Wahoos Game Delayed By Lights
June 19, 2015
After nearly a one hour delay Thursday trying to repair the Pensacola Bayfront Stadium lights behind home plate, the game between the Pensacola Blue Wahoos and Mobile BayBears was delayed.
The second game of the five-game series with the Mobile BayBears will resume at 5:30 p.m. Friday and will go the full nine innings. Pensacola currently leads the game, 1-0, after three innings. Fans can exchange tickets at the box office for an equal or lesser game except for July 3.
Blue Wahoos officials attributed the lighting failure to the light poles and electricians were working to repair them. The umpires agreed to call the game to protect the hitters and fielders.
Marlon Byrd, who was placed on the disabled list June 3 by the Cincinnati Reds, ended his two-game rehab assignment with Pensacola Thursday night. Byrd went 2-7 with a home run, double and three RBIs.
School Construction Accident Cuts Power In Walnut Hill
June 19, 2015
A construction accident cut power to an unknown number of Escambia River Electric Cooperative customers in Walnut Hill Thursday afternoon.
Officials said a construction worker accidentally struck the main power lines along Highway 97 outside the Ernest Ward Middle School campus with a piece of equipment. The worker was not injured, but the accident cause the electrical grid in the area to shut down.
Construction is complete on the new buildings at Ernest Ward Middle, but workers are still completing a parking lot and driveways where the old school was located.
NorthEscambia.com file photo, click to enlarge.
Cottage Hill Shooting Under Investigation
June 18, 2015
The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office is continuing to search for clues, and a suspect, in a shooting Wednesday night in Cottage Hill.
A young man was shot multiple times inside his vehicle, possibly at the intersection of Virecent Road and Cottage Hill Road Wednesday night. The man then drove himself to a nearby home in the 400 block of Crowndale Court. He was transported by ambulance to an area hospital with non-life threatening injuries, including a reported gunshot to the face.
A passenger in the vehicle was uninjured and unable to provide any solid details on the shooting, according to Sgt. Ted Roy, spokesman for the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office.
As of early Thursday morning, the unknown suspect remained at large.
Anyone with information on the shooting is asked to call CrimeStoppers at (850) 433-STOP.
Pictured top: A man was reportedly shot inside his vehicle at this intersection Wednesday night. Pictured inset and below: He was then driven to a home in the 400 block of nearby Crowndale Court.NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
County Seizes 16 Animals Near Cantonment With Inadequate Food Or Water
June 18, 2015
Escambia County animal control seized 16 animals from a property near Cantonment Wednesday after it was discovered they were being kept without adequate food or water.
Three pot-bellied pigs, four goats, two cows, five horses, one donkey and one mule were seized from Ridgecrest Lane off St0ut Road. Three of the horses were taken to Panhandle Equine Rescue in Cantonment, while the other animals remained in the custody of Escambia County.
No charges were immediately filed in the incident.
Three horses, described as malnourished by Panhandle Equine President Diane Lowery, will receive close monitoring and rehabilitation from the non-profit equine rescue group. After Wednesday’s seizure and the recent seizure of three horses near Century late last month, PER’s Cantonment facility is “overflowing” Lowery said.
The only horse rescue in Escambia County, Panhandle Equine Rescue was founded by a small group of concerned citizens with a mission to rescue, rehabilitate and provide adoption services for abused, neglected and abandoned equines. PER is authorized by the court system to investigate equine cruelty in Escambia County.
For more information on Panhandle Equine Rescue and how to donate to the organization visit www.panhandleequinerescue.org. The group is specifically seeking donation’s to help with the care of the recently seized horses in their care.
Submitted photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Healthy Start Celebrates Opening Of Century Clinic
June 18, 2015
The Escambia County Healthy Start Coalition held a soft opening for their new clinic in Century Wednesday.
“This will be a very good thing for the Century area,” Healthy Start Director Theresa Chmiel said. “So many mothers in this area have transportation issues and can’t get to Pensacola for a WIC appointment or to see their doctor. So they do without.”
