Birth: Landry Thomas Sims
February 3, 2013
Wes and Kelly Sims of Uriah, AL, are proud to announce the birth of their son, Landry Thomas Sims.
Landry was born on January 15, 2013, at Sacred Heart hospital in Pensacola. Landry weighed 7-pounds 15.9-ounces and was 20½ inches” long. Landry is the grandson of Billy and Dorothy Sims of McDavid, and Chuck and Gayle Aldridge.
Landry was welcomed home by his big sister Laurel and big brothers Lane, Layton and Lawyer.
Man Charged With Downloading, Transmitting Child Porn Online
February 2, 2013
A Pensacola man was arrested on child pornography charges after investigators determined he had downloaded sexually explicit movies involving children onto his laptop computer and transmitted those images to other computer users.
Joshua Montuori, 23, of 3206 West Lee St., was charged with 20 counts of distribution of obscene communications. He was booked into the Escambia County Jail on a $100,000 bond.
Detective Chris Wilkinson said agents with the North Florida Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force initiated a search warrant at Montuori’s residence after he was identified via the internet as distributing child pornography.
Wilkinson said an investigation is continuing to identify people who received child pornography from Montuori via the internet.
Task force members who assisted the Pensacola Police Department with this investigation included the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Office of Homeland Security and Escambia
County Sheriff’s Office.
Driver Dies Following Jan. 23 Wreck Outside Jay
February 2, 2013
An Alabama man died Friday as a result of injuries he received in a three vehicle wreck southeast of Jay on January 23.
David M. Kicker, age 63 of Repton, AL, was pronounced deceased at 3:07 p.m. Friday at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola.
The Florida Highway Patrol said two vehicles were stopped for a turning vehicle on Highway 87 near Country Mill Road at 5:23 p.m. on January 23. As Kicker approached from behind, he struck one stopped vehicle, pushing it into the other vehicle. Kicker’s 2010 Ford Explorer continued into the ditch while rotating. Then with just the left front tire on the surface of the roadway, his SUV barrel-rolled one complete rotation in the ditch before coming to rest on all four tires, the FHP reported.
Kicker was airlifted to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola where he had remained until the time of his death.
The driver of the vehicle first struck by Kicker’s SUV, 20-year old Orion Wayne Motsco of Jay, was not injured, but his 2006 Honda Accord was totaled. The driver of the third vehicle, 47-year old John P. Miller of Robertsdale, AL, was also not injured.
The accident remains under investigation by the Florida Highway Patrol.
Cantonment Woman Arrested After Bank Robbery, Fake Bomb Threat
February 2, 2013
A Cantonment woman is in jail after a bank robbery and bomb threat shut down Nine Mile Road Friday afternoon.
Escambia County deputies responded to a bank robbery at about 2:30 p.m. at the Beach Community Bank, 9329 N. Palafox St.
As deputies were responding they were alerted of a possible suspect vehicle, which they spotted trying to exit the shopping complex near the bank.
Deputies detained the suspect Mary Eileeen Pritchett driving the suspect vehicle. It was learned in the investigation that Pritchett had entered the bank and passed a note to a teller. Pritchett then exited the bank and drove off in a dark colored mini van, the same which deputies stopped.
The bank employees were able to positively identify Pritchett as the suspect. As deputies were speaking to Pritchett she claimed that her son had been abducted and was being held by a male until she robbed the bank. Pritchett said there was a bomb in the vehicle.
Deputies then closed the roads and evacuated the nearby businesses until the Bay County Sheriff’s Office Bomb Unit and the State Fire Marshall’s Bomb Unit arrived on scene. Traffic was rerouted due to the road closures.
During subsequent questioning Pritchett admitted that she had made the story up about her child being abducted, that she in fact has no child, and there was never any bomb in her possession or in the vehicle.
As a precaution the vehicle was cleared by the bomb units, and no type of explosive device was found. Pritchett’s vehicle was seized for the investigation.
Pritchett was arrested and charged with robbery with a deadly weapon, she remains in the Escambia County Jail with bond set at $10, 000. She provided an Cantonment address on Neal Road when booked into jail.
Pictured top: A Friday afternoon bank robbery at the Beach Community Bank on Palafox Street near Nine Mile Road landed one woman in jail and caused traffic nightmares in the area (photo courtesy Anthony Pura WEAR 3). Picture below: Traffic being rerouted along Nine Mile Road (photo courtesy Katelynn Zisa). Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Alyssa Borelli Named Miss EWMS 2013
February 2, 2013
Alyssa Borelli was named Miss EWMS 2013 Friday night at Ernest Ward Middle School.
