Escambia EMS Crew Saves Kitten Suffering From Smoke Inhalation
December 8, 2015
An Escambia County (FL) EMS crew is being credited with saving the life a kitten found near death as a mobile home was burned in Flomaton.
Firefighters from the Flomaton, Friendship and Pineview fire departments burned the abandoned trailer on Sue Street in Flomaton Saturday as a training exercise.
The kitten was found under the porch of the burning mobile home, nearly dead from smoke inhalation. The Escambia County EMS crew fashioned a kitty oxygen mask from a water bottle and nursed the kitten back to health with no apparent lasting injuries.
The training exercise gave the fire fighters from the three departments the chance to see how fire grows, learn techniques for knocking it down, and real life experience for those that had never experienced a structure fire. During the weeks before the burn, firemen also used the trailer to practice forcible entry, victim searches and victim removals.
Photos by Daphne Clark for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
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More Mild Days Ahead
December 8, 2015
Here is your official North Escambia area forecast:
Tuesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 46. South wind around 5 mph becoming calm.
Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 69. Calm wind becoming southwest around 5 mph in the morning.
Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 51. Southwest wind around 5 mph.
Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 71. South wind 5 to 10 mph.
Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 58. South wind around 5 mph.
Friday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 75. South wind 5 to 10 mph.
Friday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 60. South wind around 5 mph.
Saturday: Partly sunny, with a high near 76.
Saturday Night: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 64.
Sunday: A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 74.
Sunday Night: A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 55.
Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 66.
Tate Showband Peforms At NAS Event; Next Year It’s Off To Pearl Harbor
December 8, 2015
A Pearl Harbor remembrance ceremony was held Monday at the National Museum of Naval Aviation aboard Pensacola Naval Air Station. Monday was the 74th anniversary of the attack that pushed the United States into World War II.
The Tate High School Vocal Jazz Ensemble and members of the Tate Showband of the South performed at Monday’s event, a decade-long tradition.
Next year, on the 75th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, the Tate Showband won’t perform at the Pensacola ceremony — the Showband will be performing at Pearl Harbor.
The Tate High School Showband of the South is headed to Hawaii in December 2016 to take part in the 75th Anniversary Pearl Harbor Mass Band. They will join bands from around the United States and Japan in a concert commemorating the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The mass band, including the Tate Showband, will perform on the pier of the U.S.S Battleship Missouri in a worldwide live webcast “Gift of Music” concert on December 7, 2016. The trip was announced more than a year in advance to give the Band Boosters and band members a chance to raise the funds needed for the 215 member band. The trip is estimated to cost from $2,000 to $2,500 per band member.
Courtesy photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Letter To The Editor: Fight For Oil Spill Funds
December 8, 2015
by Escambia County Commissioner Grover Robinson
As the federal government’s and five Gulf States’ settlements with British Petroleum become imminent, the fight to control those dollars and where they are used will intensify. Unfortunately, the final settlements were achieved between the federal government, the individual states impacted and BP. While local governments made considerable efforts to participate, they were not allowed in the settlement negotiations.
The exclusion of the local governments is understandable, as settlements become more complicated with more parties involved. In addition, local governments in Florida had participated in the RESTORE Act process to ensure that those communities impacted by the spill would receive the most benefit, much in the same way as the federal government thought the states that were actually impacted by the spill should receive 80 percent of the Clean Water Act fines.
When the settlements were announced, I was very complimentary of the governor, the attorney general and other parties who negotiated on Florida’s behalf. As I said then, I believe they did an excellent job of securing a superior position for Florida, as can be seen in the $680 million in natural resource damages funding and $2 billion in economic damages funds. In addition, existing Florida law ensured that 75 percent of those economic damages monies would come to Northwest Florida, which truly suffered the impact in Florida. While I have spent considerable time structuring and advocating for RESTORE, I was fine with the fact that the State circumvented federal legislation in the RESTORE Act, to produce a larger net funding source for the State of Florida.
The settlements seemed well coordinated and were anticipated to provide great benefits for Northwest Florida. Unfortunately, as soon as the dollar signs became real, consistent rumors surfaced that the existing State legislation directing distribution of the economic damages funds would be changed before the BP Deepwater Horizon settlement was finalized. On the surface, the $2 billion in economic damages for the State of Florida looks great for Northwest Florida, which would receive 75 percent of this under Florida’s 2013 Gulf Coast Economic Corridor Act. However, as you scratch the surface of this State legislation, you realize that the Legislature could change those figures before a dime is ever realized.
