Escambia Commission Reschedules First Meeting Of June
May 31, 2015
The Escambia County Board of County Commissioners first meeting of June has been rescheduled.
The meeting has been moved from Thursday, June 4 to Tuesday, June 2. The Agenda Review meeting will be held at 9 a.m., and the regular BOCC meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the board chamber on the first floor of the Ernie Lee Magaha Government Building in downtown Pensacola.
Complete Video: Northview High School Graduation
May 31, 2015
Northview High School full graduation video is below..
In the event you do not see the video above, it is because your home, work or school firewall is blocking YouTube videos. Video courtesy Escambia County School District.
Crowden Retires From Century Health And Rehab
May 31, 2015
Mary Crowden retired Friday after 19 years of service at the Century Health and Rehabilitation Center. She worked in multiple areas during her tenure. But her best talent, according to coworkers, was taking care of loose ends, always giving 150 percent. Submitted photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Slyvia Jackson Graves
May 31, 2015
Mrs. Sylvia Jackson Graves, age 53 of Brewton, passed away on Tuesday, May 26, 2015, at her home.
Mrs. Graves was a native of Brewton and a resident of the Brewton community since 1979 coming from Jay. During her working years she worked in the convenience store industry and was of the Assembly of God faith. She is preceded in death by her father, Calvin Jackson.
Mrs. Graves is survived by her mother, Eloise Muse of Bratt; daughter, Tamika Graves of Brewton; brothers, Ken Jackson of Bay Minette and Randy Jackson of Gulf Breeze; granddaughters, Kalee Delane Burkett and Tatum Shyanne Crumpton.
Funeral services were held on Sunday, May 31, 2015, at the Flomaton Funeral Home Chapel with Bro. Pat Carden officiating.
Interment was in Beulah Cemetery in Brewton.
Pallbearers were Randy Jackson, Ken Jackson, Danny Evans and Bo Burkett.
Flomaton Funeral Home directing.
Patricia Louise Gainey Sasser
May 31, 2015
Patricia Louise Gainey Sasser, a resident of Cottage Hill, won the victory on May 27, 2015, at Joyce Goldenberg Hospice. She was 68 years old.
Mrs. Sasser was born August 12, 1946, in Pensacola to B.T. and Juanita Gainey. She was a graduate of Pensacola High School where she was known as a gifted pianist. She was married to Rev. James W. Sasser, Sr. for more than fifty years. Beginning at the age of 12, Mrs. Sasser served as pianist at various churches and was the military chapel organist in Izmir, Turkey. She was a faithful and supportive pastor’s wife. She also served many years in children’s ministry but her greatest joy was serving her own children, grandchildren and her husband.
Mrs. Sasser is survived by her husband, James W. Sasser, Sr.; three children, Katherine (Randy) Jackson, James Sasser, and Charles (Leigh) Sasser; nine grandchildren, Brett Wilson, Kevin, Sean, Julie and Hannah Jackson, Cade, Jake and Ella Sasser, and Charley Sasser; two sisters, Sharon (Ron) Kimbro and Reba (Bobby) Kimbro; a brother-in-law, Ray (Elaine) Sasser; a sister-in-law, Sue (Marty) Townsend and numerous nieces and nephews.
She was preceded in death by her parents, B.T. and Juanita Gainey and a premature infant.
Funeral services will be at Highland Baptist Church in Molino on Monday, June 1, 2015, at 9 a.m., followed by a graveside service at Barrancas National Cemetery, NAS Pensacola, at 11 a.m. Services will be led by Rev. Brian Calhoun, Rev. Randy Jackson, Rev. Charles Ellzey, and Rev. Darryl Woolery.
Pallbearers are Kevin and Sean Jackson, Cade and Jake Sasser, Byron Ellis, and Bruce, Bryan and Michael Kimbro.
The deacons of Highland Baptist Church are honorary pallbearers.
Faith Chapel Funeral Home North is entrusted with the arrangements.
We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the many people who have supported us during Patricia’s illness, including the nursing staff of Sacred Heart Cancer Center.
Great is Thy Faithfulness.
Russell Forest Bell
May 31, 2015
Mr. Russell Forest Bell, 84, passed away on Wednesday, May 27, 2015, in Pensacola.