First Runner-up was Nikoal Creamer and Second Runner-up was Morgan Myrick. Creamer also received the Poise and Appearance award. Other winners were: Ashtyn Carnley,Miss Physical Fitness; Hannah Ellis, Miss Hospitality; Elizabeth Wright, Miss Congeniality; Gabbrielle Peebles, People’s Choice award.
For a photo gallery, click here.
Pictured top: First Runner-up Nikoal Creamer, Miss EWMS 2013 Alyssa Borelli, and Second Runner-up Morgan Myrick Friday night at Ernest Ward Middle School. Pictured below: Contestants Gabrielle Peebles, Hannah Ellis and Makayla Harigel during introduction of the “Disco Fever” themed pageant. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Escambia County School Bus Drivers To Attend Funeral Of Driver Shot, Killed In Alabama
February 2, 2013
Dozens of Escambia County School District bus drivers will attend the funeral Sunday of a bus driver shot and killed near Midland City, Ala.
When an armed gunman boarded his bus Tuesday and demanded to take all of the students, driver Charles Albert Poland, 66, refused. He was shot four times and died protecting all of the students, except one, was safely escaped bus 04-2.
A 5-year old kindergartener was kidnapped by Jimmy Lee Dykes and held in an underground bunker.
Poland had driven for the Dale County Board of Eduction for three years. After his route, he and his wife Jan would share a cup of coffee and watch the sunset, or listen to the Alabama ran, she told the Dothan Eagle.
They would sometimes recite their favorite Bible verse:
For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. – 2 Timothy 1:12
Poland, by all accounts, love his simple life, and loved the children on his bus.
He loved them. He loved everybody and he was loved,” Jan Poland told the Dothan Eagle.
“I am proud of a group of Escambia bus drivers that will be attending the funeral of the bus driver that was killed earlier this week near Dothan. This is a remarkable gesture to communicate respect and recognition for all bus drivers that would be willing to shield and protect their cargo (our students),” Escambia County Superintendent of Education Malcolm Thomas wrote on his Facebook page Friday.
Pictured: Bus driver Charles Albert Poland, Photo courtesy the Dothan Eagle for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Photos:A ‘Funnel Cloud’ Sunset
February 2, 2013
Friday afternoon’s sunset was a bit unique, with readers across the area reporting what looked like a “funnel cloud” in the skies. Pictured: Friday afternoon’s “funnel cloud” sunset as seen from Walnut Hill (above, NorthEscambia.com photo) and below from Dogwood Park (courtesy Delaney Reynolds). NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Baseball, Softball Registrations Continue At Area Ballparks
February 2, 2013
Baseball and softball registrations across the area are underway. Here’s a look at registration information for Century, Molino Ballpark, Cantonment Ballpark, the First Baptist Church of Cantonment, Pensacola Miracle League and Flomaton Cal Ripkin:
Molino Ballpark
Registration at the Molino Ballpark will be held on Saturdays, February 9 and 16, from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. at the ballpark on Crabbtree Church Road. Wee Ball, T-ball, baseball and softball for ages 3-16. $55 registration fee for the first child. Birth certificate needed at registration. For more information, call (850) 712-6267.
Century Little League
Century Little Leauge will hold registration February 9, 16 and 23 at Roadside Park from noon until 2 p.m., or register at Rhonda’s Hair. Ages 3 and up. First child $50, second sibling $45 and third sibling $40. For more information, call (850) 393-9624 or (850) 259-4390.
Cantonment Spring Registration
Registration will be held every Saturday until February 16 from 9 a.m. until noon at the Cantonment Ballpark. The cost is $80 per child.
For more information email TheCantonmentBaseballClub@gmail.com or visit this Facebook page.
First Baptist Cantonment
The First Baptist Church of Cantonment will hold registration this Saturday, February 9 from ages 4-12 for T-ball through coach pitch. Registration will be at the Grocery Advantage on Highway 29 beginning at 10 a.m., or register at the church office during the week.
The cost is $35 per child. Games begin March 16. There will be no intense practices and no traveling is required. All games are Saturdays only.
Miracle League of Pensacola
Registration for the Miracle League of Pensacola will be held Saturday, February 9 from 9 a.m. until noon at the ballpark on Nine Mile Road.
Registration is $40 for age 4-11; $45 for ages 12-18; $50 for ages 19 or older.
The Miracle League of Pensacola provides physically and mentally challenged individuals a safe and spirited program in which they can hit, run, and catch on a baseball field. MLP offers a unique and memorable opportunity for these exceptional people to experience baseball. Volunteers are welcome.
The season begins Friday, March 15.
