Drivers Slams Into Stone Wall In Highway 97 Crash (With Photo Gallery)
February 5, 2011
A Pensacola woman came within inches of being seriously injured in crash Saturday morning in Dogwood Park.
Jung Cha Aglutay, 65, was southbound on Highway 97 near White Ash Road when she failed to negotiate a curve about 6:40 a.m., went airborne across a ditch and slammed into wooden gate, wood fence and a stone wall, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. Two boards from the fence penetrated the windshield, just inches from the steering wheel (see photo below).
Neighbors that heard the crash said they found the Agultay standing out of the vehicle when they arrived to investigate the noise.
Aglutay was transported by Escambia County EMS to West Florida Hospital with non-life threatening injuries. She was cited for careless driving by the FHP.
The Molino Station of Escambia Fire Rescue also responded to the crash.
For more photos from the scene, click here.
Pictured above: A Pensacola woman was injured in this Highway 97 crash Saturday morning in Dogwood Park. Pictured below: Two boards penetrated the windshield into the vehicle. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Trial Delayed For Man In Molino DUI Death
February 5, 2011
Trial has been delayed for a Navarre man charged with DUI manslaughter in connection with a November wreck in Molino that claimed the life of a Pensacola woman.
Terry E. Lee, 41, was scheduled to go to trial next week, but his day in court has been postponed until April while medical records are subpoenaed, according to Escambia County Clerk of the Court records.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol, Lee was traveling on Omega Drive about 6:15 p.m. November 10, 2010, when his Toyota car left the roadway, traveled through a wooden fence and across a pasture before hitting another fence and a tree. Lee’s passenger, Brandee N. Scott, 49, of Pensacola, was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash. She was reportedly impaled by a wooden board from the fence.
Lee, who was airlifted to Sacred Heart Hospital following the crash, reportedly told Florida Highway Patrol troopers that he was not involved in the crash.
Lee is facing charges of DUI manslaughter, DUI property damage, no driver’s license, driving with license suspended resulting in death, and three counts of possession of a controlled substance without a prescription. He remains in the Escambia County Jail without bond.
For more photos from the scene, click here.
Pictured above: One person died in this single vehicle crash last November in Molino. NorthEscambia.com file photos, click to enlarge.
Escambia County Makes Building Permit Process Faster — Or It’s Free
February 5, 2011
Friday, Escambia County’s Building Inspections Division kicked off a new streamlined process for obtaining a new single-family home permit called “3 or It’s Free”.
The new process identifies five steps to a permit and it includes a guarantee on the turnaround time. The Building Inspections Division is pledging to have a response to the applicant within three business days after the application package has been reviewed, logged into the system and a building permit number has been assigned to the application — or the permit is free.
A response from the Building Inspections Division is defined as either the acceptance for a permit or notification that revisions need to be made to the application before a permit can be issued. If revisions are required, the turnaround clock will reset to another three business days.
Warmer Temps Sunday
February 5, 2011
Here is your official North Escambia area forecast:
- Tonight: Mostly clear, with a low around 26. West wind around 5 mph becoming calm.
- Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 60. Calm wind becoming south between 5 and 10 mph.
- Sunday Night: A 30 percent chance of rain, mainly after midnight. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 39. South wind around 5 mph.
- Monday: A 50 percent chance of rain. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 54. Breezy, with a south wind 5 to 10 mph becoming west between 15 and 20 mph.
- Monday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 26. Northwest wind between 5 and 10 mph.
- Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 54. North wind between 5 and 10 mph.
- Tuesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 32. North wind around 5 mph.
- Wednesday: A 30 percent chance of rain. Mostly sunny, with a high near 59. North wind around 5 mph becoming southeast.
- Wednesday Night: A 50 percent chance of rain and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 39. Southeast wind 5 to 10 mph becoming north.
- Thursday: A 30 percent chance of rain. Partly sunny, with a high near 53.
- Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 26.
- Friday: Sunny, with a high near 49.
- Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 27.
- Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 53.
Escambia Man Gets Life In Prison For Abusing 6-Year Old
February 5, 2011
Lonnie Lee Rippy, 42, has been convicted by an Escambia County jury of two counts of sexual battery upon a child under 12 and two counts of lewd or lascivious molestation upon a child.
