Softball: Pine Forest Beats Baker
February 5, 2013
Pine Forest beat Baker 2-1 Monday night in George Moore’s debut as the Lady Eagle’s head coach.
Baker was leading 1-0 going into the top of the seventh inning after scoring on a passed ball in the fourth, when senior Miranda Kelley walked on a full count to lead off the inning. She didn’t hesitate and went to second during some confusion on the count. The home plate umpire had the count becoming full when it in fact was ball four.
Senior Dajah Gogue ran for Kelley, and junior Rachel Witbracht laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt to move Gogue to third with one out. After fouling off the first pitch, senior Brittney Ward put down a bunt on a suicide squeeze to score Gogue and tie the game 1-1. Ward went to second on the play.
Jordyn Pulliam, the only freshman on the varsity team, delivered a single to right-center field that scored Ward with the winning run.
Senior Rachel Munoz, pitching her first game for Pine Forest, allowed just three hits in seven innings. She walked only three and while she didn’t strike out a batter, Munoz let her defense do the work. The Lady Eagles didn’t commit an error.
Ward finished 2-for-2 with a walk, a run and an RBI. Rebecca Rudd also singled for Pine Forest, which plays host to Choctawhatchee at 6:30 p.m. Thursday.
The Pine Forest junior varsity also beat Baker, rallying from 3-0 and 4-3 deficits to pull out a 7-4 victory. Freshman Mikaylah Taylor earned her first high school victory, tossing a complete game.
Fewer Florida Inmates Are Re-Offending After Release
February 5, 2013
Fewer Florida prison inmates are re-offending after their release, Corrections Secretary Mike Crews said Monday.
The percentage of inmates who commit another crime within three years of release has dropped from 33 percent for those freed as of 2003 to 27.6 percent for those freed as of 2008.
The drop in re-offenders contributed to a reduction in the total number of inmates admitted, which decreased from 41,054 in Fiscal Year 2007-08 to 32,279 for Fiscal Year 2011-12.
Crews said DOC had put new emphasis on correcting some of the conditions that land an overwhelming number of inmates behind bars to begin with – a lack of education, vocational training, mental health and/or substance abuse treatment.
By taking on the conditions that lead released felons to commit crimes again, the agency is helping keep Florida safe, Crews said.
“If you live in Florida when these inmates are released, they’re standing in the grocery store line next to you,” Crews said. “Eighty-seven percent of our current inmate population right now will be released, and they’re going to be released back into our communities.”
Crews acknowledged that the Transition from Prison to Community Initiative, with its increased emphasis on rehabilitation, “is a significant cultural change” for DOC.
“Historically in our agency, it has been about locking them up, turning them out and hoping for the best when they get out,” Crews said. “I think we’ve all seen that just does not work when you look at the exploding rates that we saw for a number of years.”
The move comes as an increasing number of interest groups – particularly in the business community – are arguing that Florida spends too much money on criminal justice, at the expense of other things business wants like improved education.
A one percent reduction in recidivism equates to a savings of nearly $19 million over five years, according to DOC data.
And according to Gov. Rick Scott, taxpayers have realized a savings of $44 million by reducing the recidivism rate.
“We’re reinvesting a portion of that savings by providing hardworking corrections employees bonuses for their service in making our communities safer,” Scott said in a statement.
Scott also has recommended lawmakers earmark $5.4 million to open the Gadsden Re-Entry Center at the Florida Public Safety Institute.
Crews credited the re-entry program, which already has four locations statewide, with helping inmates prepare for release and transition to successfully to work and family life.
By The News Service of Florida
Feds Give Go Ahead For Florida Medicaid Managed Care Plan
February 5, 2013
Federal health officials have approved a key part of Florida’s effort to transform its Medicaid program, clearing the way for tens of thousands of seniors across the state to move into managed-care plans.
The approval, announced Monday, means that Medicaid-eligible seniors who need long-term care likely will start enrolling later this year in HMOs and another type of health plan known as a “provider service network.” The long-term care changes are the first phase of a controversial proposal to shift Medicaid beneficiaries statewide into managed care.
A basic concept of the long-term care changes is that managed-care plans would provide services to seniors at home or in their communities, if possible. In doing so, many seniors would be able to stay out of nursing homes, or at least postpone the need to go into such facilities.