Argent Kavanah Hare
February 2, 2013
Argent Kavanah Hare, 70, of Walnut Hill, passed away at his residence on February 2, 2013. He was born on March 25, 1942, in Baldwin County. He is preceded in death by his parents, Victor Bartis and Vera Lucille Kimbler Hare, Sr. and his sister Vicky Anders. He was a retired pipe fitter with St. Regis and International Paper Company with over 33 years of service. He was a member of New Life Fellowship Assembly of God in Walnut Hill.
He is survived by his wife of 49 years Betty Spence Hare; three sons, Jeffrey Hare of Walnut Hill, James (Regina) Hare of Walnut Hill and Joseph (Brehia) Hare of Bay Minette; three brothers, Victor Bartis (Brenda) Hare, Jr. of Pace, Herbert (Audrey) Hare of Walnut Hill, and Ray Gene White of Cantonment; one sister, Sue Fillingim Fields of Molino; four grandchildren, Christopher Hare, Casey Hare, Tucker Hare and Cade Hare.
Funeral services will be held Tuesday, February 5, 2013, at 11 a.m. from the Johnson-Quimby Funeral Home Chapel with Rev. Ray Hudson and Rev. Ed McMillian officiating. Burial will follow in Dry Springs Cemetery.
Visitation will be held Monday, February 4, 2013, from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. from the Johnson-Quimby Funeral Home.
Johnson-Quimby Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: The Budget Of Milk And Honey
February 2, 2013
In the effort to think of someone who might try to replace the unpopular Gov. Rick Scott, one name has largely been overlooked:
Rick Scott.
The little-known, populist, former tea party politician emerged this week as a sweet-talking alternative to the Rick Scott who got elected in 2010 promising to be stingy and mean, to “Get to Work” at slashing the size of government.
Where Rick Scott-2010 rolled out his first budget by noting “there’s no sweeteners for special interests, or special people, or special companies,” Rick Scott-2012 this week put out a budget that tries to make several people feel special, from classroom teachers to state workers to environmentalists.
The new Scott, with no hint of shame at all, touted a gift bag of a proposed budget this week that tries to spread some happiness around, a sort-of ‘I told you so,’ about how a recovering economy can lift a lot of boats. The economy, the governor essentially said, has the state heading back toward the land of milk and honey, just in time for Scott to ask people to evaluate his first term and give him another.
There’s $2,500 raises for all classroom teachers; $1,200 bonuses for ordinary state workers, with bigger bonuses for the really good employees; there’s a big increase in per-student spending in K-12; new money for universities, along with a call for no tuition increases. And there continue to be the calls for tax breaks that are left over from old Rick Scott’s time.
Opponents of the governor kind of had their heads spun around a few times – he was actually calling for some things they’ve been pleading for, and forcing them to find some new talking points. After a couple years of being saddled with low approval ratings, the governor looked like he wanted people to like him.
And Democrats and others who have spent the last few years criticizing Scott found themselves admitting he was saying some things that voters just might like.
“It’s a taxpayer-financed down payment on courting votes for 2014,” said Sen. Chris Smith, of Fort Lauderdale, the leader of the Democrats in his chamber, to which Republicans essentially replied: ‘well, yeah.’
The state’s teachers union probably had to pull out a dictionary. Cutting and pasting the criticism they’ve leveled for years wasn’t an option – and they likely couldn’t find the last sentence they wrote in praise of a budget because it was presumably stored on an IBM 486 thrown out at the end of the Chiles administration.
“We are happy the governor is recognizing and investing in Florida’s high performing public schools,” Florida Education Association President Andy Ford said, seeming even in a written press release to struggle to get the words out. “…We look forward to the governor’s strong advocacy of this proposal.”
Before this week the only thing the teacher’s union was looking forward to was getting a new governor.
The union that represents many state workers will continue to advocate for an across-the-board pay raise, something government rank and file workers haven’t had in six years.
The spokesman for AFSCME also was using unfamiliar words, calling the governor’s bonus plan “generous” and a “significant financial commitment” and even saying the union appreciates it.
“I want to reward the most effective employees, no different than what I did when I was in business,” Scott said.
A few years ago, the state used to buy land to keep it out of development. There is a program called Florida Forever – but it didn’t look like it would go on for that long. When the recession hit, the state basically stopped buying conservation lands. But this week, Scott said let’s go back out there and pick up some more wilderness.
Scott proposed $75 million for the land buying program, after requesting just $15 million last year and using his veto pen to strike Florida Forever money two years ago. He also proposed new money for Everglades restoration and other environmental cleanup programs.
Scott also wants new dollars to reduce the waiting list for developmentally disabled people needing services, and overall, the proposed budget is bigger, in unadjusted dollar terms, than it has been in several years, coming in at over $74 billion – though Scott’s staff points out that when adjusted for population and inflation, it’s the third smallest in over a decade. Still, the other two smaller ones? Those were Scott’s first two budgets.
Bottom line, Scott says: the economy is coming back to life. And as he and other Republicans before him have said, when taxes are low and spending is careful, taxes come in more robustly and spending can be a little more carefree. The new money comes mostly from increased tax collections, Scott said.
“Florida’s economy is back on track and the nation is taking notice of our economic turnaround,” Scott said Thursday.
If one were watching the budget release with a political eye, one might say Scott is looking like another recent governor: Charlie Crist. That is, he’s found a popular issue – improving education and helping out teachers – and he’s going to go to bat for it. If that conveniently brings in some votes, well that’s OK. And if lawmakers can’t find a way to make it work – well, he’s not the one being the bad guy.
Crist, who is thinking about his own gubernatorial comeback effort, may have to pull out his planbook and cross “offer teachers a pay raise and throw money at schools” off his to-do campaign list as something that’s been taken away by the other guy.
BURNS AND ALLEN, ABBOT AND COSTELLO, WEATHERFORD AND GAETZ
While Scott this week unveiled his budget, the speaker of the House and the Senate president were sounding a note of harmony, appearing together – literally speaking at the same time – at a meeting of newspaper editors in an effort to show that their goals are the same.
One of the knocks on the Legislature going back many years is that it gets bogged down in the personal agendas of its leaders – and sometimes gets hung up when those agendas are at odds. Or the legislative calendar becomes fodder for horse-trading between the president and speaker so they can each get some of what they want for their legacy.
But Speaker Will Weatherford and Senate President Don Gaetz, both Republicans, said in their joint appearance this week that they have one agenda as a team.
“We have a solid framework of agreement on issues of key importance,” Gaetz said – a sentence that sounds more like something spoken in the last few hours of session. The two are on the same page on a number of issues, they said, from wanting to be cautious over the budget even with the new surplus, to interest in ethics reforms.
Adding to the bizarre tag-team approach of the two leaders, Gaetz, who is never at a loss for words – and lots of them – responded to one question, about use of tax dollars to help out professional sports enterprises, by following Weatherford’s answer simply with “what he said.”
Weatherford and Gaetz’ assurances of a harmonious couple of years between the two chambers came at an annual meeting of newspaper editors put on by The Associated Press. Also at that meeting was a panel discussion of what happened on Election Day to cause long lines and what the solution should be.
While consensus seems to have developed in the Legislature that more early voting days may be needed, and while some are pushing for shorter ballots, the panel discussion made it clear that there remain differences in opinion about what happened and why.
Particularly why. The most interesting discussion was over what the intent of lawmakers was when they reduced early voting and made it hard to change mailing addresses on Election Day. Democrats repeated their belief that it was part of a broad, national GOP effort to reduce minority voting. Republicans said that’s absurd.
They basically agreed to continue to disagree.
“I don’t personally believe Republicans sat in a room and tried to figure out a way to suppress the vote,” said Florida GOP Chairman Lenny Curry.
But that’s exactly what many Democrats do believe.
“I don’t think Republicans probably used those words, but pretty close,” said Democratic Party executive director Scott Arceneaux, sitting next to Curry on the panel.
“I believe there absolutely was an intent to suppress votes,” added Rep. Janet Cruz, D-Tampa, who was on Curry’s other side.
Sen. Jack Latvala, R-St. Petersburg, voted for the law most often blamed by critics for doing that, an elections bill passed in 2011 that, among other things, reduced early voting days. He said he, for one, had no intent of keeping anyone from casting a ballot.
Rather than thinking about keeping minorities and others who tend to vote Democratic from voting – if that was ever contemplated – the GOP needs to start courting them, Latvala said.
“We can’t win just based on better techniques … we’ve got to win based on ideas and better ideas,” Latvala said. “We can’t write off African-Americans and Hispanics and teachers and cops and firefighters and environmentalists and gays. There’s not 50 percent plus 1 left.”
STORY OF THE WEEK: Gov. Rick Scott rolls out a proposed budget that includes an increase of more than $1 billion in education spending, including a nearly half billion dollar pay raise for teachers. It also includes new money for environmental projects and bonuses for state workers – a couple things not seen in a while.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Just because we’ve come out of the years the locusts have eaten, doesn’t mean we’re in the years of milk and honey.” Senate President Don Gaetz, injecting some Biblical caution into the talk about the return of budget largesse now that the economy has improved.
By The News Service of Florida