Meet The Northview Chiefs Tonight
August 20, 2013
The Northview High School Quarterback Club will sponsor the annual “Meet the Chiefs” at 7:00 tonight at the NHS stadium.
Planned festivities for the night include performances by the Northview Chiefs Tribal Beat Marching Band, the Northview High School cheerleaders, the Northview Dance Team, and the introduction of the 2013 Northview varsity and junior varsity Chiefs. Admission is free.
The Chiefs will host a preseason classic against Bay High School Friday night at 7:00.
NorthEscambia.com file photo, click to enlarge.
Charges Upgraded: Molino Woman Charged With Murder After Husband Dies
August 20, 2013
A man shot three times by his wife Saturday night in Molino died Monday afternoon, and charges against her have been upgraded to murder.
Rebecca A. Rogers, 43, remains in the Escambia County Jail without bond, now charged with second degree murder.
She allegedly shot her husband, 42-year old Jason Lee Rogers, in the head about 10:45 p.m. Saturday at the couple’s home in the 3400 block of Highway 29 near Mathison Road. He was transported by Escambia County EMS to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola. He was pronounced dead just after 1 p.m. Monday.
The shooting was domestic violence related, according to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office. Rebecca Rogers called 911 to say that her husband choked her and she shot him, according to an arrest report. Deputies arrived to find Rebecca Rogers standing outside the home. They found Jason Rogers lying unconscious in the back bedroom of the home on his stomach with what appeared to be a gunshot to his head. According to the report, he also suffered two other gunshot wounds to the back.
NorthEscambia.com file photo, click to enlarge.
Two Blood Drives In Cantonment Today
August 20, 2013
There will be two blood drives going on in Cantonment on Tuesday.
One will be at International Paper from 6:30 a.m. until 6:30 p.m., and there will be a public blood drive at the Winn Dixie at 1550 South Highway 29 from 3-6:30 p.m.
Blood donors will receive a wellness check, a cholesterol screening and a t-shirt. All donors will also be entered into a drawing to win Outback Steakhouse for a year (vouchers for $240 value, 24 dinners for a year.)
Blood donations are always needed especially during the summer months and celebration events. Every two seconds someone needs a blood transfusion in the United States. Generally, healthy people age 16 or older who weigh at least 110 pounds can donate blood.
Escambia County Jail Transfer Workshops Continue
August 20, 2013
Escambia County and the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office will continue negotiations for the transfer of the Jail and Central Booking operations Wednesday, August 21, beginning at 9 a.m.
The workshop will be held at 221 Palafox Place in the fourth floor training room in the Escambia County Administration office. While space is limited, the meeting is open to the public.
Back To School Photo Gallery
August 20, 2013
Thousands of area students headed back to class on Monday. We asked NorthEscambia.com readers to submit back to school photos, and we received hundreds.
Click here for a photo gallery.
We regret that we are unable to run all of the photos.
Pictured top: Fourth grader Kasen Sawyer with his teacher, Kim Ryan, at Bratt Elementary School. Pictured below: The “Atallah Bunch” – Adrianna, Madeleine, and Ayden attend Byrneville Elementary; Trystan attends Bratt Elementary; and Tryniti attends Molino Park. Reader submitted photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Randall Ovila Comeau
August 20, 2013
Randall Ovila Comeau, 78, of Cantonment died on Sunday, August 18, 2013, at Covenant Hospice at West Florida Hospital.
He is survived by his five children, Jeffrey Comeau and his wife Denise, Christopher Comeau, Lynn Ann Covell and her husband David, Brent Comeau and his wife Elizabeth, and Rebecca Sherrouse and her husband Nicholas; eight grandchildren, Sydney Milke, Jessica Comeau, Christian Comeau, Jacob Covell, Macy Comeau, Matthew Covell, Seth and Zachary Comeau (along with their mother Andrea Comeau); one great-grandchild, Lola Milke; and many nieces and nephews.
He served in the U.S. Navy 1953-1977 (retired as Master Chief). He also served his community as a management analyst in the Federal Civil Service, as a permanent deacon in the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee for 25 years, and as a minister to shut-ins for more than 30 years.
The Funeral Mass will be celebrated at Nativity of Our Lord Catholic Church at 6:00 p.m., Friday, August 23, 2013. The presiding celebrant will be Monsignor Michael P. Mooney.
Burial services will take place at Barrancas National Cemetery on Monday, August 26, 2013 at 9:30 a.m. at the columbarium gazebo.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Covenant Hospice, 5041 N. 12th Ave., Pensacola, FL 32504.
