One Injured In Highway 29, Bluff Springs Road Accident
June 7, 2014
One person was injured in a two-vehicle crash Saturday morning on Highway 29 at Bluff Springs Road.
Their injuries were not considered serious, and they were transported to Jay Hospital by Escambia EMS. The accident remains under investigation by the Florida Highway Patrol. The Century Station of Escambia Fire Rescue also responded to the call.
NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
McDonald’s Robbery Under Investigation
June 7, 2014
A robbery last night at a Pensacola Boulevard McDonald’s is under investigation.
Two men reportedly held up the restaurant at gunpoint just before 10 p.m. Friday. A witness said the two male suspects were wearing bandanas when they entered business and demanded cash before fleeing the restaurant.
A manhunt by the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office followed in the area around the restaurant, which is located at Pensacola Boulevard and West Burgess Road, . There’s was no word from the Sheriff’s Office of any suspect descriptions.
Anyone with information on the robbery is asked to call Crimestoppers at (850) 433-STOP or the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office at (850) 436-9620.
No Serious Injuries In Highway 97 Guardrail Crash
June 7, 2014
There were apparently no injuries in a single vehicle crash on Highway 97 south of Walnut Hill Saturday morning.
The driver of a Ford F-150 was southbound on Highway 97, ran off the road, over-corrected and crossed back across Highway 97, hitting a guardrail adjacent to the northbound lane. The truck then rotated, traveled behind the guardrail and struck several trees.
The accident was discovered just before 6 a.m. The driver of the truck had already left the scene when first responders arrived, and a search by the Molino Station of Escambia Fire Rescue confirmed that no one was thrown from the vehicle.
The Florida Highway Patrol reportedly later made contact with the driver by phone, and he was not seriously injured.
The accident remains under investigation by FHP; further details have not been released.
NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Most Escambia County FCAT Scores Up For 2014
June 7, 2014
The Florida Department of Education released the second round of FCAT scores Friday, including reading in grades 4-10, math in grades 4-8 and science in grades five and eight.
In Escambia County elementary schools, reading scores remained the same, with 56 percent of fourth graders and 55 percent of fifth graders reading on or above grade level. In grades 6-10, reading scores improved except for the ninth grade were 45 percent of students were on grade level.
In math, scores were down from 58 to 55 percent of fourth grade students on grade level, while grades 5-8 showed improvement. Fifth grade scores dropped from 59 to 53 percent proficient in science, while tenth grade science scores were up from 42 to 45 percent.
Below are school by school results for Escambia County District 5 schools. To see scores from every Escambia County school, click here.
Century Woman Claims $47K Lottery Prize
June 7, 2014
A $47,260.74 lottery ticket sold in Century has been claimed by a local woman.
Sheila D. Lee of Century purchased the winning Fantasy 5 ticket for last Wednesday’s drawing at Becky’s Mini Mart, 9010 North Century Boulevard. The ticket was one of five winning tickets. Other winning tickets matching all five numbers were sold in Wesley Chapel, North Port, Davie and Palm Harbor.
The 300 tickets matching four numbers won $127 each. Another 9,863 tickets matching three numbers won $10.50 each, and 97,135 tickets won a Quick Pick ticket for picking two numbers.
Wednesday’s winning numbers were 5-22-28-29-36.
This was the second big winning Fantasy 5 ticket sold this year at Becky’s Mini Mart in Century. In February, a Monroeville, Ala., man purchased a $121,183.96 winning ticket at the North Century Boulevard store.
FWC Law Enforcement Report: Clothes Were Scattered On The Ground
June 7, 2014
Florida FWC Division of Law Enforcement reported the following activity during the weekend ending June 5.
ESCAMBIA COUNTY
Lieutenant Hahr was patrolling the Escambia River Wildlife Management Area at Cotton Lake. After reaching the boat ramp, he observed a car parked near the ramp with clothes and other personal belongings scattered around it on the ground. A woman was sitting in the front seat and, as he got closer, he observed a male subject hiding behind the car.
