Northwest Escambia Sweeps Uriah
September 30, 2013
Northwest Escambia hosted Uriah Saturday, with a clean sweep for the NWE Eagles.
Freshmen
Northwest Escambia broke Uriah’s undefeated record in a nail-biter game ending 31-25 in overtime. Zyonne Wesley led the way with five rushing touchdowns. Liam Hatcher, Jackson Simmons and Wesley all had positive rushing yards. Wesley, Simmons, Easton Odom, Jackson Bridges, and Bryce Stabler led the defense late in the game. With the win, NWE is in a tie with Uriah in the Western Division of ERC Football with a 3-1 record.
Sophomores
The NWE Sophomores defeated Uriah 42-6. TJ Wright scored three touchdowns, and Kaden Odom scored two touchdowns, including one over40 yards. Nolin Godwin and Travis Scott both scored a touchdown. Extra points were scored by Aiden Broadhead, Wright, Godwin and Arquavian Smith. The NWE defense played a strong game with big stops made by Luke Bridges and Nathan Chavers. Braeden McGhee and Smith both recovered fumbles.
Juniors
The NWE Juniors beat Uriah 40-6. Jayden Jackson scored two touchdowns. Jacob Lee, Logan Bryan and Jaden Cunnigham scored one touchdown each. Michael Merchant, Dariontae Richardson, Jamarkus Jefferson and Jaheem Durant all scored extra points. Travis Nelson, Jaxon Singleton, Tanner Boone, Chase Cloud, Levi Kirkpatrick and Cody Thomas all had positive rushing yards. Key defensive plays were made by Tyler Cloud, Keaundre Richardson and Jayden Jackson. Jackson intercepted a pass and ran 40 yards for a touchdown.
Seniors
The Northwest Escambia Seniors shut out Uriah 45-0. Rushing touchdowns were scored by Aunterio Minor, Trent Kite and Keaton Solomonson. Both Seth Killam and Cameron Cloud threw touchdown passes to Jay Helton, Kite and Solomonson. Tyrese Smith had nearly 50 yards rushing. Johnathan Windham had a fumble recovery and four sacks. Cody Edwards and Trent Peebles both made stops in the backfield on defense.
Northwest Escambia will travel to Excel on Saturday.
Submitted photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Judge Tosses Out Key Part Of Florida Medical Malpractice Law
September 30, 2013
A Tallahassee federal judge has rejected a key part of a new state medical-malpractice law, saying it conflicts with federal requirements designed to prevent the improper disclosure of patients’ health information.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle came less than four months after Gov. Rick Scott signed the law and was a blow to groups such as the Florida Medical Association, which lobbied heavily this spring for changes in the medical-malpractice system. Meanwhile, the Florida Justice Association trial-lawyers group had long argued that the law would trample on patient privacy.
The case focused on part of the law that would allow what are known as “ex parte communications” in medical-malpractice cases.
In such communications, for example, defense attorneys representing a doctor accused of malpractice could get personal health information about the patient involved in the case. That information could come from other doctors who treated the patient, and disclosure could occur without the patient’s attorney being present.
Opponents of the law argued that it violates the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, of HIPAA, which seeks to prevent disclosure of personal medical information, except in certain circumstances.
“The issue is whether a state, by statute, may require a patient, as a condition precedent to pursuing a medical-negligence claim, to sign an authorization allowing the potential defendant — and the potential defendant’s attorneys, insurers, and adjusters — to conduct ex parte interviews with the patient’s other healthcare providers,” Hinkle wrote. “Because federal law prohibits ex parte interviews of this kind with exceptions not applicable here, this order holds the statute invalid.”
A spokeswoman said that the FMA, a politically influential physicians group, was reviewing Hinkle’s order.
In the past, supporters have argued that ex parte communications would give defense attorneys access to information that plaintiffs’ attorneys already can review. Along with saying that is a fairness issue, they contended the information could help defense attorneys make decisions more quickly about whether to settle or proceed with cases.
Hinkle acknowledged in his ruling that the state law could have such a benefit, but he wrote that “there are substantial arguments on the other side, too. The arguments on the other side have prevailed at the federal level. And the resulting federal rules expressly preempt conflicting state statutes.”
The FMA and allied groups made a top priority during this year’s legislative session of passing a medical-malpractice bill. The final version included the ex-parte communications issue and also placed new restrictions on expert witnesses in malpractice cases. The expert witness issue was not part of the case before Hinkle.
Immediately after the medical-malpractice law took effect July 1, lawsuits were filed in state and federal courts across the state on behalf of people who were considering whether to pursue malpractice cases. The lawsuits attacked the ex parte communications issue.