Senate Appropriations Chairman Joe Negron, a Stuart Republican who played a key role in drawing up the Medicaid changes, said nursing homes will continue to play an important role in the Medicaid system. But he said seniors want to be able to “age in place” in their homes and communities and only go to nursing facilities when necessary.
“Now, it gives us the ability with Medicaid to provide these options in the community for seniors,” Negron said.
The senior-advocacy group AARP Florida vowed Monday to be “watchdogs” as the new system is put in place.
“Florida elected officials have said they are pushing this reform effort forward because they want to assure the highest quality of care for frail and vulnerable Floridians under Medicaid,” AARP Florida State Director Jeff Johnson said in a prepared statement. “AARP Florida will hold them to their word.”
Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-controlled Legislature approved wide-ranging bills in 2011 aimed at shifting to a statewide managed-care system in Medicaid. The plan was to make the changes in two phases — first for seniors who need long-term care and then for the broader Medicaid population.
While many Medicaid beneficiaries already enroll in managed-care plans, backers of a statewide system argue it would help hold down Medicaid costs and better coordinate services for beneficiaries. But critics have long argued that the shift will result in managed-care plans squeezing care provided to low-income people.
Such Medicaid proposals require approval by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services before they can take effect. The federal government faced a Thursday deadline for ruling on the long-term care proposal, after Florida gave notice late last year that it wanted to start a 90-day “clock” to compel a decision.
No such deadline exists for the changes affecting the broader Medicaid population, and it remains unclear when federal officials will make a decision. State Medicaid director Justin Senior told lawmakers in December that the Agency for Health Care Administration had focused first on getting approval for the long-term care portion of the changes.
Scott sent a letter Monday to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius expressing appreciation for approval of what is known as a Medicaid “waiver” for the long-term care changes. But he also pressed to get approval for the shift affecting the broader Medicaid population.
“Now, our most urgent need is the immediate approval of our second pending waiver, which relates to the statewide Medicaid managed-care program,” Scott wrote. “This second waiver will give us additional flexibility within the current Medicaid program, and it supports our goal of improving the cost, quality and access to health care for all Florida families.”
Scott met last month with Sebelius and has appeared to try to connect the state’s managed-care proposals with a separate issue about whether Florida will expand Medicaid eligibility under the federal Affordable Care Act. The federal government wants states to expand eligibility as a way to provide health coverage for more people.
But Greg Mellowe, policy director for the patient-advocacy group Florida CHAIN, said it will be harder for the state to get approval of the broader managed-care proposal. That proposal would build off a highly controversial Medicaid managed-care pilot program that operates in five counties.
“The fact that the managed long-term care waiver was approved in no way indicates that approval of the broader statewide Medicaid managed-care waiver can be justified or will be forthcoming,” Mellowe, whose group has been highly critical of the managed-care proposal, wrote in an email.
The state Agency for Health Care Administration has already gone through a lengthy contracting process to choose health plans that would provide long-term care services to seniors. That process involved competitive bidding in 11 regions of the state and led to AHCA awarding contracts to American Eldercare, Sunshine State Health Plan, United HealthCare of Florida, Coventry Health Care of Florida and Amerigroup Florida.
AHCA hopes to start using the new long-term care system as early as August in the Orlando area and gradually move into other areas of the state. But enrollment could be delayed in three regions — the western Panhandle, the Big Bend and Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast — because of protests by losing bidders.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services sent a letter to the state Friday, approving the long-term care changes effective July 1. The approval is for three years, expiring June 30, 2016, with the state able to request renewals “by providing evidence and documentation of satisfactory performance and oversight.”
Michael Garner, president of the Florida Association of Health Plans, said moving to the long-term care system will require an extensive education effort for seniors and family members who will choose between managed-care plans. Like Negron, Garner said nursing homes will continue to play an important role, but he said he hopes the new system will help get people into the “lowest-cost settings that are preferable for them and their families.”
By The News Service of Florida
Woman Sentenced For Attacking Daughter With Bat Over A Swimsuit
February 5, 2013
A Century woman has been convicted of battery for attacking her daughter with a baseball bat after a fight over a swimsuit.
Kimberly Renee Harwell, 38, was sentenced to 24 months probation for the summer of 2012 attack.
