40’s Tonight, Sunny Wednesday
April 12, 2011
Here is your official North Escambia area forecast:
- Tonight: Clear, with a low around 48. North wind around 5 mph becoming calm.
- Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 81. Calm wind becoming north around 5 mph.
- Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 49. Southwest wind around 5 mph becoming calm.
- Thursday: Partly sunny, with a high near 82. Calm wind becoming south between 5 and 10 mph.
- Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 56. South wind around 5 mph.
- Friday: A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 82. South wind between 5 and 15 mph.
- Friday Night: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 1am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 58. Southwest wind around 10 mph.
- Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 77. West wind between 5 and 10 mph.
- Saturday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 47. North wind around 5 mph.
- Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 76.
- Sunday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 46.
- Monday: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly sunny, with a high near 80.
- Monday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 60.
- Tuesday: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 84.
Molino Community Center Project Progressing
April 12, 2011
Work is progressing on the conversion of the Old Molino Elementary School into a community center and museum. Escambia County expects the project to be ready for bids by the end of April.
A library kiosk area is included in the current plans, and some areas of the facility will remain unfinished for a future library once funding becomes available. There are a total of five buildings at the site; however, only the 15,600 square foot main building is the focus of the renovation project.
A change order to include the addition of a new facility for the Tax Collector and Property Appraiser was approved by the Escambia County Commission on February 17, 2010.
Atmore Mayor Howard Shell Won’t Run Again
April 12, 2011
Atmore Mayor Howard Shell announced Monday that he will not seek re-election in 2012. Shell said Jim Staff, mayor pro-tem and District 5 councilman, had served the city well, and that he was “in training” for the future.
There are just under 21 months remaining in Shell’s current term as Atmore mayor. He was first elected to the Atmore City Council 1984 before being appointed mayor after the death of then-Mayor Patricia McKenzie. After winning the mayor’s race twice, he remained in office until being beaten in 1996 by Rodney Owens, an Atmore chiropractor. He returned to office in 2000 and is serving his third term since returning to office.
Byrneville Elementary Students Take On 20,000 Massive Math Problems
April 12, 2011
Byrneville Elementary students have taken on the Massive Math 20,000 Challenge. Kindergarten-fifth grade students are solving addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and fraction problems on a School 3×6 foot posters. Each poster has just over 4,000 problems.
“Not only are the students perfecting their math skills, they are proving by working together they can accomplish what looks like an impossible task,” according to the school.
Pictured above and below: Students at Byrneville Elementary School work on 20,000 Massive Math problems. Submitted photos by Candace Thornton for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Division Of Forestry Announced Longleaf Pine Restoration Program
April 12, 2011
The Division of Forestry at the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services announced Monday that the Longleaf Pine Ecosystem Restoration Landowner Incentive Program will be accepting applications from non-industrial private forest landowners Monday, April 11 through Friday, May 6.
“Longleaf pine forests once covered a vast range from Texas to Virginia, but have been reduced to less than four percent of historical area due to conversion to other land uses,” said Jim Karels, Director of the Division of Forestry. “Longleaf pine forests are highly valued for their resistance to damage by insects, disease, wildfire and storms and for their yield of high quality wood products, biological diversity and scenic beauty.”
The program, supported through a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service, offers incentive payments for completion of timber stand improvement, invasive species control, prescribed burning, planting longleaf pine, native plant understory establishment and mechanical underbrush treatments.
Its goal is to increase the acreage of healthy Longleaf pine ecosystems in Florida by assisting non-industrial private forest (NIPF) landowners with the necessary long-term investment required to establish and maintain this valuable ecosystem.
NIPF lands located in the historical natural range of Longleaf pine are eligible. All qualifying applications received during the sign-up period will be evaluated and ranked for funding approval.
To obtain application forms and more information on program requirements and procedures, visit a local Division of Forestry office or www.fl-dof.com.
Poll: Obama Wouldn’t Win Florida Today
April 12, 2011
Only a third of independent voters in Florida say they approve of President Barack Obama’s performance, according to a new Sachs/Mason-Dixon poll released Monday that also found Obama would lose to either Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee if the election were held today.
The phone survey found Republican Romney leading Huckabee among GOP voters 23 percent to 18 percent. In the poll, commissioned by Ron Sachs Communications, 43 percent of respondents approved of Obama’s performance and 56 percent disapproved. Among crucial independent voters 56 percent also disapproved of his performance, while just 34 percent approved.
Principal Arrested On DUI Charge
April 12, 2011
An Escambia County principal has been arrested on a DUI charge.
Sheree Diane Cagle, 49, of Cantonment was arrested over the weekend by the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office and booked into the Escambia County Jail. She was released on $500 bond.
Cagle is principal of both Hallmark Elementary and Allie Yniestra Elementary. The schools will merge with Spencer Bibbs Elementary this fall to form a 800-student, $17 million high-tech elementary in downtown Pensacola.
Deputies stopped Cagle just after 6 p.m. Saturday on Highway 29 just north of Nine and One-Half Mile Road. The deputy reported that he could smell alcohol on Cagle’s breath, and she failed both a breathalyzer and field sobriety test. She tested about twice the legal limit for alcohol — .176 and .178.
On the way to jail, Cagle told deputies “that she was going to be in so much trouble” and asked “is there anyway this could just go away”, according to the arrest report.
According to the report, Cagle told deputies that she had consumed three margaritas and a beer at a Pensacola Beach restaurant about two or three hours prior to the traffic stop.