The plaintiff in the ruling was identified as Glen Murphy, who alleged negligence by defendant Adolfo C. Dulay, a physician, according to the ruling. The state intervened in the case to try to defend the law.
by The News Service of Florida
High School Football Standings, Upcoming Schedule
September 30, 2013
Here is a district by district look at last Friday night’s high school football scores and this week’s schedule.
Pictured top: Last Friday night’s coin toss as Northview hosted Choctawhatchee. The Chiefs begin district play this Friday night as they travel to Jay. NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.
Mothers Unite With Hope For Their Missing Children
September 29, 2013
Two mothers stood together Saturday night, united by the same hope that someone will help them find their missing children.
Susan Bell, mother of Danielle Bell, last saw her daughter 12 years ago. Cindy Daniels, mother of Tiffany Daniels, last saw her daughter a few weeks go. They, along with the parents of other missing children, gathered for a candlelight vigil along Pensacola Bay for Danielle Bell. They both hold out hope that there will be answers, that someone will come forward, in the cases of their missing children.
They were joined by family, friends and members of search groups like Escambia Search and Rescue and KlaasKids who have spent countless hours searching for their daughters.
Danielle Bell
Danielle Bell was last seen 12 years ago, on September 28, 2001, in the 500 block of Cedar Tree Lane between Highway 29 and Highway 95A in Cantonment. Then 14-years old, she was last seen with Alfredo Sanchez and Robert Basset.
Sanchez is currently incarcerated for sexual assault against a minor. One of these crimes was against Bell.
Danielle Bell’s family believes that someone in the local community has information that will help solve her case.
Tiffany Daniels
Tiffany Daniels, 25, was last seen August 12 as she left work early. Here 1999 Toyota 4Runner was found August 20 in a parking lot of Park West, near Ft. Pickens, on Pensacola beach. Here bicycle and phone were in the vehicle. Extensive searches have been conducted unsuccessfully in the area near where her vehicle was found.
Daniels is 5-feet 7-inches tall with blond hair and blue eyes. She has tattoos of plants growing from seeds on the top of both feet.
How To Help
Anyone with information about Bell is asked to call FDLE’s Missing and Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse at 1-888-FL MISSING or the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office at (850) 436-9630.
Anyone with information about Daniels is asked to call the Pensacola Police Department at (850) 435-1979 or Crime Stoppers at (850) 436-9620.
Pictured top: Cindy Daniels (left), mother of Tiffany Daniels, and Susan Bell (right), mother of Danielle Bell, at a candlelight vigil Saturday night along Pensacola Bay. Pictured below: Family, friends and local search and rescue groups attended the event. Pictured below: A sign proclaims the group’s mission to “Bring Danielle Home”. Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Century To Talk Insurance In Special Meeting
September 29, 2013
The Century Town Council will hold a special meeting Monday to select an insurance provider.
Competing companies for the town’s liability and worker’s compensation coverage made presentations back on September 23. The town must select one of the new companies on Monday, prior to the start of the new fiscal year on Tuesday, October 1.
The insurance company selection meeting will be held Monday at 3 p.m. at the town hall. The meeting is open to the public.
High School Football Preview
September 29, 2013
Here’s a look at the football schedule for next Friday night, October 4, in the North Escambia area:
FLORIDA
- *Northview at Jay, 7 p.m.
- *Bay at West Florida, 7 p.m.
- *Niceville at Tate, 7:30 p.m.
- *Pace at Pine Forest, 7:30 p.m.
- *Mosley at Catholic, 7:30 p.m.
- *PHS at Escambia, 7:30 p.m.
- *Washington at Milton, 7:30 p.m.
- *Navarre at Fort Walton Beach, 7 p.m.
- *Rutherford at Gulf Breeze, 7 p.m.
ALABAMA
- Flomaton at Sweet Water
- Thomasville at Escambia Co. (Atmore)
- Escambia Academy at Pike Liberal
- T.R. Miller at Cottage Hill Christian
- Excel at W.S. Neal
Flomaton Celebrates Heritage With Railroad Juction Day
September 29, 2013
Flomaton celebrated the town’s heritage Saturday with Railroad Junction Day.
There was entertainment, various food and craft vendors in the Flomaton Lions Park all-day, and a model train display in the community center. The Turtle Point Environmental Center was open with a “Birds of Prey” demonstration and antique car show in the parking lot. The Flomaton Public Library hosted several speakers and the Flomaton Area Railroad Museum, log cabin and caboose were open.
