One Charged, Four At Large After Attempted Home Invasion
January 2, 2013
One teenager was jailed and four more are wanted following a home invasion on Foxrun Road just north of Nine Mile Road.
The victim told deputies that four or five black males kicked in his door and fled in a silver colored Volkswagen when they realized someone was home.
Deputies located the suspect vehicle near Nine Mile Road and Chemstrand Road and confirmed it as stolen. Upon initiating a traffic stop, the driver refused to stop and a short pursuit followed. The pursuit ended when the vehicle’s occupants bailed out of the vehicle at the end of Brookmeadow Place and fled on foot.
One 15-year old was taken into custody and charged with resisting without violence, criminal mischief and unarmed burglary of an occupied residence. The teen told deputies that the four suspects that fled the scene were his former schoolmates.
Anyone with information on the crime is asked to contact the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office at (850) 436-9620 or Crime Stoppers at (850) 433-STOP.
Congress Passes Fiscal Crisis Bill; Obama Says He’ll Sign
January 2, 2013
President Barack Obama says he will sign a bill to avert the so-called “fiscal cliff,” calling the measure one step in a broader effort to strengthen the American economy.
The Democrat-led Senate overwhelmingly approved the bill in an early morning vote Tuesday. The Republican-dominated House of Representatives passed the measure by a vote of 257 to 167 late in the day, after an unsuccessful attempt to add their own amendments to the plan.
Some conservative House members wanted to add more spending cuts to the plan, but did not have enough support among their fellow lawmakers to take such action. Aides to the Senate Democratic leadership had told reporters that chamber would not take up any bill that was amended by the House.
President Obama and congressional Republicans have sparred for more than a year over tax rates, the extent of government spending, chronic budget deficits and the country’s mounting debt.
Congressional leaders described the deal as imperfect, but in the best interest of the American people.
Under the plan, taxes would increase for individuals making more than $400,000 a year and couples earning more than $450,000, the first U.S. income tax increase in 20 years. The package also would extend unemployment benefits for a year and boost taxes on large inheritances.
The compromise delays mandated cuts to defense spending and domestic programs for two months, setting up a future battle between the parties. Analysts have said that without a compromise, the $500 billion in austerity measures could eventually plunge the U.S. economy into another recession.
Even as U.S. leaders wrangled over the tax and spending issues, they soon face a decision whether to increase the country’s borrowing limit, which hit its current $16.4 trillion cap on Monday. Officials say the country will be able to pay its bills for another two months, but by then will need to increase the debt ceiling, an action likely to spark another extended debate over Washington’s spending priorities.
[VOA]
Pictured: President Barack Obama, with Vice President Joe Biden (left), makes statement after passage of fiscal cliff bill Tuesday night. Courtesy photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Cantonment Cold Case: 1981 Murder Remains Unsolved
January 2, 2013
It was 32 years ago on the afternoon of January 2, 1981, that 9-year old Kenneth Deshun Underwood and three companions went bird hunting in the woods near their Cantonment home. Everyone returned home that afternoon except for Underwood.
When Underwood was still not home around 6 p.m., Escambia County Search and Rescue personnel were called. The area were Underwood was last seen alive was canvassed. His body was discovered about 5:45 the next morning –apparently murdered — in an area near Booker Street.
The case remains unsolved, and the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office is asking the public for help because they believe someone in our area still has information about Underwood’s death.
If you know anything about the death of Kenneth Deshun Underwood, 9, you are asked to call the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Unit at (850) 436-9580 or Crime Stopper at (850) 433-STOP (7867).
Pictured above: The fourth grade photo of murder victim Kenneth Deshun Underwood of Cantonment. Pictured below: The highlighted area in this map shows were the body was found. Courtesy images for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
No Serious Injuries In Floral Tree Wreck
January 2, 2013
There were no serious injuries reported in this accident Tuesday afternoon on Highway 95A at Floral Tree Gardens. Reader submitted photo by Douglas Brown, click to enlarge.
Gulf Power Crews Headed Home From Snowy Arkansas
January 2, 2013
A convoy of Gulf Power crews has headed home from Arkansas after working for several days to hep restore power following a storm that dropped 6-12 inches of snow and snapped trees and power lines on Christmas Day.
As many as 194,000 Entergy Arkansas customers lost power. A total of 28 line crew personnel and 15 support personnel helped with the restoration effort in the Little Rock and Hot Springs during the last several days.
This was the fifth storm restoration trip that Gulf Power crews made in the last six months. A restoration crew spent 17 days restoring power in Philadelphia and New Jersey during November after Hurricane Sandy struck.
Pictured: Gulf Power crew works to restore power near Hot Springs, Arkansas. Courtesy photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
2012 In Photos: September
January 2, 2013
All this week, we are looking back at the photos that were in the news in 2012. Today, we are featuring photos from September.