Despite the fact that Northwest Florida took the brunt of the environmental and economic hit from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, simple changes to Florida law could make it so that Northwest Florida receives no money from the economic damages settlement. During the disaster, both federal and state governments recognized that a great proportion of Deepwater Horizon-related damage funds should go to the areas that sustained damages. However, now that the settlement dollar amounts have been specified, there is discussion to alter the state law established through Senator Gaetz’s efforts.
Northwest Florida has already seen what can happen when monies are placed to a vote. At the most recent Florida Gulf Consortium meeting, the eight coastal counties of Northwest Florida were simply outvoted by Florida’s 15 other Gulf Coastal Counties, and the proposed allocation of RESTORE Act Spill Impact Component (Pot 3) monies were changed from an earlier vote that allocated half the funds to Northwest Florida to one that reallocated more monies to communities in Central and South Florida.
Northwest Florida has never believed that all of Florida’s Gulf restoration funds should be spent in this region. However, it was Northwest Florida that advocated for much of the settlement and fought to ensure that those monies returned to the Gulf Coast for the benefit of all of Florida’s Gulf coastal communities.
I am saying to all Northwest Floridians that we must be vigilant to ensure that the reparations we both suffered for and sacrificed to obtain are not taken from us simply because of our minority status. While that can happen, it would be extremely unjust and not in the spirit by which Northwest Florida works to be a part of Florida as a whole.
Again, I write this to make every Northwest Floridian aware of the potential loss of Deepwater Horizon settlement funds. We need to continue to strongly advocate to everyone within our state that these funds are in response to our region’s suffering, and that we worked collectively within the State to ensure a fair balance.
If advocacy for these funds is left up to a few local leaders and elected State officials, we will again end up on the short end of the funding stick. We all have a responsibility to advocate and to make sure the rest of the state understands we are equal Floridians and not some junior status Floridians. The next couple of Legislative sessions will be critical to our future.
Debate Over Capital Christmas Displays Quieter This Year
December 8, 2015
Visitors to the Florida Capitol likely won’t see a Nativity scene this year. They also won’t see a protest display from the Satanic Temple.
However, they could see a menorah. And an irreverent disco ball-topped, multi-colored gay pride festivus pole — built of beer cans — might still be on tap.
A Christian group that has put up Nativity scenes the past two years said Friday it won’t bring a creche to the Capitol rotunda for Christmas. As a result, the New York-based Satanic Temple, which doesn’t really worship the devil but argues for separation of church and state, announced it also won’t put up a display.
Pam Olsen, president of the Florida Prayer Network, announced that her group’s decision not to set up a Nativity scene is an attempt to bring some needed civility to the country struggling with issues such as mass shootings and growing racial tensions.
“America is in desperate need of God’s help! We need to love God, love one another again, have hope and peace in our hearts, to act kindly and be civil to one another — this is the message of the Nativity!” Olsen said in an open letter Friday. “After much prayer, I truly want the message of Christ, The Son of God, born in a manger so long ago in Bethlehem, to be heard very clearly at this difficult time, instead of the dissension in the Capitol rotunda — this is not the year for that kind of debate in our rotunda.”
The addition of a Nativity scene two years ago attracted an array of counter-displays from atheists and groups that argue for the separation of church and state.
The-often-flippant displays included the sitcom-inspired festivus holiday pole and a decorated heap of rope symbolizing the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which is more often associated with opposition to the introduction of creationism and intelligent design in public schools than the year-end holidays.
The Satanic Temple said its decision to stay away from the Capitol this year could change if any other group asks to put a Christian display.
“As the assertion of plurality is always primary in our holiday displays, and many of our activities, we feel that our Satanic Holiday displays work best in a forum where a Nativity is present,” the Satanic Temple said in an email. “Without a Nativity display we haven’t been properly motivated to apply for a display of our own. Should the decision to not set up a Nativity be reversed at any point, however, we have a beautiful display at the ready.”
The Department of Management Services, which oversees displays at the Capitol, rejected an application in 2013 for the temple’s falling-angel diorama, deeming it “grossly offensive.” The diorama, however, was approved last year and led to an incident in which a Tallahassee woman was accused of attempting to damage the display. A criminal-mischief charge was later dropped.
Natalee Singleton, spokeswoman for the state Department of Management Services, said the only applications that had been submitted as of Monday morning were for a menorah display by the Chabad Lubavitch of the Panhandle-Tallahassee and for a festivus pole display by Chaz Stevens, a political blogger from Deerfield Beach.
“Our Gay Pride Festivus Pole is a jubilant, may I say happy and gay, celebration of (the Supreme Court of the United States) recent ruling regarding same sex marriage,” said Stevens, who describes himself as a white heterosexual ally of the gay community. “Also, at the same time, we’re raising awareness to the problem of young LGBTQ men and women who are bullied and harassed.”