According to an arrest report, Harwell become involved in a physical confrontation with her daughter over a bathing suit. The fight escalated until Harwell was outside a window with her daughter inside, at which time she struck the window with a bat and shattered it.
The daughter locked the mom outside, but she managed to make access. Once inside the home, Harwell tried to hit the daughter with the wooden bat.
The daughter suffered minor cuts in the incidents and refused medical treatment.
Elections Chief Wants More Early Voting
February 5, 2013
Secretary of State Ken Detzner all but guaranteed that a set of recommendations he submitted Monday would help Florida overcome the long lines on Election Day that left voters grumbling and once again made the state the butt of late-night comedians’ jokes.
In a 12-page report published Monday, Detzner called for an optional extension of early voting days, an expansion of the number of early voting sites available for county supervisors of elections and new limits on the length of ballot summaries for constitutional amendments offered by the Legislature. He also called on county commissions to more closely follow budget and policy recommendations from the supervisors.
The recommendations were largely in line with what is emerging as a bipartisan consensus about how to handle the snafus that plagued the November presidential election, when Florida was the last state in which a winner was projected.
“The bottom line is: Voter confidence must be restored,” Detzner told the House Ethics and Elections Subcommittee in a hearing Monday afternoon. “Voters are relying on us to ensure their elections are accessible, efficient and fair.”
And Detzner left little wiggle room when pressed on how certain he was that the recommendations in his report would prevent a recurrence of the issues that sprang up in November.
“I am 100 percent confident that my report and our recommendations will solve the problem,” he said.
Detzner’s recommendations would allow supervisors to offer up to 14 days of early voting, though they could stick with the current eight days or pick some number in between. And in addition to a limit on the word length on legislative amendments, Detzner said a provision in state law allowing the full text of an amendment to be placed on the ballot should be repealed.
Senate Ethics and Elections Chairman Jack Latvala, R-St. Petersburg, filed legislation Monday (SB 600) that would get rid of that language and make other changes relating to absentee ballot certificates and the buffer zone for voters at polling places.
Lawmakers say that they are close to what Detzner and the supervisors of elections are proposing. A chart giving the areas the House subcommittee is likely to address in a bill mirrored the suggestions.
“I think between the three groups … there’s a lot of consistency in some of the issues that we can address,” said Rep. Jim Boyd, the Bradenton Republican who chairs the subcommittee.
But there are still some details to work through. Boyd’s chart lists a provision that would only limit the first summary in a legislatively-proposed amendment if lawmakers added more than one summary as a backstop against court challenges to the ballot language. And if the attorney general were forced to write a new summary after a court challenge, that would not be subject to the limit.
Democrats raised minor objections to that and are also pushing to broaden the scope of early voting measures. Rep. Alan Williams, D-Tallahassee, said the state should consider mandating eight hours of early voting; under Boyd’s proposal, a supervisor could offer anywhere from six hours to 12.
“We’re not going outside of what many of the supervisors of elections’ hours of operation already are with at least eight hours,” Williams said.
Other groups are also pushing for more change. Ron Bilbao of the ACLU of Florida told the committee that the state should also consider allowing same-day voter registration, expanding the forms of identification voters could use at the polls and making it easier for felons to regain the right to vote after they’ve served their sentence.
Bilbao made it clear his organization supported the changes being considered.
“But Florida has a history of dysfunctional elections, and if all we do to address these problems is address the problems that voters endured this November, in 2012, then we’ll have lost an opportunity to address the badly-needed reforms that Florida needs to do,” he said.
By The News Service of Florida
Alabama Hostage Situation Is Over; Boy Is Safe
February 4, 2013
About a week after it began, a hostage situation in an underground bunker in Midland City, Ala., is over.
The 5-year old boy that had been held hostage since he was abducted from his school bus is in good condition and is under observation at at local hospital.
Hostage taker Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, is dead, according to the FBI. Authorities entered the bunker and rescued the child after Dykes was observed with a gun and negotiations “deteriorated”, according to Steve Richardson with the FBI’s office in Mobile. Authorities feared the boy was in imminent danger.
Dykes gunned down a school bus driver last Tuesday and abducted a 5-year-old boy from the bus before taking him to an underground bunker on his rural property. The driver, 66-year-old Charles Poland Jr., was buried Sunday.