The new facility offered a free immunization clinic Wednesday, and a variety of services aimed at improving the health of children and pregnant women and their unborn babies will begin soon. The WIC program will offer services at the clinic on the second Tuesday of every month beginning July 14, and Jay pediatrician Dr. Marian Stewart will begin to see patients in Century in the near future. Exact dates for the new services will be announced soon.
“There was a young mother who took her very sick baby into the emergency room,” Cmiel said. “It turns out she was unable to get to her appointment to get more formula, so she was watering the baby’s formula down. It’s unacceptable that we as a community were not making those services more accessible to her.”
But she hopes the Century clinic will be a step in making resources available to mothers.
Dr. Stewart will operate a satellite location in Century, making it easier for those in Century who don’t have the transportation resources to make the seven mile trip across the river in Jay.
“I’m excited about what is being done here,” Stewart, who will continue to see patients in Jay, said.
The new Escambia County Healthy Start Coalition clinic is located at 511 Church Street, near the old Century hospital. For more information on clinic services, call (850) 696-2291.
Before offering some services, the non-profit clinic is in need of a baby changing table and a refrigerator to store vaccines and medical supplies. To donate, call (850) 696-2291.
NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Scott Scraps Injunction Bid In ‘LIP’ Lawsuit In Pensacola Federal Court
June 18, 2015
Pointing to a budget agreement reached by lawmakers, Gov. Rick Scott’s attorneys late Tuesday withdrew a request for a preliminary injunction in a legal battle with the Obama administration about health-care funding, according to a notice filed in federal court in Pensacola.
The notice, however, said Scott is not withdrawing the overall lawsuit, which contends that the federal government has tried to unconstitutionally link expanding Florida’s Medicaid program with the continuation of the Low Income Pool, or LIP, program.
During the course of the lawsuit, federal officials said Florida would receive about $1 billion for the LIP program during the fiscal year that starts July 1, without the money depending on Medicaid expansion. Lawmakers have included that money in a budget that is expected to pass Friday.
In the notice, Scott’s attorneys wrote that the lawsuit would continue because the state and federal governments have not agreed on a broader resolution of the LIP issue. LIP money primarily goes to hospitals to help cover the costs of uninsured patients.
“The budget agreement assumes LIP funding will continue and appropriates sufficient state funds to compensate the many Florida health-care providers caring for the uninsured and underinsured in the coming months,” the notice said. “That budget agreement thus mitigates the threat of imminent harm to the state, its health-care providers, and their patients. However, the passage of the budget mitigates only the threat of imminent harm. Even though the state Legislature has crafted a budget assuming LIP funding will continue — an assumption necessary to avoid a government shutdown in Florida — the parties have not yet arrived at a LIP agreement in principle.”
The notice added that the state is “not prepared to withdraw the underlying lawsuit unless and until the defendants render an actual decision about future LIP funding without the unconstitutionally coercive consideration of the state’s constitutionally protected decision not to expand Medicaid.”
Chief U.S. District Judge M. Casey Rodgers on Wednesday issued an order canceling a hearing that had been scheduled for Friday on the preliminary injunction.
Federal officials have disputed the state’s arguments that they are trying to use LIP funding as leverage to force Florida to expand Medicaid to hundreds of thousands of uninsured residents. In one document, Obama administration attorneys pointed to the decision last month by officials at the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to approve $1 billion in LIP funding for the upcoming fiscal year.
“CMS’ letter to Florida of May 21, 2015 further confirms defendants’ continued openness to consider approval of a LIP program in Florida with reasonable reforms, regardless of Medicaid expansion,” federal attorneys wrote in the document.
Arguments about Medicaid expansion and the future of the LIP program dominated the spring legislative session and played a large role in lawmakers failing to pass a budget before the session ended. The Senate pushed a plan that would have used federal Medicaid money to expand private insurance coverage, but the House and Scott flatly rejected the idea.
Lawmakers went into special session June 1 to negotiate a budget, and House and Senate leaders finished talks late Monday. While the state will receive LIP money for the upcoming fiscal year, it will be a reduced amount from this year’s nearly $2.2 billion. That has forced the Legislature to set aside state general revenue to help offset the reduction.
by Jim Saunders, The News Service of Florida
Two Escambia Men Indicted On Child Exploitation Charges
June 18, 2015
A federal grand jury has indicted two Escambia County men on child exploitation charges.