When Lieutenant Hahr approached them, the man quickly put on a pair of shorts and stated that they had been swimming in the river and that something had bitten both of them several times while in the water. Neither of them had any indications of any kind of serious medical condition.
Lieutenant Hahr noticed that the car was registered in Georgia and had a broken steering column with ignition wires hanging out.
He attempted to identify both subjects but the man provided a false name. When asked about the spelling, the man admitted that he had a warrant out of Alabama. The woman finally located a bill of sale for the car and it was not stolen. The man was arrested on the warrant and transported to the Escambia County Jail.
SANTA ROSA COUNTY
Officer Lewis was patrolling the Blackwater State Forest when he checked a primitive camping area. As he pulled up to the site, a woman in the camp quickly tried to hide a small wooden box.
Officer Lewis asked her what was in the box and she stated that it was a game. Officer Lewis requested permission to look in the box and located cannabis and other drug paraphernalia. The woman also admitted to possession of additional cannabis and paraphernalia located in her tent. Officer Lewis issued her a notice to appear for possession of not more than 20 grams of cannabis and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Officer Lewis was checking the primitive campsites in Calloway Swamp when he located several people in possession of alcoholic beverages. While explaining the violations, he observed a bag of cannabis lying in a woman’s purse in the campsite. The woman and another man admitted that it belonged to them. A small amount of additional cannabis and paraphernalia was located. Officer Lewis issued both subjects notices to appear for possession of not more than 20 grams of cannabis and possession of drug paraphernalia.
This report represents some events the FWC handled over the past week;however, it does not include all actions taken by the Division of Law Enforcement. Information provided by FWC.
Expect Lane Restrictions Sunday, Monday On Hwy 90 East Of Beulah Road
June 7, 2014
Drivers can expect eastbound land restrictions and delays on Highway 90 east of Beulah Road in Escambia County on Sunday from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. and Monday from 9 a.m. until 11 a.m. as crews resurface and make repairs to the roadway.
All planned construction activities are weather dependent and may be rescheduled in the event of inclement weather
DCF Food For Florida Emergency Program Holds Mock Disaster Drill
June 7, 2014
Friday, the Florida Department of Children and Families completed a two-day mock disaster exercise of the Food for Florida program in Escambia County.
More than 100 employees participated in the exercise to test equipment and ensure the department is ready to quickly distribute food benefits to eligible families if a disaster strikes.
“We need to do everything possible to prepare for disasters so we can serve vulnerable Florida families when they need us most,” Interim Secretary Mike Carroll said. “Hurricane season can bring unexpected challenges to our state and this training allowed our department staff to be better equipped for a time of crisis.”
The Food for Florida program offers emergency food assistance to eligible victims of hurricanes or other types of disasters. The last time DCF activated the program was in 2005, when Hurricane Wilma struck Florida.
The department has since streamlined the application and preregistration process using satellite and other wireless technologies.
The changes have positioned DCF to better serve disaster stricken Floridians and identify individuals who try to fraudulently obtain benefits during a time of crisis. The department launched a first-of-its-kind fraud prevention initiative to combat public assistance fraud last May and has seen unprecedented cost avoidance and increased security for Florida’s
public assistance clients.
Pictured: More than 100 Florida Department of Children and Families employees participated in a two-day mock disaster exercise of the Food for Florida program in Escambia County. Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Wahoos Rained Out In Montgomery
June 7, 2014
The Blue Wahoos and the Montgomery Biscuits were rained out Friday night at Riverwalk Stadium in Montgomery. The two teams will make up Friday’s postponement as part of a Saturday doubleheader beginning at 5:30 p.m.
The twin-bill will consist of two seven-inning games with roughly a half-hour break between the two contests.
The Blue Wahoos will send RHP Robert Stephenson (2-5, 3.39) to the mound in game one followed by RHP Jon Moscot (4-3, 2.33) in game two. The Biscuits will counter with RHP Victor Mateo (7-4, 3.93) and RHP Dylan Floro (5-5, 3.74).