Pictured top: The Railroad Junction Day Saturday in Flomaton, Ala. Pictured inset: Aaliyah Bedsole of the Brewton Dance Studio performs. Pictured below: Madison Lambeth performs Saturday. Pictured middle below: Emcee Bo Brantley. Pictured bottom: A model train display. Courtesy photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: A Busy First Week Of Committee Meetings
September 29, 2013
Who said nothing ever gets done during the first week of legislative committee meetings?
There was plenty of action this week at the Capitol, even if very little of it happened during votes by the panels that held their first get-togethers in anticipation of the 2014 legislative session. The Democrats deposed one future leader and elected another in about 48 hours. Gov. Rick Scott jettisoned the state’s commitment to a new set of standardized tests, upending several assumptions about the future of education reform efforts in the state.
And lawmakers continued to struggle with how to enforce the novel idea that legislators live in the districts they represent.
‘IRON SHARPENS IRON’
For House Democrats, the week began with a meeting at the Florida Education Association to decide the fate of Rep. Darryl Rouson of St. Petersburg, the caucus’ first choice to lead it after the 2014 elections.
As reporters sat around a table in a downstairs conference room Monday night, all but three of the 44 Democratic members of the House gathered upstairs and behind closed doors to discuss whether Rouson should remain as leader.
Rouson’s perceived wrongdoing included setting up a campaign account for House efforts without telling the Florida Democratic Party or his caucus members, alienating core Democratic constituents like the FEA, and choosing the wrong strategists to help with House campaigns.
After a couple of hours of discussion and debate, current House Minority Leader Perry Thurston of Fort Lauderdale announced the results: By a 24-17 count, Rouson was out.
“I asked for the opportunity to appear in front of the caucus and explain why I did what I did and the purpose for doing it,” Rouson said after the vote. “The caucus afforded me that opportunity tonight, and I’m very grateful.”
The next election was relatively quick. By Wednesday night, House Democrats were gathering — this time back at the Capitol and back in the open — to choose between Rep. Mark Pafford of West Palm Beach and Rep. Alan Williams of Tallahassee as Rouson’s replacement.
Pafford is an unapologetic progressive who had the backing of most of the party’s leadership; Williams made the case that he had a better fund-raising track record. In the end, Pafford won on a 29-12 vote.
Both sides tried to stress the party’s unity and a lack of enmity between the two candidates. Williams several times said “iron sharpens iron,” an apparent reference to Proverbs 27:17: “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”
Pafford seemed to make the same point in his post-election remarks to the caucus, albeit in different words.
“Our differences are actually what make this minority caucus stronger,” said Pafford, 47. “And we need to take a moment to embrace our differences and make those differences our strength.”
TESTING RICK SCOTT
The FCAT has long been a flashpoint in Florida’s education system, with Democrats pointing to the testing system as an example of what’s wrong with the state’s approach to reforming schools. But the FCAT is on its way out, and the only question remaining is what the state will use to replace it.
That decision got a little more mysterious this week, when Scott announced that he was beginning a process that seems designed to extract the state from its involvement in the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC.
Scott, who had previously praised the tests being developed by a multistate consortium, now saw them less as a valid way to measure student learning under the new “Common Core Standards” being adopted by almost every state in the country and more as the vanguard of federal interference in schools. Even if he couldn’t articulate what that federal interference would look like when pressed by reporters.
“If you look at it, it’s their entry point into having more involvement in our education system. … I want to continue that focus on high standards, but we don’t need the federal government intruding in our lives,” Scott told reporters.
That seemed to directly contradict assurances that had come out of Scott’s own education department.
“The federal government does not have a hand in development of the aligned assessments pertaining to CCSS (Common Core),” according to an undated document on the agency’s website. “There are two state consortia responsible for developing Common Core aligned assessments as well as some states that have developed their own assessment programs, such as Kentucky and New York.”
That left the state Department of Education to come up with a new test in time for the 2014-15 school year, set to begin in less than a year. Some Democrats were already skeptical, encouraging the state to take a breather instead of scrambling to set up a testing system that might not work.
“There are other options,” said Rep. Karen Castor Dentel, D-Maitland. “We don’t have to test that year with a standardized test.”
‘YOU CAN’T GO (TO THAT) HOME AGAIN’
Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, were trying to come up with their own kind of test: a way to determine whether legislators live in the districts they’re supposed to represent. And that would have to clear a “straight-face test,” said Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville.
The issue has been around for years, with reporters and other insiders frequently joking about which lawmakers call Tallahassee or other parts of the state home while claiming residency somewhere else. But it has been brought to the forefront in recent months by press reports and by Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, who has been crusading on the issue in part because Sen. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, defeated a supporter of Latvala’s 2016 bid for the Senate presidency.