Lawrence Madison Cooper
April 12, 2011
Mr. Lawrence Madison Cooper, age 84, passed away Sunday, April 10, 2011 at a local nursing home. He was a native of Bratt. He was a deacon and Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Church of Bratt for 46 years. He was a U.S. Army Veteran of WWII. He was owner of Lawrence Cooper Grocery Store from 1956 until 2010 and Corner Produce from 1955 until 1988.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Ida and Marion Cooper; one sister, Wilma Brooks and his brothers, Albert Shirley, Ralph Lesley, Howard and Hubert Cooper.
Mr. Cooper is survived by his wife of 57 years, Doris Mae Troutman Cooper of Bratt; two sons, Carl and Shannon Cooper and Marion Cooper, all of Bratt; one daughter, Judy and Chip Gilmore of Pensacola and his grandchildren, Leslie Cooper, Lindsey Cooper, Austin Cooper, Bryant Cooper, Blake Gilmore, Haley Gilmore and Aaron; one great-grandson, Kendall Reed Cambell.
Funeral services were held Tuesday, April 12, 2011 at 10 a.m. at First Baptist church of Bratt with the Rev. Gary Wieborg officiating. Burial will follow at Godwin Cemetery.
The family Received friends Monday, April 11, 2011 between 6 and 9 p.m. at Petty Eastside chapel funeral Home.
Pallbearers were Leslie Cooper, Austin Cooper, Bryant Cooper, Blake Gilmore, Scotty Flowers, Michael Weekley, Steve McGill, Clark Hill.
Honorary pallbearers were the deacons of the church and Sunday school class.
BP Kicks In $30 Million For Panhandle Tourist Marketing
April 11, 2011
The seven Northwest Florida counties deemed to have been hit the worst by last year’s oil spill will get $30 million from oil company British Petroleum to fund marketing campaigns to tourists, Gov. Rick Scott said Monday.
This comes on top of $32 million from BP that had previously been given to market Florida in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill last year that dumped 4.9 million barrels oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
The spill scared tourists away from Northwest Florida, which was nearest to the oil spill, just before the start of last year’s busy summer tourism season. As a result, local restaurants, shops and hotels lost millions in revenue.
“This grant will assist the seven counties hardest hit by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill last summer,” Scott said at a press conference. He thanked BP, the company that leased the oil rig, for “stepping up.”
“It’s a very small step in the road to recovery,” Scott said, adding that “we will continue to hold BP accountable to Floridians.”
Within 15 days, $10 million will be given to the tourist development councils in Escambia, Walton, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, Franklin, Gulf and Bay counties to spend on advertising.
The remaining $20 million will be dispersed in the next six months. Officials from the tourist development councils in these counties said the money will mostly be used to fund big-budget television, print and Web campaigns aimed at media markets in southeastern cities such as Atlanta, Birmingham and Nashville.
“One of the things that we recognize is how important tourism is to the economy of Florida, especially here in the Northwest part of Florida where there was a direct impact,” said BP executive Luke Keller.
Dawn Moliterno, head of the Northwest Florida Tourism Council, which is a coalition of all the area TDCs, said there will be efforts to track whether the BP grant money is actually bringing in more tourists. Moliterno said they will also closely watch bed tax revenues to see if they rise, fall or stay flat during this year-long marketing push.
Moliterno said many counties have already seen more tourism dollars this year than anticipated.
“We all have rebounded, and most of it has been because of what BP has done for us,” said Denis McKinnon, the head of the Escambia County Tourist Development Council.
Though BP has given Florida a total of $1.7 billion in payments, both to the state and tourism officials and to individuals through its claims process, the state is still mulling whether to file a lawsuit over the spill.
Florida and other states have until April 20 – the anniversary of the rig explosion – to decide whether to go to court to seek reimbursement from BP for costs and lost revenues brought on by the spill. Scott told reporters Monday that he’s hopeful it won’t come to that.
“I’m working with our lawyers and talking to BP,” Scott said. “My goal is to not have to go through litigation and make sure BP does the right thing.”
While BP was being praised for its $30 million grant to Panhandle counties, the administrator hired to handle reimbursement of individual claims against the oil company was bashed by Senate lawmakers on Monday.
Several state senators were unhappy that BP claims administrator Ken Feinberg turned down an invitation to speak at the Senate Agriculture Committee on Monday.
Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, said he was given a letter last week from Feinberg saying he couldn’t make it because his schedule wouldn’t allow it. Feinberg said in the letter he wouldn’t be in Florida the rest of the month of April.
Feinberg had appeared before a state House committee last month and was criticized for the slow pace of claims approvals. At that committee, Feinberg said there were more than 500,000 claims filed. But those claims have been slow to be filled in part due to insufficient documentation of lost revenue.
Feinberg promised at the meeting to speed along the claims process.
Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, called the snub “insulting,” and said it indicates “his lack of concern.”
Siplin said he would meet with Senate President Mike Haridopolos to discuss whether to subpoena Feinberg.
“It’s crucial to get him here,” Siplin said.
By Lilly Rockwell
The News Service of Florida
Tate High Sex Assault Suspect, 16, Pleads No Contest; Gets Probation
April 11, 2011
The 16-year old accused of the sexual assault of a another student at Tate High School pleaded no contest this morning to charges against him.
Raymond Eugene Teamer will remain on probation until he is 19-years old, must avoid contact with the victim, undergo counseling, perform 40 hours of community service, have at 8 p.m. curfew and was ordered by Circuit Judge Ross Goodman to write a two-page letter of apology to the 14-year old victim.
According to the arrest report, Teamer exposed his genitals to at least four people while attending a class at Tate High School on March 1. He is also accused of grabbing the girl by the neck and forcing her head down into his bare crotch. He was charged with felony sexual battery and indecent exposure.
Teamer had remained held in the Juvenile Detention Center since his arrest in early March.