Charles William “Billy” Thompson
August 20, 2013
Charles William “Billy” Thompson Jr., 61, passed away unexpectedly on Friday, August 16, 2013.
Billy was an avid outdoor sportsman, who loved fishing, hunting and being around friends and family. Billy was also involved in racing, helping his brothers and nephew on their race cars. When he wasn’t enjoying the outdoors or at the racetrack, you could find him shooting a game of pool.
Billy was born June 4, 1952, in Pensacola and resided in Pensacola his entire life.
Billy was preceded in death by his grandparents, Marion and Sally Thompson and Grady and Ruby Allbritton; father, Charles W. Thompson Sr.; and the love of his life, fiancé, Kay Jackson.
Survivors include his mother, Christine Bonds; brothers, Rick (Joni) Thompson, Tim Thompson, Mike Bonds and Chip Bonds; sisters, Tonya (Mike) Brantley and Gayle Falke; and a host of aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins and many friends.
Visitation will be held from 9 a.m. until funeral services begin at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, August 21, 2013, at the funeral home with Dr. Dale Patterson officiating. Burial will follow at Bayview Memorial Park.
Pallbearers will be Randy Thompson, Tim Thompson, Glenn Fowler, James Hallman III, Micah Hallman and Hunter Mandel.
Honorary pallbearers will be Mike Fine, Ricky Fine, Danny Fine, and Doug Mandel.
Trahan Family Funeral Home, 419 Yoakum Court, is in charge of arrangements.
Court Records: Greer Tried To Get Gambling Regulator Fired
August 20, 2013
Former Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer, on the payroll of a South Florida dog track, tried to get a gambling regulator fired two days before the veteran state worker was forced to resign, according to court records obtained by The News Service of Florida.
Greer is now serving an 18-month sentence in state prison after pleading guilty to money laundering and theft in connection with a scheme in which he created a company and then steered party business to it.
But while Greer — hand-picked by former Gov. Charlie Crist to head the state GOP —was party chairman in 2009, he was also working for the owners of the Mardi Gras Casino in Broward County, getting paid $7,500 a month as a consultant for entertainment and hospitality regulatory issues.
Four years later, gambling operators are still jockeying over lucrative pari-mutuel permits even as the Legislature explores how much — and what types of — gambling the state should allow.
A case involving the quest for a quarter-horse permit near Homestead, which could open the door for more slot machines in South Florida, demonstrates a tangled web of the relationships between gambling lobbyists, regulators and politicians.
The company Greer was working for was one of the “three loudest voices” opposing South Florida quarter-horse permits, according to Florida Administrative Law Judge R. Bruce McKibben.
McKibben in an Aug. 6 recommended order said the Department of Business and Professional Regulation didn’t do anything wrong by denying a permit to Ft. Myers Real Estate Holdings, a company trying to get the permit for the venue in Florida City, near Homestead. The permit, if issued, would allow a card room and possibly slot machines. Marc Dunbar, a lawyer who represented the Ft. Myers group, said it plans to appeal McKibben’s ruling.
But the court documents and interviews with the players reveal a marked shift in the state’s handling of permits after Chuck Drago, Greer’s close friend and godfather of his oldest son, became secretary of the agency and after long-time DBPR Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering Director Dave Roberts was ousted.
Critics, including Drago’s deputy secretary Scott Ross, accused Roberts of issuing the quarter horse permits “like candy.”
Within a week after Greer demanded that Roberts be fired, Drago ordered Ross to terminate the regulator, Ross testified in the case.
Drago denies being asked by Greer to get rid of Roberts, targeted by South Florida tracks angry over the quarter- horse permits and other issues.
“Nobody asked me to have Dave Roberts leave. That never happened,” Drago said.
But Delmar Johnson, former executive director of the RPOF under Greer, said his old boss had “unfettered access” to Drago, who served as police chief in Oviedo while Greer was a city commissioner prior to becoming the GOP chairman. Greer also had access to Crist and his top two aides.
On July 14, 2009, Greer and Johnson met with Ross — Johnson’s fraternity brother — at Po’ Boys, a bistro close to RPOF headquarters in downtown Tallahassee frequented by Greer and his gang.
After the lunch, Greer took Ross aside and directed him to “fire your pari-mutuel director,” Ross told The News Service of Florida.
Ross, who had been on the job less than two months, said he refused. But Greer insisted, saying, “I’ve heard really bad things about him and he needs to go,” according to Ross.
Ross said he had no idea Greer, who never registered as a lobbyist for Hartman and Tyner, Mardi Gras’ owner, was working for the dog track and slots venue at the time.