The Blue Wahoos are on the first leg of a 10-game, 11-day road trip before the Southern League All-Star Break June 16-18. The Blue Wahoos open play on the second half of the season at home against the Huntsville Stars on Thursday, June 19.
by Tommy Thrall
Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: State Your Case
June 7, 2014
It is the season of making your case in Tallahassee.
Lawmakers from across the state found out Monday if they had made convincing enough cases for Gov. Rick Scott to spare their pet projects when he wielded an unusually light veto pen while trimming a bit from the state budget. Lobbying for other bills being weighed by Scott was undoubtedly still going on.
Meanwhile, lawyers were already starting to put the finishing touches on their arguments about the state’s 2012 redistricting process, with attorneys for voting-rights groups arguing that the Legislature had improperly crafted politically motivated districts and those representing the state arguing that the give-and-take was all above-board.
And Sen. John Thrasher, a “country lawyer” and rabid Florida State University alumnus, was making his case to take on a new post: president of his alma mater. But by midweek, the candidacy of a Supreme Court justice and the protests of some students and faculty had complicated matters a bit.
After all, for everyone making a case, there’s almost always someone else arguing the other side.
SCOTT THE SPENDTHRIFT?
There was no real surprise in Scott’s decision to sign the $77 billion election-year budget approved last month by lawmakers. The surprise, to the extent there was one, was how much of the document the once-skinflint governor allowed to become law.
Since he came to office in 2011, Scott had never vetoed less than the $142.7 million he struck from the budget the Legislature passed in 2012. His first year in office, the governor slashed $615 million in potential spending, though accounting gimmicks inflated the number. And in 2013, Scott slashed almost $368 million.
This year: $68.9 million.
For the second year in a row, Scott also didn’t make a big deal out of the budget signing. He announced it via email, then talked to reporters later, after a campaign event in Panama City.
“It’s nice to have a budget surplus to work with, to make strategic investments, to keep our state working, more jobs, improve education, improve transportation, and that’s what we did,” Scott said.
Still, some of the grass-roots, small-government voters who helped propel Scott to office four years ago seemed pleased. Chris Hudson, director of the Florida chapter of Americans for Prosperity, one of a constellation of groups that have helped fuel the tea-party movement, applauded the budget signing.
“This budget sends the message that Florida is focused on the long-term growth of economic opportunity and prosperity for all its families and businesses,” Hudson said in a statement.
Other political players were less thrilled. Democrats slammed the spending plan as a “pork-filled” measure that didn’t fund the state’s needs.
“Per-pupil education funding remains below 2007 levels. Bright Futures scholarships have been slashed to the bone,” Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Allison Tant said in a prepared statement. “Nearly 1 million Floridians still lack access to affordable health care. In a re-election campaign where Rick Scott is trying desperately to run away from his failed record, one thing has not changed: Rick Scott takes care of the wealthy special interests while ignoring the needs of middle class Floridians.”
Scott isn’t done deciding the fates of a slew of legislation approved by lawmakers. The Legislature sent him 105 bills this week, including high-profile bills allowing some undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates at Florida colleges and universities (HB 851); adding further restrictions to Florida’s abortion laws (HB 1047); and legalizing a form of medical marijuana that purportedly does not get users high while alleviating life-threatening seizures.
THRASHER: BRING IT ON
When the week began, it looked like Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, might be a shoo-in for the presidency of Florida State University. The school’s presidential search committee had decided to interview Thrasher, a longtime fixture in state politics and chairman of the influential Senate Rules Committee, before deciding whether to look at other candidates.
On Tuesday, that changed.
Ed Burr, chairman of the FSU Presidential Search Advisory Committee, said an outpouring of interest in the position led to the decision to delay the conversation with Thrasher, which was scheduled for June 11.