Mr. Bell was a native of Moyeville, Alabama and a resident of Atmore since 1957. Mr. Bell was an avid hunter, fisherman and loved his family. He was a member of the Nokomis Baptist Church. His wife, Nettie Bell; parents, Arthur J. Bell and Jewell Bell; one brother, Tharon Bell; and two sisters, Gloria Bell and Juanita Bell precede him in death.
Survivors include his daughter, Charlene (Ron, Sr.) Moxness of Walnut Hill; four brothers, Arthur Bell, Jr. of Brewton, Roscoe (Tommi Lee) Bell, O’Neil (Kathryn) Bell and Roger Bell all of Flomaton; eight sisters, Virginia Moye of Pensacola, Mildred (James) Lambeth of Flomaton, Eva Lou (Tom) Pittman of St. Stevens, AL, Luverne Lowry of Foley, Judy (Gary) Clay of Foley, Jean (Don) Fritts of Lillian, AL, Willanet (Ken) Barksdale of Lillian, AL and Cathy (Curtis) Cook of Cantonment; two grandchildren, Lindsey (Steven Powell, Jr.) Moxness and Ron Moxness, Jr., all of Walnut Hill; one great-granddaughter, Lakelynn Grace Ikner of Walnut Hill.
Funeral services were held Saturday, May 30, 2015, at the Petty-Eastside Chapel Funeral Home with the Rev. Mike Hutto officiating.
Burial was in the Oak Hill Cemetery.
Pallbearers will be Nathan Bell, Blake Harris, Donald Holt, Allen Bell, Andrew Bell, Randy Bell and Brandon Bell.
Petty-Eastside Chapel Funeral Homes, LLC in charge of all arrangements,
Kathryn Joseph Adams Huie
May 31, 2015
Kathryn Joseph Adams Huie, born on March 27, 1923, went home to be with her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ on May 28, 2015. She was a member of Pensacola First Assembly of God and she with her first husband, which predeceased her, Quincy E. Adams were Charter Members of the Ferry Pass Assembly of God Church now known as Courts of Praise Fellowship.
She was always active in church when she was physically able to do so. She also enjoyed cooking for family and friends, she loved fishing, camping, and enjoyed bowling. Kathryn served many children over the years as she worked in school lunch rooms in various schools in the Escambia County School System. Her last few working years before retirement she served in the position of lunchroom manager.
Kathryn and Quincy were not able to have children of their own, but considered as a son, John (JoAnn) Danley and she considered Miranda (Jimmy) well as Kristen, Wyatt and Lilly Dudley as her great-grandchildren and great-great granddaughter, Emma. Together they also helped to raise several foster children that were entrusted into their care. Kathryn came from a large family and had numerous siblings, many of which have predeceased her. She is survived as well by many special nieces and nephews.
The family would like to extend a special thank you to the staff at Regency Hospice for all their assistance over the last few months.
Visitation will be held on Monday June 1, 2015, from 10-11 a.m. at Eastern Gate Funeral Home. Funeral services will begin at 11 a.m. with Pastor David Scruggs officiating.
Burial will follow at Whitmire Cemetery.
Velma Hollingsworth
May 31, 2015
Mrs. Velma Hollingsworth, 56, passed away on Thursday, May 28, 2015, in Mobile.
Mrs. Hollingsworth was a native and lifelong resident of Atmore. Mrs. Hollingsworth was a member of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. She was a member and pianist at the United Pentecostal Church. Her parents, Robert and Lillie Mae Rolin precede her in death.
Survivors include her husband, Robert Hollingsworth of Atmore; one daughter, MaKayla Rolin of Atmore; one step-daughter, Bessy Hollingsworth of Walnut Hill; one brother, Robert Harold Rolin of Atmore; four sisters, Lillie Bell (AutryLee) Tucker of Atmore, Mary Jane McGhee of Atmore, Willie Faye Thomas of Atmore and Thelma (Jerry) Williamson of Uriah; two grandchildren; one great-grandchild; and a number of nieces and nephews.
Funeral services will be Monday, June 1, 2015, at 3 p.m. at the United Pentecostal Church with Bro. Steve Pendleton and Bro. Steve Bercida officiating.
Burial will follow at the New Home Cemetery.
Pallbearers will be Marshall Rolin, Greg McGhee, Shay Gipson, John Burns, Cody Nall and Nick Flowers.
Petty-Eastside Chapel Funeral Homes is in charge of all arrangements.
Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: Special Session Begins
May 31, 2015
After weeks — and in some ways, months — of discussion, the special legislative session to determine what to do with the budget starts Monday. Which meant everyone spent the last week getting ready for it.
The Senate was gearing up to make a last-ditch pitch for something that uses Medicaid expansion funding to give more people health care but should definitely not be called Medicaid expansion. Environmentalists planned to push once again for more money to buy land after voters passed a constitutional amendment in November aimed at conserving land and water.
But preparations were not limited to the special session. Patients needing non-euphoric medical marijuana could finally start getting ready to enjoy the benefits after a judge cleared the way for regulations governing the new industry to take effect. And it could soon be time to batten down the hatches, with hurricane season starting Monday.
We will leave it to the reader to decide whether the legislative session and hurricane season beginning on the same day is coincidence or omen.
FHIX, TAKE TWO
It’s not quite right to say that the Senate’s proposed Florida Health Insurance Affordability Exchange — or FHIX — has gone over like a lead balloon with Gov. Rick Scott and House Republicans. No one has ever declared “war” on a lead balloon, as House Appropriations Chairman Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’ Lakes, famously did with regard to FHIX.
But the Senate tried Tuesday to come up with something that everyone might like better. It didn’t work.
Under the new version of the proposal, the Senate would skip an interim period in which the state would put people in Medicaid managed-care plans, a change aimed at addressing House criticism that FHIX is simply an expansion of oft-criticized Medicaid. The interim period was originally designed to provide coverage while the state waited to hear whether the federal government would approve using Medicaid-expansion funding to help lower-income Floridians purchase private health insurance.
The FHIX plan, which includes a work requirement for recipients, would depend on the state getting what is known as a waiver from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The new Senate bill would also require any “significant changes” to the waiver by federal officials to be approved by the Legislature before the plan takes effect.
“There’s no agreement on any of this,” said Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando. “I think what we’re just trying to show here in the Senate is that we’re willing to have an open mind and put forward different ideas and suggestions, and then we’ll see what happens next week.”
Saying there was no agreement was something of an understatement.
“A budget that keeps Florida’s economy growing will cut taxes and give Floridians back more of the money they earn, not inevitably raise taxes in order to implement Obamacare and grow government,” Scott said in a statement issued by his office.
House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, also slammed the proposal. He reiterated a common House talking point: The work requirements that are part of the Senate plan and give it a more conservative sheen are unlikely to be approved by federal officials.
“When you remove the Senate’s ‘conservative guardrails’ that the Obama administration fundamentally opposes, all you are left with is a costly and inefficient entitlement program to serve able-bodied working age adults with no children,” Crisafulli said.
Meanwhile, the Scott administration seemed to offer its own solution to the problem, picking up on space provided by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services.
In a letter last week saying the state could expect $1 billion in LIP funding, federal officials suggested the state could also use leftover local dollars that have flowed into the LIP program as matching funds to draw down other Medicaid money. Those dollars would not be a part of LIP, but could help close the shortfall.
“Thank you again for all of your assistance and work to keep Florida’s Medicaid program whole,” wrote Justin Senior, the state’s Medicaid director. “Your guidance has been essential to ensuring that there is no major fiscal impact to Florida health-care providers who support the needs of low-income families in our state.”
Gardiner, though, said in a statement issued by his office that that approach would be “shortsighted,” in part because LIP is scheduled to fall again in the 2016-17 budget year. And by the end of the week, the federal government was tamping down expectations for quick approval of that notion.
The House put its own ideas for special session health-care legislation on the table. They were different than what the Senate has in mind.
House Republicans filed six bills Wednesday that delve into hot-button issues such as getting rid of a regulatory process for new or expanded hospitals and allowing advanced-registered nurse practitioners and physician assistants to prescribe controlled substances.
The proposals are not new, with House GOP leaders also pursuing many of the ideas during this spring’s regular legislative session. The bills will again draw heavy lobbying, as they did then.
WE’VE GOT SOME LAND IN THE EVERGLADES TO SELL YOU
Environmentalists, meanwhile, continued to express optimism that they can get money from Florida lawmakers for a reservoir in the Everglades during the upcoming special legislative session, something they couldn’t do during the 60-day regular session.
Along with health care, education funding and tax cuts, how to deal with land and water conservation funding in the wake of the new constitutional amendment approved by voters is likely to be one of the major issues in the special session.