Ribby was convicted of molesting the six-year old victim multiple times over a four month period. The defendant was remanded into custody after the trial.
Judge Ron Swanson sentenced Rippy to life in state prison on all four counts. He was also designated as a sexual predator.
Little League Ball Registration Continues
February 5, 2011
Registration is continuing for Century Little League, Molino Recreation Association at Don Sutton Park and Northwest Escambia Little League at Walnut Hill’s Bradberry Park. Details for all three parks are below.
Northwest Escambia Little League registration has been extended. Registration will be held Saturday, February 5 from 9 a.m. until noon and Saturday, February 12 from 9-10 a.m. at Bradberry Park for ages 3-18. Tryouts will be Saturday, February 12 at 10 a.m. Junior and Senior leagues can register until March 19.
A copy of the child’s birth certificate is required for registration.
Registration fees are $40 for the first child, $30 for the second child and free for additional children. The child will be measured for their uniform, and there will be a $20 deposit toward each child’s uniform fee.
For more information on NWE, call (850) 327-4579 or 327-6843 after 5 p.m.
Molino Recreation Association will hold registration each Saturday from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. through February 19 at Don Sutton Park. The annual draft will be February 19 at 3 p.m.
Registration fees are $50 for the first child, $45 for the second, $40 for the third and free for additional players from the same family. A birth certificate copy is required to be on file for each child.
Click here for complete Molino Ballpark registration information in printable form.
Century Little League
Century Little League Registration will be Saturday, February 5 and February 12 from 9-11 a.m. at Showalter Park.
Florida Weekly Government Roundup
February 5, 2011
It was no tempest in a teapot this week when a Pensacola judge stirred the national debate about the federal health care law by ruling that it was not only unconstitutional to require people to buy insurance, but that the entire health care law violates the nation’s founding document.
U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson became the second federal judge to rule against the major portion of President Barack Obama’s health care plan, a mandate that everyone be insured. But he also took it a step further and said that problem made the whole thing invalid.
Charges of “judicial activism” that typically come from conservatives rang out from liberals across the U.S., but Vinson said that the mandate was essential to the health care law, and thus, the whole thing had to go.
“It should be emphasized that while the individual mandate was clearly “necessary and essential” to the Act as drafted, it is not “necessary and essential” to health care reform in general,” Vinson wrote. “It is undisputed that there are various other (Constitutional) ways to accomplish what Congress wanted to do.”
Reaction to the lawsuit in Florida, where it originated, was swift – and highly partisan.
Despite basing his whole campaign on the theme of getting to work, Gov. Rick Scott said this week he the state will be in no hurry to implement any aspect of the law with Vinson’s ruling.
“We are not going to spend a lot of time and money with regard to trying to get ready to implement that until we know exactly what is going to happen,” Scott said. “I hope and I believe that either it will be declared unconstitutional or it will be repealed.”
Meanwhile, Florida Democrats said Scott – and Vinson – were out of touch.
“For the governor, walking way from health insurance reform is just another ideological battle,” said Rep. Mia Jones, the ranking Democrat on the House Health & Human Services Committee. “But for many Floridians, health insurance coverage is a real life struggle.”
“For all of my colleagues on the conservative side who criticized activist judges for their lack of deference to the legislative and executive branches of government, I hope they’ll be equally as critical of this decision,” Center for American Progress Chief Operating Officer Needra Tanden, who worked on crafting the legislation, added.
Predictably, U.S. Department of Justice officials were more focused on appealing Vinson’s decision then how it was viewed politically, saying immediately this week they would appeal to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, which has jurisdiction over cases originating in Florida, Georgia and Alabama.
But regardless of what happens there, the opening salvos in the legal battle over health care that were fired in Florida will ultimately likely be decided at the nation’s highest court.
SCOTT GETS TO WORK ON THE BUDGET
When he wasn’t cheering the health care ruling this week, Scott began revealing drips and drabs of his budget proposal, which is due next week. By week’s end, it was expected that Scott will be proposing a budget on a two-year cycle, though state law currently requires a budget to be drafted annually.
Scott revealed that he would reveal his budget with the people that powered his rise – tea party activists. They’re even bringing their boat, a model of the Boston Tea Party ship Dartmouth.