John W. Robertson, 68, and Robert M. Grafton Jr., 29, were charged with attempted enticement of a minor and possession of child pornography.
The indictment alleges that, in May 2015, Robertson and Grafton knowingly attempted to entice an individual less than 18 years of age to engage in sexual activity, and that he possessed sexualized images and videos involving minors less than 12 years of age.
Robertson and Grafton originally appeared in federal court last month upon being arrested on a federal criminal complaint. He will be arraigned on the indictment at the United States Courthouse in Pensacola and is being held in federal custody at the Santa Rosa County Jail, pending further proceedings.
The cases are being investigated by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations, Pensacola Police Department, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and other agencies that are part of the Northwest Florida Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. The cases are being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney David L. Goldberg.
Seminoles Seek To Join Slots Lawsuit
June 18, 2015
The Seminole Tribe of Florida has joined state regulators in their request for a rehearing in a game-changing appellate ruling that opened the door for slot machines at a Gadsden County horse track operated by the Poarch Creek Indians, along with tracks in at least five other counties.
The 1st District Court of Appeal decision ordering state regulators to grant a slots license to Gretna Racing could cripple the tribe’s revenues, Barry Richard, a lawyer for the Seminoles, argued in a brief filed Tuesday. Gretna Racing opposes allowing the tribe to join the case on the side of the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation, represented by Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office.
“Only a few decades ago, the tribe and its citizens were impoverished. Today, the tribe’s successful casinos fund tribal programs including health care, the environment, education, and law enforcement, as well as other benefits for tribal members,” Richard wrote in a 19-page “amicus,” or friend-of-the court, brief. “The tribe’s self-sufficiency, and indeed its economic survival, depends upon the revenues from the businesses it has built up in reliance on the substantial exclusivity that it bargained for, and that the state agreed to, in the compact.”
In a 2-1 vote, a panel of the appeals court last month decided that the 2009 law at the heart of the case allows pari-mutuels, in counties where voters have given approval, to offer slot machines. But dissenting Judge Scott Makar, state regulators and the Seminoles argue that the historically gambling-averse Legislature has to also give the counties permission for slots.
The law, which went into effect in 2010, accompanied an agreement, called a “compact,” that set the parameters for the Seminoles’ slot machine operations and also gave the tribe exclusive rights to offer banked card games, including blackjack. In exchange, the tribe agreed to pay the state a minimum of $1 billion over five years. Under terms of the compact, the tribe’s payments to the state would decrease if additional pari-mutuels in Broward or Miami-Dade were allowed to add slots. The Seminoles could stop payments altogether if tracks or frontons outside of the two counties began operating the lucrative one-armed bandits.
The Seminoles had tried unsuccessfully for years to get the state to negotiate about slots, but state officials entered the agreement only after voters authorized slots at pari-mutuels in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Federal law permits tribes to conduct any kinds of gaming allowed elsewhere in the state.
Echoing arguments made by Bondi’s lawyers, who called the 2-1 decision issued on May 29 a “jaw-dropping gambling expansion, Richard wrote that the majority failed to take into account what lawmakers intended when they passed the law and approved the compact. The agreement was “intentionally designed to limit the geographical scope of gaming,” Richard wrote.
“It defies logic to conclude that the Legislature would enact a law with the express purpose of limiting the expansion of gaming in Florida and providing for an increase in revenue that is dependent upon Seminole gaming exclusivity and, in the same bill, authorize the spread of gaming to every county in the state and allow any of 65 counties to unilaterally torpedo the compact, thereby causing the loss of billions of dollars in state revenue,” he wrote.
The state’s request asks that the full appeals court rehear the case, which is known as seeking an “en banc” hearing.
The majority in the May 29 ruling also asked the Florida Supreme Court to weigh in on the issue about the Gretna facility, which has a history of controversy. The Gadsden County track, which is in a largely rural area west of Tallahassee, is believed to be the first facility in the country to receive a pari-mutuel license for rodeo-style barrel racing, something a court later decided state regulators had granted in error.