Fire destroyed this vacant home on Booker Street in Cantonment in September.
Tonia Allen
An overturned 18-wheeler and lots of peanuts caused tens of thousands of dollars to equipment at a Century sewage lift station at Highway 29 and Jackson Street.
Hundreds of students gathered at a schools across the area, including Ernest Ward Middle School, to pray during the annual See You at the Pole event.
A Flomaton man was critically injured in this Century wreck.
Escambia County (Ala.) Sheriff Grover Smith was shot while attempting to apprehend a suspect at this home in Flomaton.
Homecoming was held at Tate High School.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee campaigned in Escambia County for Romney-Ryan and the Republican party.
A Flomaton man was seriously injured in this crash landing in September in Mississippi.
Firefighters battled a vehicle fire on West Highway 4 near Bratt.
Students learned fire safety at Molino Park Elementary School.
A September rainbow as seen from Bogia.
A Patriot Guard rider was injured in this crash on Highway 97 in Walnut Hill.
The Northview High School cheerleaders at a Friday night game.
A September 11 memorial service was held at NAS Pensacola.
Ernest Ward Middle School opened their season with a win over Perdido.
The Northview Chiefs opened their historic state championship season with a 60-0 win over John Paul II Catholic of Tallahassee.
Florida Consumer Confidence Unchanged
January 2, 2013
Consumer confidence among Floridians was unchanged in December, down a bit from a peak in the fall, the University of Florida reported.
The UF Survey Research Center at the university’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research said conservatives who were unhappy with the November presidential election outcome generally remain gloomy about the economy, while those who supported President Obama are more upbeat.
The consumer confidence figure in December was 74, same as the revised November reading. The peak this year – which was a post-recession peak – was in September and October.
“In November there was a clear reaction to the outcome of the election with confidence among Democrats increasing and confidence among Republicans decreasing,” said center director Chris McCarty. “In December that is still true with confidence among Republicans at 49 and among Democrats at 103, about the same as November.”
Confidence was up for those under age 60 but down for those over age 60.
“This difference by age is even more pronounced when looking at expectations about personal finances a year from now,” he said.
Worry about the fiscal cliff in the federal budget remained another factor keeping confidence low, McCarty said. Floridians’ pessimism about the next year, both in perceptions of personal finances and expectations about the economy, was likely related to that.
Respondents’ expectation that personal finances will be sound a year from now dropped two points to 75, although perceptions of personal finances now compared to a year ago rose four points to 61, the survey center said. Confidence in the U.S. economy over the coming year fell six points to 73.
There was some optimism, however, about the current state of the economy in terms of whether it’s a good time to buy durable goods, such as washing machines. The confidence gauge on that question rose six points to 84.
There are several signs of economic recovery in Florida, including rising home prices and better housing sales. The state’s unemployment rate fell again in November by nearly a half a percentage point to 8.1 percent, the lowest level since the recession ended. The gap between Florida and U.S. unemployment is now only 0.4 percent.
And unlike in previous months, the November decline in Florida unemployment figures was not mainly the result of a decline in the labor force, McCarty noted. In November there was an increase in jobs and the labor force remained steady.
“Most economists believe that without the fiscal cliff the economy is on a solid path to recovery,” McCarty said.
By The News Service of Florida
Molino Home Damaged By Electrical Fire
January 1, 2013
A Molino home was damaged by fire Tuesday afternoon.
The fire was reported about 3:30 p.m. in the 600 block of Ayers Street. The laundry room fire was quickly extinguished by responding firefighters. The cause of the fire was believed to be electrical.
There were no injuries reported.
NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.
Top Stories Of 2012
January 1, 2013
Here are our picks for the Top 12 Stories of 2012 on NorthEscambia.com:
12. Century’s Nativity
An atheist group attacked the Town of Century’s nativity scene — which had not actually been displayed in years. The town declared the nativity scene surplus property, Baby Jesus and all, and sold it to the highest bidder. With a $5 bid from the Faith Bible Baptist Church, a spot of property from Century Marine, power from Abundant Life Assembly of God and extension wiring from the Tabernacle Baptist Church, the nativity scene found a new home just across the street from the Century Town Hall and was back on display for the Christmas season.
11. Local Elections
The election year brought new faces — Steven Barry and Lumon May — to the Escambia County Commission and the same familiar faces re-elected to the Escambia County School Board. In neighboring Alabama, Dewey Bondurant was back in as Flomaton’s Mayor, while Jim Staff was named Atmore’s mayor, ending about two decades in office for Howard Shell who did not run again.
10. Local Crime
2012 was not without crime in North Escambia — including several high profile cases in the last months of the year. A Century convenience store was robbed at gunpoint, a person was stabbed at a Century bar and Century’s Pen Air Federal Credit Union was held up by a bandit claiming to have a gun. And in Davisville, the longtime owner of a lottery story was shot to death during a robbery attempt. Two were arrested, claiming they intended to rob the store of Spice.