“Do I have an idea now why that ask was made? I can connect the dots,” said Ross, a lobbyist and gambling lawyer who worked for Las Vegas Sands before being hired by Drago in 2009. His client roster now includes Las Vegas Sands, one of several gambling operators trying to convince Florida lawmakers to approve “destination resort” casino-style gambling in South Florida.
Johnson also said he didn’t know that his boss had a side job as a Mardi Gras consultant when he arranged the lunch with Ross at Greer’s request.
“Greer had to meet Scott. We had to go to lunch. Scott had to be there, and I had to get Scott there and he wouldn’t say why,” Johnson, now an AFLAC insurance agent, said in a telephone interview.
After the meeting, “Greer was frustrated,” Johnson added. “He didn’t seem happy.”
Hartman and Tyner Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Dan Adkins said he hired Greer as a consultant for a constitutional amendment that would have lowered the tax rate on slot machines. That plan was dropped after lawmakers reduced the tax rate in legislation dealing with a compact with the Seminole Tribe of Florida.
Adkins said he never asked Greer to lobby for him and didn’t seek to get Roberts fired.
“Absolutely not. I had very little communication with Jim Greer during that whole time. He was on retainer strictly for the issue of running the constitutional amendment,” Adkins said. “It’s just nonsense. Sorry. But the people playing the bad games here are Dunbar and Romanik.”
Dunbar has represented the Ft. Myers group, and David Romanik is a principal of and attorney for Ft. Myers Real Estate Holdings Inc. Romanik and Dunbar are both affiliated with Gulfstream Park Casino in Broward County and are both part-owners of a controversial track in the north Florida community of Gretna. The pair is frequently at odds with other South Florida pari-mutuels.
Greer’s lawyer Damon Chase claims Greer got his orders from Crist, who is now a Democrat and is expected to announce a bid for governor in October.
“Suffice it to say, Mr. Greer served at the pleasure of Charlie Crist during that time. Mr. Greer was steadfastly loyal to Charlie Crist and always followed instructions consistent with Mr. Crist’s agenda. Any involvement Mr. Greer would have had in this story would have been at Charlie Crist’s express direction,” Chase said in an e-mail.
Crist did not return calls seeking comment.
Drago, who left his post as DBPR secretary in November 2009 and went to work as Crist’s deputy chief of staff, said the former governor never pressured him about the quarter-horse issue.
“I never got direction that I can ever recall from the governor’s office one way or the other. The only concern was that they were kept in the loop as to what we decided. I never got any direction and I never even got a sense from the governor’s office that they wanted me to do anything particular,” Drago said.
Roberts left the agency the day after he inadvertently released documents to a lawyer for Mardi Gras, a competitor of Gulfstream, related to an investigation into a ring of Gulfstream workers who stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from slot machines using free play cards.
DBPR officials at the time said that the public records fiasco had nothing to do with Roberts’ departure. Roberts now works as a lobbyist for Magic City Casino, the former Flagler Dog Track in Miami-Dade County.
But the depositions and testimony in the case show that the governor’s office was keenly interested in the quarter-horse permits.
For two years, Crist’s administration had been negotiating a deal with the Seminole Tribe of Florida to allow the tribe to operate slots. Lawmakers refused to go along with the first compact Crist signed with the tribe in 2007 and, in 2009, the Legislature was preparing to pass a bill approving the agreement, ultimately authorized in 2010. In 2004, voters approved slot machines in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, opening the door for slots on tribal lands.
Between September 2008 and February 2010, the agency issued nine quarter-horse permits, including five approved by Roberts. Races have been run at two of the facilities — Gretna and Hialeah.
Three weeks after Roberts was forced to resign, Drago, Ross and the agency’s chief gambling lawyer, Joe Helton, met with representatives of Calder Race Course, Flagler Dog Track and Mardi Gras at Calder in Miami. Calder lobbyist Wilbur Brewton organized the meeting where the group aired concerns about the quarter-horse permits and suggested ways the agency could halt or at least slow them down.
The permits hadn’t resulted in licensed activities and thus weren’t bringing any taxes and fees to the state, the quarter-horse opponents pointed out.
State law imposed a restriction on other types of gambling permits, barring new facilities from opening within 100 miles of an existing track. But a loophole in the law did not include the mileage restriction for quarter-horse permits. The Legislature was expected to include the 100-mile restriction in a bill authorizing the compact with the Seminoles.
The South Florida tracks also believed that Roberts’s interpretation of the law relating to zoning requirements was too slack and complained to him about it, according to McKibben’s Aug. 6 order.