Four Injured In School Bus Crash
February 4, 2013
Four students received minor injuries in a tw0-vehicle accident involving a school bus this morning on Davis Highway.
The Florida Highway Patrol said bus driver Barbara Jean Rogers, 53, of Cantonment was slowing with the bus yellow warning lights activated on North Davis Highway near Campus Drive at the time of the 9:05 a.m. accident. The FHP said 38-year old Kelly Marie O’Brien of Pace failed to observe the slowing bus and rear-ended itw ith her PT Cruiser.
There were 22 students students from Ferry Pass Middle School on the bus at the time of the crash. Four students, ranging in age from 11 to 14, were transported by ambulance to West Florida Hospital with minor injuries.
O’Brien was charged with careless driving, no insurance and driving while license suspended, according to the FHP.
Pictured: There were no serious injuries in this school bus crash Monday morning on Davis Highway. Reader submitted photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Contractor To Remove Derelict Vessels, Log Jam From Escambia River
February 4, 2013
Escambia County is set to award a contract to remove derelict vessels and clear a log jam from a section of the Escambia River near McDavid.
The county commission will vote later this week on a $68,498 contract to be awarded to Florida Forest Recyclers, LLC to remove the vessels and associated debris — including thousands of logs — from the Escambia River about one river mile north of the Cotton Lake boat ramp.
The company will remove derelict vessels and associated debris that have shut down river traffic for years.
The bid from Florida Forest Recyclers was over a half million dollars lower than bids received from two Alabama companies. A $527,000 bid was received from Crowder Gulf Joint Ventures of Theodore, while DRC Emergency Services, LLC bid $792,622.14.
Pictured top: A logjam stretches bank to bank, blocking the Escambia River near McDavid (courtesy photo). Pictured below: An abandoned boat along the Escambia River. NorthEscambia.com file photo, click to enlarge.
Escambia Bus Drivers Attend Funeral Of Slain Alabama Driver
February 4, 2013
About two dozen Escambia County School District bus drivers attended the funeral Sunday of a bus driver shot and killed near Midland City, Ala.
When an armed gunman boarded his bus Tuesday and demanded to take all of the students, driver Charles Albert Poland, 66, refused. He was shot four times and died protecting all of the students, except one, was safely escaped bus 04-2.
A 5-year old kindergartener was kidnapped by Jimmy Lee Dykes and held in an underground bunker.
Poland had driven for the Dale County Board of Eduction for three years. After his route, he and his wife Jan would share a cup of coffee and watch the sunset, or listen to the Alabama ran, she told the Dothan Eagle.
They would sometimes recite their favorite Bible verse:
For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. – 2 Timothy 1:12
Poland, by all accounts, love his simple life, and loved the children on his bus.
He loved them. He loved everybody and he was loved,” Jan Poland told the Dothan Eagle.
Pictured top: About two dozen Escambia County bus drivers attended a funeral Sunday in Midland City, Ala., for a school bus driver that was shot and killed. Pictured below (courtesy Dothan Eagle): Bus driver Charles Albert Poland. Submitted photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Escambia Legislative Delegation Supports Two Local Bills
February 4, 2013
The Escambia County Legislative Delegation has voted to support two local bills during the 2013 legislative session.
The first bill, proposed by the City of Pensacola, would repeal Chapter 84-10, Laws of Florida, commonly referred to as the Pensacola Civil Service Act. The Pensacola Civil Service Act is rooted in the 1931 City Charter, which was repealed and replaced by referendum in October 2009 when the current Charter was adopted.
The second bill was proposed by the Emerald Coast Utilities Authority (ECUA) and would amend the ECUA’s enabling legislation. The amendments allow the ECUA to purchase fuel under the same terms and exemptions as municipalities and counties, and to conduct management efficiency audits every five years as opposed to every three years as is currently required.
The Town of Century had asked the delegation to support legislation exempting Century from a four cent gas tax hike in 2014 to benefit ECAT public transportation. That request hit a major roadblock before being considered by the delegation. [Read more...]
The Escambia County Delegation is comprised of Sen. Greg Evers, Delegation Chair Rep. Clay Ingram, and Rep. Clay Ford.