9. Gulf Power Nuclear Plans
The future became uncertain for 2,728 acres of land near McDavid purchased by Gulf Power for a possible nuclear power plant. State regulators ruled in July that Gulf Power could not force customers to pay for the land in advance of plans for a nuclear power plant at the North Escambia site. It became unclear whether Gulf Power will ever build a power plant — nuclear or otherwise on the site – as the utility never took a key first step in the lengthy approval process — a step known as getting a “determination of need.” Also, officials said it would likely take at least a decade to get permits and build a nuclear plant.
8. West Nile
North Escambia residents became increasingly aware of those pesky mosquitoes during the warmer months of the year. A total of 13 people were diagnosed with West Nile Virus in Escambia County during 2012. One case was fatal.
7. New Ernest Ward Middle School
The Escambia County School Board signed off on a new state of the art, $16.5 million Ernest Ward Middle School in Walnut Hill. An architect was hired to design the school, which will be built on the school’s existing campus in Walnut Hill. Construction could begin in 2013. Students will be on site during the construction of the new school. Once the new building is complete, most of the current building will be torn down, and portables and modular buildings currently on the campus will be removed.
6. Not So Quiet At the Library
Things were far from quiet at Escambia County’s libraries in 2012. With budget cutbacks at Escambia County and the City of Pensacola, both of which fund the libraries, the West Florida Library system became a very public budget battleground. Hours were slashed at branches in the county, and threats were made to close the Century Branch Library and never open a planned branch in Molino. Library supporters and Escambia County fired back at Pensacola, with the county withholding funds to make sure county branches were open increased hours. In the end, most hours were restored, and the city and county took steps to look at new library funding methods and management in 2013.
5. Highway 29 Resurfacing
A $7.7 million project to resurface about 16 miles of Highway 29 from north of Champion Drive in McDavid to the Alabama state line in Century came to a conclusion in 2012.
4. Oil In Walnut Hill
In August, a train loaded with 69,000 barrels of crude oil worth about $6.5 million rolled into a new crude oil transfer station in Walnut Hill, the largest such facility in the United States. Genesis Rail Systems, LLC has complete phase one of the facility on 20 acres that fronts Corley Road near Arthur Brown Road. The property was chosen because it is at the intersection of an existing crude oil pipeline and the Alabama & Gulf Coast Railway. From the location, crude will flow primarily to a Shell facility near Saraland, Ala., and potentially to other refineries along the Gulf Coast. Back in June, an estimated 800 people stood in line for hours at the Walnut Hill Community Center in hopes of being hired for the oil transfer station. About 15 were hired, with the payroll expected to increase to about 30 people. The positions pay from $16 to $20 per hour.
3. Molino Community Complex
The grand opening of the new Molino Community Complex was held in October. The project included the conversion of the old Molino School in to a library, community center and museum. There was also a new 7,000 square foot facility constructed for the tax collector and property appraiser. The project was funded by local option sales tax monies.
2. Navy Federal Buys 4-H Facility
The children and teens on the 4-H County Council voted to sell their 240 acre Langley Bell 4-H Center to Navy Federal Credit Union. Navy Federal will pay $3.6 million for the property next to the credit union’s campus in Beulah, and the Escambia County Commission is constructing the new 4-H Center on Stefani Road with $1.5 million in local option sales tax funds. Navy Federal will use the property for expansions and promised new jobs.
1. All We Do Is Win, Win
The Northview Chiefs made history in Orlando’s Citrus Bowl, winning the first state football championship in the history of the school. It was the first state championship for an Escambia County school since 2009, and the first state championship of the new Class 1A Rural division. Chiefs fan supported their team in huge fashion, with about 1,500 make the 500 mile road trip to Orlando to cheer on their team.
Hungry At Mercy Of Washington For Farm Bill Action
January 1, 2013
Florida’s anti-hunger advocates are watching Congress warily, fearing lawmakers will cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, by billions of dollars as they wrangle with the fiscal cliff.
The cuts are contained in a federal farm bill that has been held hostage to sparring over automatic spending cuts and tax increases set for Jan. 1.
The farm bill must be reauthorized every five years; it expired at the end of September. But since the price of milk could more than double without congressional action, lawmakers are working on a deal to extend. That would hold SNAP harmless but not for long.
So far House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has rejected a one-year extension, offering 30 days instead. It’s unlikely that any deal will remove the possibility of SNAP cuts in the near future.
Advocates say Florida cannot bear another blow to its food support network. In June, nearly 3.5 million Floridians were getting SNAP benefits. From June 2011 to June 2012, Florida saw the nation’s second-highest increase in SNAP use – a rise of 9.7 percent.