Scott said he would propose making the 655,000 government workers enrolled in the Florida Retirement System contribute 5 percent of their paychecks to the plan, which he said would pull an additional $1.3 billion into the state’s cash-strapped budget.
Democrats, especially those representing state worker filled districts in Tallahassee, said Scott’s plan amounted to a 5 percent “tax” on state workers – tax, of course, being a dirty word to Scott and his most ardent supporters.
But Republicans said he needs to make big proposals to cut the deficit and follow through on a tax cut promise. “He ran on cutting spending and increasing jobs,” said Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville. “Pay and benefits are a big area of state spending.”
SB 6, PART DEUX
With the man who vetoed last year’s teacher merit pay bill safely back in St. Petersburg, lawmakers got right back to trying to base teacher salaries partially on student performance this week.
Sen. Steve Wise, R-Jacksonville, the chairman of the Senate’s PreK-12 Education Committee, filed a proposal linking teacher pay to student test scores, while also offering more money to those who teach in high risk or high need areas and allowing school boards to put new hires on one-year contracts.
The measure is the Legislature’s first attempt in 2011 to make good on its promise to make teachers more accountable for the quality of schools. It is also may partially to revive a fight that mobilized state teachers and got former Gov. Charlie Crist to wield his veto pen like a red-pen waving grade school teacher. Still, the initial reaction was less angry this year, with the education establishment saying they’ve been asked to be more involved this time around, and they appreciate it.
Wise’s bill (SB 736) would grandfather in current teacher pay plans, but set up new, merit-based ones for teachers hired after July 1, 2014. The bill would require districts to set up evaluation systems that rate teachers as “highly effective,” “effective,” “needs improvement” or “unsatisfactory.” Half of those evaluations would be based on test scores.
Under the bill, teachers would only see raises if they are deemed highly effective or effective.
Seeking to make a better grade on the merit bill from Scott, Wise also announced this week he was inviting former D.C. public schools chancellor Michelle Rhee to testify before his committee next week. Rhee, who gained fame, admirers and plenty of enemies in her attempt to overhaul the D.C. public schools under former Mayor Adrian Fenty, has been informally tutoring Scott on education policy.
GOODBYE TO HUNDREDS OF CRIST APPOINTEEES, BUT HELLO AGAIN TO A FEW
Gov. Scott this week gave 168 Senate-confirmable Crist appointees a signal that there is a new boss in town by withdrawing their nominations to various boards and commission. Among that number was four sitting members of the Florida Public Service Commission.
But by week’s end, he had given some a reprieve, including the four PSC Commissioners he had yanked back.
Commissioners Ronald Brisé, Eduardo Balbis, Julie Brown and Chairman Art Graham, who were all appointed to the utility regulation panel last year, were among the Crist appointees withdrawn by Scott in a letter to Senate President Mike Haridopolos. But he reappointed them all Friday.
He also made several other re-appointments, including placing Katie Patronis, wife of state Rep. Jimmy Patronis, R-Panama City, back on the Gulf Coast Community College District Board of Trustees. Also nominated again were Jacksonville resident Leonard Curry to the Florida State Boxing Commission and Bradenton resident George Thomas to the Board of Medicine.
Scott also re-appointed Fort Lauderdale resident Torey Alston to the Board of Trustees of Florida A&M University, the state’s largest black college.
Elsewhere this week, Scott made Florida Lottery Research and Promotions Director Cynthia O’Connell secretary of the agency, and tapped former state representative and Tallahassee bureaucrat Carl Littlefield to serve as his Director of the Agency for Persons with Disabilities.
STORY OF THE WEEK: U.S. District Roger Vinson followed his own tea leaves and declared the federal health care challenged in his court by Florida and 25 other states unconstitutional, with a nod to the politically-influential tea party movement to boot.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place,”
Plants Some Seeds: Grow A Greater Variety Of Vegetables
February 5, 2011
Most gardeners know there is a greater selection of vegetables available in seed catalogs than can be found locally. To grow those wonderful plants, however, you must be able to grow your own transplants from seed.
Containers for sowing seeds
It’s important to choose the right containers for sowing seeds. In general, containers should be clean, sturdy and have drainage holes. If you are reusing containers, be sure to sterilize them by soaking them in a bleach solution followed by a thorough rinsing.