Members of the Everglades Trust, the Everglades Foundation and Florida Audubon said Wednesday they will approach the special session with a goal of securing money to build a 40,000-acre to 60,000-acre reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee. They also will seek written directions from lawmakers that the South Florida Water Management District find the needed acres and establish a timeline to build the reservoir.
“We cannot and we will not give up on the goal of buying land for a reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee,” Audubon Executive Director Eric Draper said during a news conference Wednesday.
Environmentalists are seeking to divert polluted water being sent into estuaries east and west of the lake. But the special session comes after the water management district’s Governing Board voted May 14 to terminate an expiring option to purchase 46,800 acres in the Everglades from U.S. Sugar Corp.
Draper said funding efforts during the regular session failed because proponents were focused on completing the U.S. Sugar deal.
“I think with that off the table we have a new situation, and we even have some indications that people from the business side of things, from the sugar farmers, are open to the idea that something more needs to be done in the Everglades Agricultural Area,” Draper said.
The U.S. Sugar land was estimated to cost as much as $500 million, a price tag that far exceeded the proposed spending levels lawmakers put forward in the regular session for land acquisition under the voter-approved initiative known as Amendment 1. That initiative requires the state to set aside increased amounts of money for land and water management and acquisition.
Land buying wasn’t a priority for Republican legislative leaders during the regular session. The House proposed selling $205 million in bonds for the Florida Forever program, with about half of the money going toward water resources, the state’s natural springs, Kissimmee River restoration, and ranchland preservation.
The Senate offered $37 million for land acquisition, which included Kissimmee River restoration and springs preservation.
‘WAITING FOR SOMETHING TO HATCH’
After months and months of regulatory gridlock, patients could have access to long-awaited, non-euphoric pot products by the end of the year. A judge on Wednesday rejected a challenge to a proposed rule setting up the medical marijuana industry in Florida.
Department of Health officials could begin processing applications for the low-THC cannabis within 41 days of Wednesday’s decision by Administrative Law Judge W. David Watkins, according to an agency spokeswoman.
Watkins pointedly began his 68-page ruling with an excerpt from “Charlotte’s Web,” by E.B. White.
“Life is always a rich and steady time when you are waiting for something to happen or hatch,” Watkins quoted from the children’s book.
The name “Charlotte’s Web,” a type of cannabis cultivated in Colorado, has become nearly synonymous with marijuana that is low in euphoria-inducing tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, and high in cannabadiol, or CBD.
Parents of children with a severe form of epilepsy pushed the Legislature last year to approve the low-THC cannabis, believing it can end or dramatically reduce life-threatening seizures.
But their joy over the passage the law, and Scott’s support of it, ceded to frustration as delays — including Watkins’ November invalidation of health officials’ initial attempt at a rule — kept pot operators from getting started. Regulations for the industry were supposed to go into effect Jan. 1.
On Wednesday, the administrative law judge rejected all of the objections in a challenge filed by Baywood Nurseries, which contended, among other things, that the rule was tilted in favor of large nurseries.
“I am thrilled. I am one happy legislator,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Fort Walton Beach Republican who was instrumental in the law’s passage last year. “My only hope moving forward is that we don’t see more special-interest litigation when licenses are awarded.”
STORY OF THE WEEK: Senate leaders revised their plan to use Medicaid expansion money to help lower-income Floridians purchase private health insurance, but the measure was quickly rejected by Gov. Rick Scott and House Republican leaders.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “We don’t know whether to laugh, cry, dance, or do back flips. There were times over the past year we truly didn’t believe this day would ever come.” said Ryan Wiggins, spokeswoman for Payton and Holley Moseley, who advocated for the legalization of “Charlotte’s Web” on behalf of their daughter RayAnn, after a ruling allowing the law to go forward.
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Byrneville Resident Critically Injured In Dog Attack
May 30, 2015
A Byrneville resident was airlifted to a Pensacola hospital in critical condition Friday night after being bitten by their dog.
The incident happened about 8:45 p.m. on Raines Road. The 50-year old victim was reportedly attacked by their own dog, an English Mastiff, and suffered serious wounds to their arms and abdomen.
Further details have not been released.
An English Mastiff is a very large breed of dog, with mature males weighting between 150 and 240 pounds.