Gambling attorney John Lockwood told the court that “the special interests wanted Roberts terminated, because they were concerned with the quarter-horse application review process,” McKibben wrote.
Under “The Roberts Regime,” McKibben wrote, the agency would accept a letter from a land-use lawyer saying that zoning for the proposed location “was obtainable” from local authorities.
Lawyers for the quarter-horse opponents urged a stricter interpretation of the law that would require prior zoning approval before a permit could be issued.
After Roberts left, the agency adopted the proposed zoning requirements when considering the permits. DBPR officially rejected the Ft. Myers group’s permit in January, 2010, almost a year to the day after the application was first submitted.
Dunbar blamed Crist’s inner circle for the switch.
In the court filings, Dunbar and Romanik accused DBPR of stalling the Florida City permit until the 100-mile restriction went into effect, making approval unobtainable. After denying the permit, the agency refused to grant an administrative hearing on the issue. Romanik sued, and the 1st District Court of Appeal agreed that DBPR should have granted the hearing. The appeals court also ordered DBPR to pay nearly $80,000 in legal fees to the Ft. Myers group.
Ross said Dunbar is making “wide-ranging accusations of a conspiracy when there wasn’t one” because he disagrees with the different interpretation of the law.
“Nobody’s denying there was a philosophical change in how these were handled,” Ross said. “The interpretation was wrong. That’s why there was a policy change. You can see that the interpretation was wrong because to this day only one of them with the exception of Hialeah which has had a facility for decades is operational.”
by The News Service of Florida
Wahoos Sweep Double Header 2-1, 3-2 From Huntsville
August 20, 2013
The Blue Wahoos won their second and third straight games by sweeping their doubleheader with the Stars with a 2-1 win in game one, before claiming a 3-2 win in a rain-shortened second game.
In game one, the two teams waited out a 30-minute rain delay with two on and two outs and the Stars batting in the bottom of the first. Once it stopped, Huntsville took a 1-0 lead when Jason Rogers tried to move in to third on a pitch in the dirt, but Tucker Barnhart’s throw got away and allowed Rogers to score the first run of the game.
Pensacola evened the score in the fourth when Mike Costanzo unloaded on his third home run of the season, all against Huntsville. In the fifth, the Wahoos went ahead with back to back doubles from Jon Moscot and Ryan LaMarre. That proved to be all the Wahoos needed as Moscot (W, 2-1) finished five strong innings on the mound allowing just the one unearned run on only two hits with four strikeouts to earn his second win of the season.
Trevor Bell nailed down the save, his 15th of the season with a 1-2-3 seventh inning.
In the second game, the Blue Wahoos used a solo home run from Brandon Short to kick start the offense. Later in the inning, Yorman Rodriguez plated two more with a two-run single to right. That was enough with the Wahoos holding off late rallies of a run each from the Stars in the fourth and fifth innings. With the Wahoos batting in the top of the seventh, the rains hit hard at Joe Davis Stadium immediately following a double to right by Corey Wimberly. The game was delayed and eventually called making the Wahoos the winners of the rain-shortened game.
Parker Frazier (W, 2-1) earned the win for the Blue Wahoos out of the bullpen with 1.2 scoreless innings worked. Stars starter Frankie De La Cruz (L, 1-4) surrendered all three Pensacola runs and was charged with the loss. Daniel Renken started for Pensacola and allowed just one run on four hits over four innings. He fanned six while walking just two.
The Blue Wahoos and the Stars will continue the series on Tuesday night in Huntsville. Pensacola will send RHP Tim Crabbe (6-8, 3.35) against Stars RHP Taylor Jungmann (9-8, 3-95). First pitch is slated for 6:43 p.m.
Rainbows And Rain Showers
August 20, 2013
Here is your official North Escambia area forecast:
- Tuesday Night: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 71. Southeast wind around 5 mph becoming calm.
- Wednesday: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 88. Northeast wind around 5 mph becoming south in the afternoon.
- Wednesday Night: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 71. South wind around 5 mph becoming calm.
- Thursday: A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 93. Calm wind becoming east around 5 mph in the afternoon.
- Thursday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 72. South wind around 5 mph becoming calm.
- Friday: A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 91. Calm wind becoming east around 5 mph in the afternoon.
- Friday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low around 72. South wind around 5 mph becoming calm.
- Saturday: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 91.
- Saturday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low around 73.
- Sunday: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 90.
- Sunday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low around 72.
- Monday: A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly sunny, with a high near 90.
Pictured: A rainbow Monday afternoon over Flomaton, Ala. Photo by Ditto Gorme for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