Seeds can be started in flats, pots, old cans, cut-off milk cartons, margarine tubs, egg cartons, or other throwaways.
Peat pots are frequently used, especially for large seeds. Peat pots can be planted directly in the garden, but do not allow the edges of the pot to stick out above the soil. The edges will act as a wick and moisture will evaporate from this exposed surface.
Growing media
The medium used for starting seeds should be well-drained and of fine texture. It is best to use a “soilless” mix since garden soil contains disease organisms that can be highly destructive to small plants.
There are some excellent commercially prepared mixes available for growing seeds. Some gardeners will mix their own soilless media. A 50 percent vermiculite or perlite and 50 percent fine sphagnum peat is excellent for starting seeds.
Planting seeds
Fill the container almost to the top with slightly-moistened medium, level it and gently tap the container on a hard surface to settle the soil. Do not compress the soil at any time.
Scatter or broadcast the seeds evenly over the surface. If planting in individual pots, plant two or three seeds per pot (all but one seedling will be pinched off if they all germinate). With larger containers, sow a number of seeds fairly thickly and transplant the seedlings into individual pots later.
Lightly cover the seeds to the depth recommended on the seed package. Label each pot promptly with the plant type, cultivar name and planting date.
Water the seeds in with a fine spray. Then water as needed to keep the medium evenly moist but not soggy. Never let it dry out!
Place the container in a warm location. Generally a temperature range from 65 to 75 degrees is best. Gentle bottom heat can speed germination and can be provided by special heating cables available at nurseries or by mail order.
If your home is dry, it may help to cover the containers with plastic wrap to maintain a uniform moisture level since seeds and seedlings are extremely sensitive to drying out.
Growing the seedlings
Light is especially critical once the seeds germinate. If the seedlings begin to stretch and look leggy, they are not getting enough light.
It is common to start seeds indoors this time of year when it’s chilly outside. Place the containers of seedlings in the sunniest window you have.
If you don’t have a sunny window, you can grow seedlings using a fluorescent utility light fixture suspended on chains from hooks. Position the fixture 3 inches above the seedlings and leave it on 14 hours to 16 hours a day. Raise the fixture as the seedlings grow.
Water regularly and fertilize seedlings once a week. As soon as the seedlings are large enough to handle, they should be carefully separated and transplanted into individual pots – or if already growing in individual pots, thinned to one plant per pot.
Planting into the garden
When weather conditions are suitable, plant your seedlings in the garden
But remember, plants grown indoors or in greenhouses need to be acclimated to the environment outside before planting. First, place them in a protected shady location and allow them to wilt slightly before watering. Then, over the next 10 days, gradually expose them to more light.
Pictured top inset: Preparing the growing medium. Pictured bottom inset: Master Gardeners arranging trays in the greenhouse. Theresa Friday photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
One Injured In Tate School Road Crash
February 5, 2011
One person was injured in a two vehicle accident Friday afternoon in Cantonment.
The accident happened about 3 p.m. at Highway 29 and Tate School Road. Both vehicles came to rest off the roadway. One person was transported to a Pensacola hospital by Escambia County EMS following the crash. Further details have not been released.
The Cantonment Station of Escambia Fire Rescue also responded to the accident.
Pictured above and below: One person was injured in this two vehicle crash at Highway 29 and Tate School Road Friday afternoon. NorthEcambia.com photos by Kristi Smith, click to enlarge.
Century Woman Busted After Running Stop Sign In Stolen Car
February 4, 2011
Running a stop sign landed a 57-year old Century woman in jail when deputies discovered was driving a stolen car.
About 12:30 Thursday morning, a deputy watched as a white Mazda Protege failed to stop at a stop sign located at Sellers Road and West Highway 4. He conducted a traffic stop on the vehicle and found that it had previously been reported stolen and that the driver, Iretha Mae Smith, had an outstanding grand theft auto warrant.
When the deputy asked Smith to step out of the vehicle, she reportedly got out with a white pill in her hand. The pill, according to the Sheriff’s Office, turned out to be a Lortab for which Smith did not have a prescription.
Smith was charged with grand theft auto, felony possession of a controlled substance and issued a citation for failure to stop at a stop sign. She was booked into the Escambia County Jail with bond set at $3,000.
Pictured: Iretha Mae Smith.