“If SNAP benefits get cut, it scares me to death,” said the Rev. Pam Cahoon, executive director of CROS (Christians Reaching Out to Society) Ministries, a coalition of about 100 religious groups that runs food pantries and other programs to feed the hungry in Palm Beach County.
Last summer both chambers agreed to SNAP cuts, but they’re far apart on numbers. The full Senate passed a bill with $4.5 billion worth of cuts over ten years. The House Agriculture Committee okayed $16 billion in cuts for the same period; that measure hasn’t reached the House floor. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that nearly two million Americans would lose food assistance under the House version.
“Cuts in the food stamp program will have a terrible impact everywhere, but a particularly detrimental impact in Florida,” said Jim Weill, president of the Food Resource and Action Center in Washington, D.C.
The center is lobbying against any cuts. Weill cited polling by Gallup showing Florida with five urban areas in the nation’s top 25 in need for food help last year – Orlando-Kissimmee, Lakeland-Winter Haven, Jacksonville, Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach and Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater.
Fully 19.2 percent of adults and 28.4 percent of children are “food-insecure” in Florida, compared to the national averages of 16.1 percent for adults and 21.6 percent for children, said Richard English, executive director of Tallahassee’s Second Harvest of the Big Bend. That means at some point within a given month, their families might not be able to afford a meal.
Perry Borman, executive director of the Palm Beach County Food Bank and former Children and Families administrator for Palm Beach and Broward counties from 2008 to 2012, said the region saw a 300 percent increase in the number of residents needing food stamps.
“In a county that people probably think is full of wealth and extremely wealthy people, over 57 percent of all of our children in the Palm Beach County school system are on free and reduced lunch,” Borman said.
Congress, however, is facing immense pressure to cut spending, and the rise in SNAP costs during the recession is a sore point for many lawmakers. High jobless rates and expanded eligibility under President Barack Obama’s 2009 stimulus bill pushed the cost of SNAP to $76 billion a year in 2011, double what it was in 2008. The percentage of SNAP benefits going to households with gross incomes over 130 percent of the poverty line also doubled in that time, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture last month.
House Agriculture Committee leaders say they’re trying to preserve the program’s core mission – feeding the hungry – while preventing waste and worse.
Florida Congressman Tom Rooney, chairman of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry, supports the House bill. Rooney spokesman Michael Mahaffey has said the bill ensures that SNAP benefits “are there for those who need them. It closes loopholes…The House bill also achieves significant savings by cracking down on waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Anti-poverty activists say that approach ignores the economic benefits of SNAP.
“When you’re dealing with folks who don’t have savings, and they’re living from month to month, these federal resources go right back into the community,” said Debra Susie, executive director of the anti-poverty group Florida Impact. “And the U.S.D.A. research shows that every five dollars of SNAP benefits generates nearly twice that in local economic activity as a result.”
Besides, say local food bank administrators, it’s rare for people to ask for food who don’t need it.
“It comes down to them getting very, very desperate,” said Paul Clements of Tallahassee’s Second Harvest of the Big Bend. “We’ve seen a lot of prior donors who are now standing in our food pantry lines.” He also said donations are down this year.
“We had a couple of people come into the pantry and then turn around and walk out and come back the next day,” said Cahoon. “They were just so chagrined that they were having to be at a food pantry that they couldn’t even do it the first time they came.”
The main reasons for the greater SNAP participation, Cahoon said, are job loss, housing problems and the higher cost of fuel, “which made everything go up in price, from a loaf of bread to a gallon of milk.” She said people with jobs come to the food pantries because gas and groceries are so high, they can’t afford both.
Among the SNAP provisions marked for elimination: federal bonuses for food stamp payment accuracy. That has particular resonance for Florida, which went from one of the nation’s most error-prone states to one of the best performers. Former Florida Department of Children and Families Secretary Bob Butterworth, who oversaw DCF from early 2007 to mid-2008, plowed the bonus money back into the agency’s ACCESS program, which handles food assistance, just in time for the recession.
“Because of redesigning our ACCESS system over the years to provide online access, more than 95 percent of our applications are completed online,” said DCF spokeswoman Erin Gillespie. “We have (so far) been able to keep up with the ever-increasing demands…For food stamps, we process cases on average in 15 days and the federal standard is 30 days.”
Florida has never been faced with a farm bill’s expiration, said Gillespie; they’ve always been passed or extended.
“There are many current proposals regarding the federal farm bill, so we cannot speculate as to how changes would affect Floridians until something passes,” she said.
Advocates say the high rates of hungry children are especially troublesome, given what that augers for DCF going forward.
“In the state of Florida, we look at the third graders and how they’re doing with reading,” said Cahoon. “If they’re behind in reading, that’s how many beds we plan for our prison system in the future. If kids aren’t eating, then they can’t learn in school…and they’re going to end up in our prison system.”
By Margie Menzel, The News Service of Florida