Blog: 2008 Predictions; 2007 Reflections

January 1, 2008

Out with the old; in with the new. Black eyed peas and football. Resolutions, weight loss plans and diets. Can’t figure out the date to write on checks. Must be the New Year.

We have worked a bit on a set of predictions for 2008. Those are a little later in this post. But first, we want to look back at our short time in 2007.

2007 was but a short year for us here at NorthEscambia.com, but what a year it was. After first going online in early November, we published nearly 200 stories and about 800 pictures from the North Escambia area. Over 530,ooo page views later, we are excited about your welcoming us into your homes and offices.

It makes us feel good to see all the visits from the local folks here in North Escambia. It’s great to see all the visits we get from the Escambia County Schools, Escambia County and various other state and local agencies. One of our primary goals in starting this site was to provide you, the residents of North Escambia County, a forum and a voice since we are often forgotten on the other end of our county.

We’ve noticed that most of the Mobile and Pensacola TV stations are visiting the site on a regular basis. It’s good to see that they are checking us out to make sure they have not missed something “big” that happened here in North Escambia. By the way, we sent press releases to all the newspapers, radio stations and television stations in the Mobile and Pensacola areas shortly after the site launched. While many had done stories in the past about new newspapers and web sites around the area, only one — The Atmore News — bothered to cover our opening at all. Wonder why? I’ll let you draw your own conclusions, but just wanted you to know.

Now, on to 2008 and our comments and predictions.

  • We will hear way too much bickering about the county commission. An excellent editorial was in the Sunday, 12/30 Pensacola News Journal begging somebody to step up and lead. We agree. This county needs leadership. We also agree with Dr. Ted Traylor at Olive Baptist Church, which has about the largest congregation in the county. We need leaders that lead with a little touch of God, he told the church this past Sunday.
  • The county commission just might notice that “north Escambia” extends beyond 10 mile road. Our district five commissioner, Kevin White, knows. But we are not so sure the other four have a clue.
  • It will be a nasty election year overall. Both our school board member and county commissioner are up for election this year. Plus there’s a race for sheriff, and the whole presidential mess. We hope that our local District 5 school board and commission candidates with run with integrity and grace. Run on your merits, not the bad points of the other person. As a District 5 candidate, we expect to see you from Molino to Century to Walnut Hill to Enon to Bratt and Bogia. We need to see you in North Escambia, and we need to know where you stand on our issues. We are not Nine Mile road.
  • Things will get hot concerning volunteer fire fighters in the county. There are those that are pushing for end of our volunteer departments. The McDavid, Century, Molino and Walnut Hill volunteer fire departments are a vital part of our communities. We, as the communities of North Escambia, will not stand by and let them be closed, or our volunteers replaced with a few paid firefighters.
  • We’ll see an expansion of leisure services in North Escambia. Perhaps a new park will be announced, and the county will move forward on the conversion of the old Molino Park Elementary into a community center.
  • The Escambia County School Board will feel the budget crunch. The district will consider closing at least one North Escambia School.
  • Property taxes and homeowner insurance will continue to be a pain.
  • There will be two named hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and they will both head toward Texas or Mexico. Well…everybody else offers predictions, so we thought we’d toss one in there too. We can guess as good as the next guy.
  • NorthEscambia.com will continue to grow and serve you in 2008. We have several new features planned and a few fun things also.
  • We’ll all learn a little more about our community by visiting here at NorthEscambia.com. There’s so much more here than the things we mentioned so far in these predictions. Predictions aside, we know that North Escambia will continue to be a great place to live and work. That’s why we call this area home. Thanks again for being part of the NorthEscambia.com family.

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under Blog, News