Festivus is a “holiday” created for the TV sitcom “Seinfeld” as a non-commercial festival “for the rest of us” in the Christmas and year-end holiday season. Festivus, celebrated Dec. 23, comes with a ceremonial post-dinner “airing of the grievances” in which participants describe how they have been disappointed by others in the past year and engage in “feats of strength.”
Stevens, building off his festivus poles — stacked empty Pabst Blue Ribbon cans — that he first got approval to set up in the Capitol in 2013, said he has also applied to put similar poles in the state houses in Georgia, Illinois, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Michigan.
“We’re a national effort at irreverence,” Stevens said.
by Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida
Pictured top: The Nativity display last year in the Florida Capitol. NorthEscambia.com file photo, click to enlarge.
Greater Escambia Relay For Life Meeting Tonight
December 8, 2015
The American Cancer Society Relay For Life of Greater Escambia will hold a Steering Committee planning meeting tonight.
The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. at the Heritage Baptist Church on Highway 297A. All interested community members and cancer survivors are invited and encouraged to attend.
The 2016 Relay For Life of Greater Escambia will take place on April 30, 2016, at the Pensacola Interstate Fairgrounds from 11 a.m. until 9 p.m. For more information about the meeting or on how to become involved in Relay for Life, contact Pat Clements at (850) 776-2944.
Pictured: The 2015 Relay For Life of Greater Escambia. NorthEscambia.com file photo, click to enlarge.
Louis James “Freddie” Taylor
December 8, 2015
Louis James “Freddie” Taylor passed away Friday, December 4, 2015.
Louis was born May 11, 1930 in Kinston, North Carolina to Fred and Pauline Taylor. Louis attended Grainger High School in Kinston, N.C. until he joined the Navy in 1948. Louis was stationed in Pensacola, when he met his lifelong soul mate, Marilyn Bailey. Louis and Marilyn were married in Biloxi, MS on October 24, 1950. Louis and Marilyn completed their family with the birth of their son, Michael James in September 1953. While in the Navy, he played left halfback with the Pensacola Navy Goshawks. Louis retired from the Navy in 1967 and settled with his family in Pensacola.
Freddie is reunited and having a traditional family North Carolina pig picking in heaven with his father and stepmother, Fred and Lillian Francis Taylor. Joining in the celebration is his mother, Pauline Whaley; sister, Sandra Kay Perry; and his brother, Roger Douglas Taylor.
Louis is survived by his wife of 65 years, Marilyn B. Taylor; son, Michael J. Taylor; daughter-in-law, Lisa M. Taylor and two beautiful granddaughters; Jacquelyn M. Taylor and Amanda K. Taylor; Amanda and Randy Boehringer gave Freddie two big and handsome great-grandchildren, Randal “Freddie” and Grant Campbell Boehringer. He is also survived by his sisters, Elizabeth “Libby” Keel, Judy Glenn Scott and Francis (Bryce) Outlaw; brothers, Fred Thomas (Marla) Taylor, Ronald Bruce “Goose” (Wanda) Taylor and Kenneth Earl (Vernelle) Edwards.
Services will be held Wednesday, December 9, 2015, at 11:30 a.m. at Faith Chapel Funeral Home North in Cantonment with Reverend David Shofner officiating.
Burial services will be at 1:15 p.m. at Barrancas National Cemetery.
Faith Chapel Funeral Home North is entrusted with arrangements.
Scott Inks $3.1 Billion Deal With Seminoles
December 8, 2015
The Seminole Tribe of Florida has agreed to pay $3.1 billion to the state over seven years in exchange for adding craps and roulette to its current casino operations, under an agreement announced Monday night by Gov. Rick Scott.
The deal is believed to be the largest tribal revenue-sharing agreement in the country, and is triple the current $1 billion the Seminoles have paid to the state over the past five years for the exclusive rights to operate “banked” card games, including blackjack.
The agreement regarding the card games —- part of a larger, 20-year deal known as a “compact” — expired this summer, sending the Scott and the tribe back to the negotiating table. The new deal requires legislative approval, and even before the ink was dry on the agreement, some legislators were questioning the possibility of its ultimate success.
Under the deal, the tribe would be allowed to have blackjack, craps and roulette at all of its existing seven facilities, but cannot expand its operations for 20 years, under the pact signed Monday by Scott and Seminole Chairman James Billie.
But the tribe is giving up its monopoly on blackjack and is ceding its stronghold on slots.
Under the agreement reached in 2010, slot machines anywhere but at the existing pari-mutuels in Broward and Miami-Dade counties or on other tribal lands would invalidate the compact and lose the state big bucks. Giving blackjack or other banked table games to the Broward and Miami-Dade racinos would reduce the tribe’s payments to the state, and the racinos have not offered the games.
The new deal would allow the Miami-Dade and Broward racinos to add blackjack. And the agreement would allow up to 750 slot machines and 750 “instant racing” machines — which appear like slots but operate differently — to be phased in over three years at the Palm Beach Kennel Club and at a new facility in Miami.
“With a $3 billion guarantee along with a cap on the tribe’s gaming, it is my hope that this compact can be the foundation of a stable and predictable gaming environment for the state of Florida,” Scott said in letter Monday night to House Speaker Steve Crisafulli and Senate President Andy Gardiner, with the compact attached. The “cap” refers to a limit on the number of slot machines the tribe could have at its casinos.
Scott also acknowledged that there may be “several other issues that the Legislature may wish to debate and discuss in addition to the details within this compact itself.”
But, he wrote, “The compact itself is a good deal for the state of Florida and it is my hope that you will consider giving it a vote in the Florida Senate and the Florida House during the regular 2016 session or at the time you believe is most appropriate.”
But getting the Legislature’s blessing could be problematic, especially given Scott’s handling of the announcement.
In his letter to the legislative leaders, Scott said “this agreement would not have been possible without the leadership of Sen. Rob Bradley and Rep. Jose Felix Diaz in the state’s negotiation.”
But Diaz was unaware that the governor had signed the deal until contacted Monday evening by The News Service of Florida.
“There are a lot of things that I still need to communicate with House leadership. I’m hoping to be able to read the document in its totality to see what’s in there,” Diaz, R-Miami, said. “There are things that are probably going to have to change if we’re going to pass something out of the House.”
One of the sticking points for lawmakers involves which pari-mutuels outside Miami-Dade and Broward would get slots.
Voters in six counties — Brevard, Gadsden Hamilton, Lee, Palm Beach and Washington — have given a thumbs-up to slots at local pari-mutuels. The Florida Supreme Court recently decided to hear a dispute about whether Gretna Racing in Gadsden County should be allowed to have slot machines without the express permission of the Legislature, in a case with widespread implications for gambling throughout the state.
Black lawmakers in the House want Gretna to have slots. Gadsden, one of the poorest regions in Florida, is the only county with a majority of black residents.
Other lawmakers, and lobbyists, are pushing for Lee County, home of Naples Fort Myers Greyhound Racing and Poker in Bonita Springs.
Yet others are insisting that the deal allow the Melbourne Greyhound Park, in Brevard County, to be included. Crisafulli and House Rules Chairman Ritch Workman both hail from Brevard.
Limiting the slots to Palm Beach in the compact could make it difficult to pass a bill authorizing the deal, Diaz predicted.
“That could be subject to change. And it would lead to a different-looking compact,” he said. “It would be fair to say that whatever the governor has announced could look different by the end of session.”
Bradley, a Fleming Island Republican, called Scott’s $3.1 billion agreement “a good deal for taxpayers.”
“Those are dollars that we’re going to be able to use for core services, education, transportation and health care,” Bradley said.
The flexibility included in the compact gives lawmakers room to come up with an agreement that is palatable to members in both chambers as well as to the state’s pari-mutuel industry, not an easy task.
“I think it’s a recognition that as the legislation moves through the process, there are going to be lots of voices that are going to be heard in the Legislature,” Bradley said. “So you want to provide some flexibility so that those voices could be incorporated meaningfully into the discussion, but not bust the fundamental framework of the agreement with the tribe.”
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
District 5 Commissioner Holds Town Hall Meeting
December 8, 2015
Escambia County District 5 Commissioner Steven Barry held a town hall meeting Monday evening in Cantonment. Barry addressed residents’ concerns and updated them on the latest issues in District 5. Courtesy photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Leslie Leon Johnson
December 8, 2015
Mr. Leslie Leon Johnson, age 74, of Flomaton, passed away at home on Saturday, December 5, 2015. Mr. Johnson was a framing contractor, avid hunter and fisherman. He was born to Leslie Lee and Jessie B. Barrow Byrd.
He is preceded in death by his parents and stepfather Richard Byrd; son, Kenneth Johnson; sister, Lillie Mae Hill; and brother, Eddie Lee Johnson.
He is survived by his spouse, JoAnn; son, Richard and daughter-in-law, Tonya Johnson of Flomaton; six grandchildren, Brandon and Ashley Burkett, Tiffanie, Shane, Shawn, Little Richard (Buba) and Kelly Johnson. eight great-grandchildren; brother and sisters-in-law; one niece, and nephews.
A memorial service will be held at a later date.
Services provided by Eastside Chapel.
Petty-Eastside Chapel Funeral Homes, LLC is in charge of all arrangements.