Burr essentially said his committee’s initial concern — that Thrasher’s desire for the position had kept other potential candidates from applying — was disproved by Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Ricky Polston and state Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda, D-Tallahassee, putting their names forward for the post. Educational consultant Harold McGinnis has also filed papers asking to be considered.
“Since the meeting, we have received applications from several additional candidates,” Burr wrote in a message to the committee. “This has persuaded me that allowing this phase of the search to evolve before conducting any interviews would be most effective.”
Burr said the committee will still meet next week to consider an application deadline for the position.
But Thrasher was getting more backing for the presidency — in terms of letters of support — than any other applicant.
Thrasher, widely considered the front-runner for the position, has received 10 letters of support, and two in opposition, since the search for a new president has been underway.
None of the other 15 applicants — including Polston and Rehwinkel Vasilinda — has had more than two outside recommendations submitted to the search committee.
Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, compared Thrasher to the Founding Fathers in saying that his legislative colleague would be an “unconventional president.”
“He has devoted his professional life to public service and the law,” Gaetz said of Thrasher. “But if that were a disqualifier, then America’s greatest public university, the University of Virginia, could not have been founded and managed by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe.”
However, Thrasher also has detractors, including faculty members and students.
Leon County Commissioner Bill Proctor, a Democrat, sent a letter to the committee, saying Thrasher’s “conservative politics will ignite a combustible, explosive and polarizing impact for students at Florida State and for other stakeholders across Leon County.”
Thrasher said Friday in an interview with The News Service of Florida that he didn’t mind the committee’s decision to broaden its search.
“If there are people that want to apply, let them apply,” he said. “I’m interested in the job, and I have the right to apply like everyone else.”
ENDING WITH A WHIMPER
Meanwhile, after two weeks of lawmakers and political operatives being grilled about the 2012 redistricting process and a whodunit mystery that emerged around a map supposedly submitted to the Legislature by former Florida State University student Alex Posada, the redistricting trial underway in Leon County Circuit Court finished with three days of testimony that was — well, kind of dull.
There were some constituents of Democratic Congresswoman Corrine Brown who defended her sprawling district and said they wanted to make sure African Americans could still elect a candidate of their choice to that seat. John Guthrie, the man who led the Senate staffers who drew maps, was back on the stand.
And statistical experts called by the state parried the suggestions of experts called by voting-rights organizations that the maps were the result of the kind of political gerrymandering barred by the Fair Districts amendments, which voters approved in 2010.
But the most spirited remarks came not from any of the witnesses, but from Brown, who showed up this week for portions of the trial after hearing that her district was being invoked in the case against the maps.
Brown, one of the first African-Americans elected to Congress in Florida since Reconstruction, rejected the arguments of plaintiffs that a different district with a lower concentration of black voters would still elect a candidate favored by African Americans. She also referred to efforts to mark the upcoming 50th anniversary of the passage of the Voting Rights Act.
“And it’s just like, it didn’t happen,” she said. “And it’s just very important that African Americans need to know that they are constantly going to have to fight in order to keep representation, because there are people that would take you back.”
After the case wrapped up, both sides said they believed they had convinced Judge Terry Lewis.
“We’re confident that we’ve met whatever standard the court is going to hold us to in this case with our evidence,” said David King, a lawyer for the groups challenging the congressional map.
But Raoul Cantero, a former state Supreme Court justice representing the Senate in the case, said lawmakers and staff members testified repeatedly they did not illegally craft districts that would help or hurt political parties or candidates.
“And we think that all the plaintiffs have done was put up innuendo and whatever other third parties were doing that were not involved,” Cantero said. “They have not shown that anything [improper] has affected the drawing of the maps.”
STORY OF THE WEEK: Gov. Rick Scott signed a $77 billion budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, while cutting $68.9 million with his line-item veto pen.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “I’m a young 70. I’m up to the job. You couldn’t do the job in the Florida Senate, the way we do it, for 60 days without being in fairly good physical condition.”–Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, on his bid for the FSU presidency at age 70.
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida