Ascend, International Paper To Help Purchase Escambia County Mass Notification System
October 15, 2014
Escambia County Emergency Management, the Escambia County Health Department, ECUA, International Paper and Ascend Performance Materials are teaming up to purchase an emergency notification system.
Escambia County’s EMA has found it necessary to replace its current mass notification system that allows it to communicate with the public and other agencies and entities during emergencies.
The agencies and companies will purchase of a new internet-based mass notification system subscription at a total cost of $67,375 for a July 1 to June 30 period. Each party will contribute equally toward the annual subscription price.
The first subscription year will be prorated for eight months from November 1 to June 30, with each party contributing $8,983.20. Next year’s annual subscription will cost each party $13,475.
Escambia County will utilize federal grant funds to pay for its share of the total subscription cost. The county commission is expected to approve the plan at their Thursday meeting.
Escambia County Teachers, Support Personnel Get 4 Percent Pay Raise
October 15, 2014
Teachers in Escambia County are getting a pay raise.
The Escambia County School District, the Escambia Education Association and the Union of Escambia Education Support Personnel announced that they have reached a collective bargaining agreement that will give a four-percent pay raise to all teachers and educational support personnel.
The pay increase will be retroactive to July 1, 2014.
In addition, the school district and the EEA also reached agreement on a Performance Pay Formula to comply with Florida law.
AG Bondi Says Florida Justices Should Decide Gay Marriage Fight
October 15, 2014
Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday filed a court document arguing that the Florida Supreme Court should decide the constitutionality of the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.
The document, filed in the 3rd District Court of Appeal and first reported by The Miami Herald, comes after the U.S. Supreme Court last week declined to take up similar same-sex marriage cases from five other states.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision effectively allowed same-sex marriage to occur in those states because lower courts had found bans unconstitutional. State circuit judges in South Florida earlier this year declared Florida’s ban unconstitutional. That led Bondi’s office to appeal to the 3rd District Court of Appeal.
The request filed Monday would lead to the appeal going straight to the Florida Supreme Court, a move that same-sex marriage supporters also have backed.
“To date, no appellate court in Florida has ruled on the important issue this case presents,” the document said. “Florida’s citizens need a definitive answer, and they need it sooner rather than later.”
Separately, however, a Tallahassee federal judge in August found Florida’s ban unconstitutional. Gay-rights supporters have asked the federal judge to lift a stay on his ruling and allow same-sex marriages to be recognized in the state. That request is pending.
by The News Service of Florida
Doris Holland Amerson
October 15, 2014
Mrs. Doris Holland Amerson, 79, passed away Sunday, October 12, 2014, in Bratt.
Mrs. Amerson was a native of Christian Home and a resident of Bratt for over 60 years. Mrs. Amerson was a former member of the Daughters of the Nile, Ladies of the Antique Car Unit and Hadji Shrine. She was co-founder and office manager of Amerson Roofing Co. for 55 years. Her parents, Stanley and Mae Holland; husband, Oliver Peter “Pete” Amerson; son, Robert Stanley “Stan” Amerson; one grandson, Kaleb Ryan Amerson; two brothers, “Buck” Holland and Wayne Holland; and one sister, Judy Holland precede her in death.
Survivors include her two sons, Oliver Peter (Rita “Powell”) Amerson, Jr. of Walnut Hill and Kevin Ray (Tania) Amerson, Sr. of Villa Rica, GA; one brother, Jerry Holland of Pensacola; three sisters, Peachie Hopkins of Bluff Springs, Jannie Singleton of Walnut Hill and Betty Blanton of Bratt; 10 grandchildren, Oliver Peter Amerson III, Shelly Lynn Amerson Seale, Stanley Wade Amerson, Robert Stanley, John Donaldson, Brianna Parker, Kevin Ray Amerson II, Kollin Ray Amerson, Jared Joseph Mushro and Logan Jeffrey Mushro;and 14 great- grandchildren.
Funeral services were held Wednesday, October 15, 2014, at the Petty-Eastside Chapel Funeral Home with Rev. Delbert Redditt officiating.
Burial was at the Godwin Cemetery.
Pallbearers were Pete Amerson, Jr., Kevin Amerson, Pete Amerson III, Wade Amerson, Kevin Amerson II and Kollin Amerson.
Honorary pallbearers will be Logan Mushro, Jared Mushro, Allen Holland and Bobby Amerson.
Petty-Eastside Chapel Funeral Homes is in charge of all arrangements.
Pot Amendment: For Debilitating Diseases Or ‘Disingenuous’?
October 15, 2014
For former House Speaker Jon Mills, crafting a constitutional amendment that would allow doctors to order pot for extremely ill patients was an opportunity for the onetime University of Florida law-school dean to flex his legal know-how.
But the academic exercise became more personal a year after he started work on Amendment 2, one of three constitutional proposals going before voters this year.
Mills, diagnosed with lymphoma in 2013, is one of the amendment proponents debating the merits of allowing physicians to order marijuana for patients like him.
Opponents of the measure, led by the Florida Sheriffs Association, argue that the proposal is riddled with loopholes that will result in “a joint in every backpack” in Florida schools, legitimize drug dealers and enable doctors to order weed for a sore throat.
After his diagnosis, Mills underwent painful radiation treatment. His doctor ordered powerful narcotics, but, after taking just one, Mills said he decided he would rather suffer the pain than the discombobulation caused by oxycodone.
“I tried it and I hated it,” Mills, a Democrat who served as House speaker in the late 1980s and is now the director of the University of Florida Center for Governmental Responsibility.
The amendment would allow doctors to order marijuana for patients with debilitating conditions listed in the full text of the proposal — such as cancer, glaucoma, HIV, AIDS and hepatitis C — or “other conditions for which a physician believes that the medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the potential health risks for a patient.”
That’s a major sticking point for opponents, who use Mills’ own words last year before the Florida Supreme Court to poke holes in the proposal.
Justices asked Mills to explain what patients might tell doctors trying to determine whether their “other conditions” qualify for the marijuana treatment.
“I have throat pain, I can’t sleep, I’m having a problem eating …” a patient might say, Mills told the justices in December.
A clip of Mills’s response is highlighted in one of the many videos released by Drug Free Florida, a political committee funded heavily by Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who’s pumped $4 million into fighting the proposed amendment.
“Those aren’t debilitating diseases. This is how they created the pot-for-anyone-who-wants-it loophole,” an ad asserts.
Mills said his comments were taken out of context and that the conditions he described — extreme throat pain and inability to sleep or eat — were his own.
“That wasn’t an abstract concept. That was my personal experience. I guarantee you the inability to eat or sleep was debilitating,” he said.
In a 4-3 opinion, the Florida Supreme Court agreed with Mills, deciding that the “other conditions” language in Amendment 2 is not misleading to voters.
But Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, a former president of the the Florida Sheriffs Association, pooh-poohed Mills’ arguments and the Supreme Court ruling. Seven former Supreme Court justices have joined the coalition fighting the measure, Judd noted.
“What else is Jon Mills going to say because he wrote it? He knows good and well that the loopholes are there because he wrote the loopholes into it. For him to say otherwise is disingenuous. They are there. They’re clear and they’re convincing,” Judd said. “Amendment 2 is not just about the very sick and the debilitated. If it were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. It’s about the loopholes. It’s all about the loopholes. It’s just a bunch of hooey.”
Opponents of the proposal like Judd offer a parade of horribles encountered by California and Oregon after legalizing medical marijuana. According to Judd, the average patient in California is a 32-year-old white male.
“That’s not a sick population,” he said.
The pot proposal has created a dilemma for Republican leaders. Making medical marijuana legal received broad support from Florida voters, including Republicans, in a variety of polls earlier this year. But that support has dropped in the wake of television attack ads, giving hope to opponents that the proposal will fail to garner the 60 percent support of voters required for any constitutional amendment to pass in Florida.
GOP legislative leaders, including outgoing House Speaker Will Weatherford, have lined up against the amendment. In a maneuver aimed in part at curtailing support for the proposal, the Legislature this spring legalized strains of pot that purportedly do not get users high but are believed to alleviate life-threatening seizures in children with epilepsy.
That new law, backed by the sheriffs association, would allow doctors to order cannabis that is low in euphoria-inducing tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, and high in cannabadiol, or CBD, for patients who suffer from severe muscle spasms — like the epileptic children — or cancer. This year was the first that the GOP-controlled Legislature gave any marijuana-related bills a vetting.
The proposal before voters on Nov. 4 would also allow caregivers to administer medical marijuana to up to five patients and require the Department of Health to issue identification cards to patients eligible for the treatment and to caregivers. Also, it would create a database of patients and register medical marijuana treatment centers, which would distribute the pot. The amendment would give the department six months to implement rules and nine months to get the program up and running.
Some of the most-recent rows over the proposal focus not on its merits but on the personalities involved.
John Morgan, an Orlando trial attorney who has spent nearly $4 million of his own money getting the proposal onto the November ballot and pushing its passage, has become a flashpoint in the debate over the measure. Morgan — Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Charlie Crist’s boss — has been accused of maneuvering the amendment onto the November ballot to propel Crist’s chances for victory.
But Morgan insists that he threw his support behind the measure because of his father, who suffered from cancer and emphysema, and his brother Tim, partially paralyzed due to injuries sustained as a teen-aged lifeguard when he dove into concrete pylons while trying to rescue a swimmer. Joining his brother in promoting the proposal, the wheelchair-bound Tim Morgan is open about his use of marijuana to curb the pain and muscle spasms caused by his injuries.
In one of many appearances around the state, John Morgan was caught on tape delivering a boozy, expletive-laced monologue to what appears to be a crowd of young supporters at a bar after a rally in the Lakeland area.
The anti-Amendment 2 group quickly used the tape to blast Morgan and the amendment, and the Republican Party of Florida also jumped on the attack, linking Morgan to Crist.
The brash Morgan accuses Judd and other medical marijuana naysayers of using a “1950s, reefer madness mentality” to plant fear in the minds of voters.
He scoffs when asked if passage will result in “a joint in every backpack,” something Jacksonville Sheriff John Rutherford frequently asserts. The proposal does not restrict doctors from ordering marijuana as a treatment for patients under the age of 18, which opponents say is yet another loophole.
“Sheriff Rutherford doesn’t understand reality. And reality is that children have marijuana now. There’s a school in Orlando where it’s so bad that they’re now drug testing the children and if you fail it twice you’re kicked out,” Morgan said.
Like other drugs, minors could not get orders for weed filled without their parents’ permission, amendment proponents say.
But Judd argues that parents who want pot for themselves could get a doctor to order it for their children, and he also refers to medical research showing that marijuana can harm developing brains.
He rattles off a laundry list of other loopholes in the amendment, each rejected by Mills or Morgan. Both sides trot out statistics and medical experts to support their positions.
Like Morgan, Judd also uses his personal experience in the effort to kill the amendment, which he calls “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Legalizing pot will lead to more drug addiction, which destroys families, Judd said, describing a typical conversation he has had with parents over his four decades in law enforcement.
“They say, ‘Sheriff, I’ve ran through my insurance money. I’ve ran through all my savings. My child’s out on the street some place tonight and I’m scared they’re going to die. Would you please go find them and arrest them because at least I’ll know they’re safe in jail?’” Judd said. “You don’t need many of those phone calls to have your fill of them for a lifetime, and I get them on a normal basis. And if there’s anything I can do to stop someone from being addicted to marijuana or any drug, if there’s anything I can do to stop that to help comfort and care for those families. I’m going to do it.”
But for Morgan and Mills, giving patients the option of a less-addictive treatment — pot — than strong narcotics like OxyContin is a no-brainer.
“Right now you can go to a doctor for a hangnail and a doctor can prescribe you OxyContin. A crooked doctor is as bad as a crooked lawyer and as bad as a crooked cop. If a crooked doctor was going to prescribe medical marijuana or OxyContin for a hangnail, which one would you rather him prescribe? Which one is the lesser of two evils? One kills 16,000 people a year and hooks hundreds of thousands and destroys millions of lives. The other hasn’t ever killed a person,” Morgan said. “I’m a heck of a lot more worried about the pharmaceuticals that we take that are poisonous.”
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Roland Anthony Brown
October 15, 2014
Roland Anthony Brown passed away on October 13, 2014. Roland was born August 5, 1955, in Atmore and was raised in the northern part of Escambia County (FL). As a youth, he excelled as a member of the Tate High School’s football team before graduating there. He was a resident of Cantonment and worked most of his life as an independent flooring contractor.
He was a loving father to Drew and Chris Dufrain and his daughter, Tracy Smart.
He was preceded in death by his mother, Gladys “Teenie” Brown.
He is survived by his parents, Paul M. and Betty Brown; stepbrother and stepsister, Randy and Wanda Hall; brothers, Russell, Randy, and Rodney Brown and their families.
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. on Friday, October 17, 2014, at Faith Chapel Funeral Home North.
Family will receive friends one hour prior to services.
In lieu of flowers, please make contributions to your favorite charity.
Faith Chapel Funeral Home North is in charge of arrangements.
Joseph D. Cundiff, Jr.
October 15, 2014
Joseph D. Cundiff, Jr., 73 of Pensacola, passed away on Tuesday, October 14, 2014. Joseph was born on April 30, 1941, in Live Oak, FL to the late Joseph and Marion Cundiff.
Joseph is survived by his wife, Lynda; daughter, Debbie Mason; son, Dave Cundiff; brother, Jim Cundiff; sister, Joan Cundiff; grandson, Cannon Mason; and five granddaughters, Keslyn and Courtney Mason, Emily, Elle, and Eden Cundiff.
In lieu of flowers memorial donations may be made in Joseph’s name to the Humane Society of Pensacola or the American Cancer Society.
Graveside services will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 18, 2014, at Pensacola Memorial Gardens Cemetery.
Faith Chapel Funeral Home is entrusted with arrangements.
Edith Virginia Bush Burns
October 15, 2014
Edith Burns joined her Lord and Savior Jesus on October 12, 2014. She was born in McKenzie, AL, to Cread and Lena Bush. She was a long time resident of Pensacola where she had a successful career at St. Regis/Champion Paper company.
Mrs. Burns was preceded in death by her parents; her husband, Donald Burns; and her sister, Betty Kinley.
She is survived by her sister, Neva Bowen and her four children.
Edith married Don Burns later in life and took all his children as her own. Edith devoted her life to her four children; eight grandchildren; 11 great-grandchildren; and many nieces, nephews, grand-nieces, and grand-nephews.
Nana Burns (Aunt Edith) was dearly loved by all she touched and will be greatly missed. Edith was saved by faith in her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and was a faithful member of East Brent Baptist Church.
The family would like to thank her caregivers and Covenant Hospice for their loving kindness.
The pallbearers will be her grandsons and nephews.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations in her memory to East Brent Baptist Church or Covenant Hospice.
Visitation will be held on Thursday, October 16, 2014 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. with the funeral service to begin at 12:30 p.m. Dr. Dale Patterson will be officiating.
Interment will follow at Pensacola Memorial Gardens.
Faith Chapel Funeral Home South is entrusted with arrangements.
Escaped Work Release Inmate And Girlfriend Arrested In North Carolina
October 14, 2014
Escaped inmate Jonathan P. Porter, 35, and his accomplice, Stacey Ann Wood, 38, were apprehended today in North Carolina, 13 days after Porter escaped from the Florida Department of Corrections Pensacola Work Release Center.
Immediately after his escape in the early morning hours of October 1, Porter was picked up in a vehicle driven by Wood, his girlfriend.
The vehicle was later located abandoned several days later in a McDonald’s parking lot in Gordonsville, TN. The U.S. Marshals North Florida Regional Task Force, which includes several members from the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, was able to locate the two suspects.
Members of the U.S. Marshal’s task force traveled to North Carolina and, with assistance from the U.S. Marshal Task Force out of Asheville, NC, and the Jackson County (NC) Sheriff’s Office, both suspects were taken into custody at a hotel in a remote area in the Smokey Mountains.
They are currently in the Jackson County (NC) Jail awaiting extradition to Escambia County where they will face charges of escape and accessory.
According to Department of Corrections records, Porter was serving a 15-year sentence for a 2001 conviction for conspiracy to commit robbery with a gun or deadly weapon.
Whiskey And Moonshine Allegedly Lead To Shooting Near Jay
October 14, 2014
A 63-year old northern Santa Rosa County woman is jailed, charged with a shooting a relative after reportedly drinking “apple pie liquor”.
Lisbeth Ann Varnadore of Jay allegedly shot the victim in the head with a .380 handgun, causing a four-inch wound. The victim was conscious and alert when transported to an area hospital from a residence in the 15000 block of Munson Highway, just south of the Florida/Alabama state line.
Witnesses said “Lizzy” was yelling “You won’t call me a [expletive] again” before firing. The victim told detectives that she had been drinking moonshine and whiskey prior to the incident, became belligerent and was calling those around her various expletives.
Varnadore was charged with a committing a felony which could cause death and given no bond pending her first court appearance.