Sachs has faced allegations that she doesn’t live in her South Florida district, but in another home nearby. Sachs at one time claimed to live in a Fort Lauderdale condo owned by a friend but recently changed her voter registration to a condominium in Delray Beach.
Latvala, who chairs the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee, seemed unconcerned this week about the possibility that the move could ruffle feathers among House Republicans who might also not hew to the letter of the law.
“I don’t care. The constitution says people need to live in their districts, and they need to live in their districts. If we elected officials can’t abide by the constitution, what kind of example are we?” Latvala said.
Gaetz floated the idea of a joint House-Senate rule, though it’s not precisely clear what making such a rule might entail or exactly what the requirements would be.
“People ought to live among those they represent,” he said. “This is not the British parliament where you get to sort of move to wherever there’s an open seat. You ought to be going to the grocery store, going to synagogue and church and school among the people you represent.”
STOPPING SEX OFFENDERS
One thing that does seem clear is that the 2014 legislative session will include new laws dealing with sex offenders.
The push for new legislation comes in the wake of last month’s investigative series by the South Florida Sun Sentinel, which found that the commitment of sexually violent predators under the state’s Jimmy Ryce Act had slowed to a crawl, with nearly 600 offenders released only to be convicted of new sex offenses — including more than 460 child molestations, 121 rapes and 14 murders.
Outraged by the reports, Florida lawmakers promised action during hearings this week that covered plea deals, sentencing guidelines, risk assessment, state contracting, treatment evaluations and the monitoring of offenders after release.
“This will not be one bill,” said House Criminal Justice Chairman Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Fort Walton Beach Republican whose subcommittee held one of the hearings. “This will be many, many bills.”
On Monday, DCF released a series of recommendations intended to lessen the number of sexually violent predators who fall through the cracks of the Jimmy Ryce Act, which requires the state Department of Children and Families to evaluate sex offenders before their releases from prison, confining the most dangerous at the 720-bed Florida Civil Commitment Center in Arcadia.
“I think that the entire Legislature is on board,” said Sen. Eleanor Sobel, a Hollywood Democrat and chairwoman of the Senate Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee.
By Friday, one idea had already taken the form of legislation: Members of the House and Senate filed bills that would bar sexual offenders from viewing or possessing pornography, saying the move could help prevent offenders from committing future sex crimes.
“I believe there is a way that we can strike a balance between keeping civil liberties safe and also keeping the public safe from the risk of re-offenders of sexual violence,” said Rep. Katie Edwards, a Plantation Democrat who filed the House version this week.
STORY OF THE WEEK: Gov. Rick Scott announced that the state would withdraw from a multistate consortium developing tests to measure student learning under the new “Common Core State Standards.”
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Sometimes when you ride by it looks like Fred Sanford’s house. We actually hang the clothes out to dry.”– Corrections Secretary Michael Crews, on the fact that inmates are doing things like sewing and washing dishes to help close the Department of Corrections’ budget deficit.
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Photos: NHS Cheerleaders, Dance Team, Band, NJROTC
September 29, 2013
For a photo gallery with the Northview High School cheerleaders, dance team, band and NJROTC from Friday night’s Choctawhatchee at Northview game, click here.
For a game summary and action photos, click here.
Cantonment Power Substation Getting $4.5 Million Upgrade
September 28, 2013
As part of the largest construction project in its history, Gulf Power Gulf Power Company is spending $4.5 million to upgrade its Cantonment substation to help maintain grid reliability in North Escambia.
New aluminum structures and equipment are replacing timeworn steel equipment inside the substation, which serves to control the voltage and the distribution of electricity in the Cantonment area.
“Substations are part of the backbone of our power grid,” said Jeff Rogers, Gulf Power corporate communications manager. “They take the power from our generation plants and step down the voltage to be distributed to homes and businesses. It’s critical we monitor and maintain these carefully.”
The original equipment at the substation, which has been in service for 50 years, has reached the end of its service life. The work is part of Gulf Power’s construction plan that will overhaul, maintain and build new equipment over the next several years across the utility’s system in Northwest Florida.
“This is part of our pre-planned maintenance schedule,” said Rogers. “We continuously monitor our equipment and look way into the future to make sure we keep our power grid reliable. Our customers count on it.”
While the work is set to be completed in December, 47 inches of rain and an abundance of snakes have made the construction challenging.
“Our crews and contractors have had to navigate around some very muddy terrain because of the rain,” Rogers said, “not to mention poisonous snakes. But despite the challenges, everyone’s working safely and the project remains on schedule.”
Pictured: New structures and equipment can be seen on the left side of the photo at the Cantonment substation compared to the old equipment that is still in the process of being replaced on the right. Submitted photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.