The May ruling could have statewide implications. Voters in five other counties — Brevard, Hamilton, Lee, Palm Beach and Washington — have also given slots a thumbs-up. The Palm Beach Kennel Club is the only other facility that has applied for and been denied a slots license.
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
BayBears Beat The Wahoos
June 18, 2015
Marlon Byrd wants to return to the Cincinnati Reds starting lineup. The sooner the better.
Placed on the disabled list June 3 with a fractured wrist, Byrd started off his two-game rehab assignment with a bang Wednesday night for the Pensacola Blue Wahoos in front of 4,251 at Pensacola Bayfront Stadium.
Byrd crushed a game-tying, three-run home run deep to left field in the eighth inning. With two outs and the bases loaded for him again in the ninth, Byrd missed on a high fastball.
Despite the crowd’s excitement of having Byrd hitting No. 3 in the Blue Wahoos lineup the Mobile BayBears added two runs of its own in the top of the ninth to pull out a 5-3 victory in the opener of the five-game series between the rival teams that play on fields nearly an hour apart.
Byrd said his wrist felt good playing at game speed. He wasn’t sure how it would react but it was good enough to send a slider up in the zone over the left field wall.
“I had some good looks. I had some good swings,” Byrd said. “I wish I had come through on that last one.”
“The wrist felt fine, that was the big thing,” he added. “I wasn’t sure how it was going to feel. I didn’t know if it was going to bother me going full speed. You can practice all day long, but game speed is always different. But it felt good on every swing I took.”
On Wednesday with Pensacola, he struck out in his first at bat, lined out hard to the second baseman, lined out deep to the right fielder who chased his ball down, homered and finally struck out on a high fastball with the bases loaded to end the game.
Before fracturing his wrist, Byrd a 14-year major league veteran had hit 10 home runs and 25 RBIs with a .212 average for Cincinnati. If all goes well, Reds officials have said Byrd could return to the majors by the weekend. The Reds will reassess Byrd’s status after Thursday’s game at Pensacola.
“Marlon’s rehab has gone way better than I had ever anticipated,” said Reds manager Bryan Price to the Cincinnati media earlier in the day. “His broken bone is mending quickly. He put a lot of hard work into being able to come back so quickly.”
Pensacola manager Pat Kelly joked he would like to keep Byrd in the Blue Wahoos lineup a little longer.
“That was terrific,” Kelly said. “We hadn’t done much at all offensively. Next thing you know he ties the game in one at bat.”
Meanwhile, Pensacola starter Wandy Peralta, who had lost three in a row by giving up 13 earned runs in 13.1 innings, had a solid outing. He allowed two runs, one earned in 6.2 innings on seven hits, two walks and struck out five.
Pensacola also benefited from a 3-5 night by shortstop Zach Vincej, along with multi-hit games by right fielder Jesse Winker (2-4), Kyle Waldrop (2-3) and Beau Amaral (2-4).
Magical Poodles Perform At The Library
June 18, 2015
The Summer Reading Club is continuing at branches of the West Florida Library.
This week, Michelle’s Magical Poodles have performed fun and quirky dog tricks with an educational twist and lots of audience interaction, including a stop Wednesday morning at the Century Branch Library and Thursday at the Molino Branch Library.
Next week, it’s Reno’s Reptiles with a chance to get up close and personal with some amazing animals.
Reno’s Reptiles
- Tuesday, June 23, 10:30 a.m. – Southwest Branch, Big Lagoon State Park
- Tuesday, June 23, 3:30 p.m. – Westside Branch, held at the Main Library
- Wednesday, June 24, 11 a.m. – Century Branch
- Wednesday, June 24, 3:30 p.m. – Main Library, Meeting Room A
- Thursday, June 25, 10:30 a.m. – Molino Branch, Auditorium
- Thursday, June 25, 3:00 p.m. – Tryon Branch, Meeting Room A
Pictured: Michelle’s Magical Poodles perform at the Century Branch Library Wednesday morning. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
