme throat pain and inability to sleep or eat — were his own.
“That wasn’t an abstract concept. That was my personal experience. I guarantee you the inability to eat or sleep was debilitating,” he said.
In a 4-3 opinion, the Florida Supreme Court agreed with Mills, deciding that the “other conditions” language in Amendment 2 is not misleading to voters.
But Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, a former president of the the Florida Sheriffs Association, pooh-poohed Mills’ arguments and the Supreme Court ruling. Seven former Supreme Court justices have joined the coalition fighting the measure, Judd noted.
“What else is Jon Mills going to say because he wrote it? He knows good and well that the loopholes are there because he wrote the loopholes into it. For him to say otherwise is disingenuous. They are there. They’re clear and they’re convincing,” Judd said. “Amendment 2 is not just about the very sick and the debilitated. If it were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. It’s about the loopholes. It’s all about the loopholes. It’s just a bunch of hooey.”
Opponents of the proposal like Judd offer a parade of horribles encountered by California and Oregon after legalizing medical marijuana. According to Judd, the average patient in California is a 32-year-old white male.
“That’s not a sick population,” he said.
The pot proposal has created a dilemma for Republican leaders. Making medical marijuana legal received broad support from Florida voters, including Republicans, in a variety of polls earlier this year. But that support has dropped in the wake of television attack ads, giving hope to opponents that the proposal will fail to garner the 60 percent support of voters required for any constitutional amendment to pass in Florida.
GOP legislative leaders, including outgoing House Speaker Will Weatherford, have lined up against the amendment. In a maneuver aimed in part at curtailing support for the proposal, the Legislature this spring legalized strains of pot that purportedly do not get users high but are believed to alleviate life-threatening seizures in children with epilepsy.
That new law, backed by the sheriffs association, would allow doctors to order cannabis that is low in euphoria-inducing tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, and high in cannabadiol, or CBD, for patients who suffer from severe muscle spasms — like the epileptic children — or cancer. This year was the first that the GOP-controlled Legislature gave any marijuana-related bills a vetting.
The proposal before voters on Nov. 4 would also allow caregivers to administer medical marijuana to up to five patients and require the Department of Health to issue identification cards to patients eligible for the treatment and to caregivers. Also, it would create a database of patients and register medical marijuana treatment centers, which would distribute the pot. The amendment would give the department six months to implement rules and nine months to get the program up and running.
Some of the most-recent rows over the proposal focus not on its merits but on the personalities involved.
John Morgan, an Orlando trial attorney who has spent nearly $4 million of his own money getting the proposal onto the November ballot and pushing its passage, has become a flashpoint in the debate over the measure. Morgan — Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Charlie Crist’s boss — has been accused of maneuvering the amendment onto the November ballot to propel Crist’s chances for victory.
But Morgan insists that he threw his support behind the measure because of his father, who suffered from cancer and emphysema, and his brother Tim, partially paralyzed due to injuries sustained as a teen-aged lifeguard when he dove into concrete pylons while trying to rescue a swimmer. Joining his brother in promoting the proposal, the wheelchair-bound Tim Morgan is open about his use of marijuana to curb the pain and muscle spasms caused by his injuries.
In one of many appearances around the state, John Morgan was caught on tape delivering a boozy, expletive-laced monologue to what appears to be a crowd of young supporters at a bar after a rally in the Lakeland area.
The anti-Amendment 2 group quickly used the tape to blast Morgan and the amendment, and the Republican Party of Florida also jumped on the attack, linking Morgan to Crist.
The brash Morgan accuses Judd and other medical marijuana naysayers of using a “1950s, reefer madness mentality” to plant fear in the minds of voters.
He scoffs when asked if passage will result in “a joint in every backpack,” something Jacksonville Sheriff John Rutherford frequently asserts. The proposal does not restrict doctors from ordering marijuana as a treatment for patients under the age of 18, which opponents say is yet another loophole.
“Sheriff Rutherford doesn’t understand reality. And reality is that children have marijuana now. There’s a school in Orlando where it’s so bad that they’re now drug testing the children and if you fail it twice you’re kicked out,” Morgan said.
Like other drugs, minors could not get orders for weed filled without their parents’ permission, amendment proponents say.
But Judd argues that parents who want pot for themselves could get a doctor to order it for their children, and he also refers to medical research showing that marijuana can harm developing brains.
He rattles off a laundry list of other loopholes in the amendment, each rejected by Mills or Morgan. Both sides trot out statistics and medical experts to support their positions.
Like Morgan, Judd also uses his personal experience in the effort to kill the amendment, which he calls “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Legalizing pot will lead to more drug addiction, which destroys families, Judd said, describing a typical conversation he has had with parents over his four decades in law enforcement.
“They say, ‘Sheriff, I’ve ran through my insurance money. I’ve ran through all my savings. My child’s out on the street some place tonight and I’m scared they’re going to die. Would you please go find them and arrest them because at least I’ll know they’re safe in jail?’” Judd said. “You don’t need many of those phone calls to have your fill of them for a lifetime, and I get them on a normal basis. And if there’s anything I can do to stop someone from being addicted to marijuana or any drug, if there’s anything I can do to stop that to help comfort and care for those families. I’m going to do it.”
But for Morgan and Mills, giving patients the option of a less-addictive treatment — pot — than strong narcotics like OxyContin is a no-brainer.
“Right now you can go to a doctor for a hangnail and a doctor can prescribe you OxyContin. A crooked doctor is as bad as a crooked lawyer and as bad as a crooked cop. If a crooked doctor was going to prescribe medical marijuana or OxyContin for a hangnail, which one would you rather him prescribe? Which one is the lesser of two evils? One kills 16,000 people a year and hooks hundreds of thousands and destroys millions of lives. The other hasn’t ever killed a person,” Morgan said. “I’m a heck of a lot more worried about the pharmaceuticals that we take that are poisonous.”
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida