Barrineau Park Community Teams Up To Clean Up
April 26, 2015
The Barrineau Park community is just a little bit nicer , thanks a volunteer cleanup effort Saturday for Earth Day involving the Honeysuckle Garden Club, Barrineau Park Historical Society, Barrineau Park 4-H, and Clean and Green of Escambia County.
Volunteers fanned out across the community, working through the morning collecting trash from the roadsides before enjoying a lunch provided by the Barrineau Park Historical Society.
Photos by Sarah-Jane Conti for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Prison Overhaul Headed Back To Senate
April 26, 2015
After months of reports about inmate abuse and alleged cover-ups in the state prison system, the House on Friday unanimously approved a plan to fix problems in the Florida Department of Corrections. The House vote will send the bill back to the Senate, which approved the measure April 1. The House made changes to the bill, making it necessary for the Senate to take up the issue again.
The bill deals with numerous subjects, ranging from creating a new regional administrative structure for the department to requiring that inspectors receive specialized training if they conduct sexual-abuse investigations.
by The News Service of Florida
Friends Of The Library Book Sale Continues
April 26, 2015
Today is the final day of the annual Friends of West Florida Public Library Spring Book Sale and Silent Auction at the downtown library. Thousands of hardcover, paperback, and collectible books will be available for purchase, plus a variety of DVDs, CDs, puzzles, and other items. Proceeds are used to fund programs and enhancements at all WFPL branches.
Admission is freee from noon until 3 p.m. Sunday is the popular “Bag Sale”, where shoppers can pay one price and take home as many items as will fit in their bag.
Book sale items include thousands of generous donations from the public and some library books retired from circulation, many of them now out-of-print. Novels and mysteries are sorted by author or into genres like science fiction and westerns. Other book categories include arts and entertainment, children’s, cookbooks, history, holidays, home and hobbies, literature, foreign language, military, modern living, nature and gardening, religion, science, sports, technical, and travel. Most prices range from $0.50 for paperbacks to $2 for hardcover. There are also recorded books, magazines, and other media for sale.
The Collector’s Corner features an assortment of signed books, pre-1950s books, books by local and Florida authors, and other special books that are great for gifts. These items are priced as marked and must be checked out separately, so shoppers paying by check should bring two of them.
Payment by cash or check is preferred. Credit cards are accepted for sales of $20 or more. All profits are used to support the West Florida Public Library branches and programs. The Main Library and the book sale are located at 239 North Spring Street.
NorthEscambia.com file photos.
Biloxi Beats The Wahoos
April 26, 2015
Pensacola Blue Wahoos outfielder Jesse Winker hit a deep fly ball to the 400-foot sign in centerfield with his final swing of the game and a runner on second base.
He thought it was a goner. So did manager Pat Kelly and the Blue Wahoos fans.
However, Biloxi Shuckers centerfielder Kyle Wren chased Winker’s shot down to preserve a 4-3 victory over Pensacola. The Wahoos recorded its 108th sellout in its fourth season at Pensacola Bayfront Stadium.
“I definitely thought it was gone for sure,” said Winker, the Cincinnati Reds No. 3 prospect who has hit two dingers in his past four-game hitting streak. “I thought I got it. PK (Pat Kelly) wants to win and so do we.”
Kelly, who coached Winker last year in Bakersfield, also thought Winker had a walk-off two-run home run.
“I thought he got it, seeing him hit the past couple years,” Kelly said of Winker. “He came pretty close. He just couldn’t get it over Wren’s head.”
The Blue Wahoos dropped to 4-10 on the season and 1-4 against Biloxi. They are 5.5 games back of the 10-5 and first-place Shuckers.
Pensacola fans came to life in the bottom of the second inning when, not only did the Blue Angels Fat Albert make an unscheduled fly over, the Blue Wahoos loaded the bases with no outs. Stephenson hit a deep fly ball to right field to score Kyle Waldrop to tie the game at 2. Shuckers lefty Brent Suter then walked Wahoos Ryan Wright to put Pensacola ahead, 3-2. Suter struggled in the inning walking four batters, hitting another and allowing a Waldrop single.
However, Shuckers shortstop Orlando Arcia, the Brewers’ No. 2 prospect according to Baseball America, smashed a solo home run over the left field wall in the fifth inning for the game-winning run, 4-3. He leads the Southern League in hitting at .458 (22-48) and has reached base in all 15 Shuckers’ games this season.
Wahoos right fielder Winker prevented Biloxi from adding another run in that inning by gunning down Taylor Green at second base, when he tried to stretch his single to a double.
“I had a bad rap about my defense when I was drafted,” said the 21-year-old Winker, who was the 49th pick overall in the 2012 draft. “But I’ve worked a lot and felt I’ve always been a good defender. I take a lot of pride in my defense.”
The Reds No. 1 prospect, Stephenson, threw 5.2 innings, allowing six hits four runs, two of which were earned, three walks and striking out five. In three starts and 16.2 innings, he has 21 strike outs.
The doubleheader Sunday with the Milwaukee Brewers Double-A affiliate Biloxi Shuckers is scheduled at 2:05 p.m. Both games will be seven innings. RHP Tim Adleman (0-2, 2.70) takes the mound for the Wahoos in the first game and is scheduled to be opposed by the Shuckers RHP Brooks Hall (2-0, 1.13). In the second game, RHP Layne Somsen (0-0, 1.13) takes the mound for the Wahoos and is scheduled to be opposed by the Shuckers RHP Jacob Barnes (0-2, 3.72).
Rain Chances Returning
April 26, 2015
Here is your official North Escambia area forecast:
Tonight
A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 1am. Partly cloudy, with a low around 63. West wind around 5 mph becoming north after midnight.
Monday
A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 1pm. Partly sunny, with a high near 81. East wind around 5 mph.
Monday Night
Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm. Cloudy, with a low around 64. East wind 5 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%.
Tuesday
Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm. Cloudy, with a high near 79. East wind around 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%.
Tuesday Night
A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 57. Southeast wind 5 to 10 mph becoming northwest after midnight.
Wednesday
A chance of showers, mainly before 1pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 71. Northwest wind 5 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%.
Wednesday Night
A 20 percent chance of showers before 1am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 54. Northwest wind 5 to 10 mph.
Thursday
Mostly sunny, with a high near 73. Northwest wind 5 to 10 mph.
Thursday Night
Partly cloudy, with a low around 53. Northwest wind around 5 mph.
Friday
Sunny, with a high near 77.
Friday Night
Mostly clear, with a low around 56.
Saturday
Sunny, with a high near 78.
Saturday Night
Mostly clear, with a low around 59.
Sunday
Sunny, with a high near 81.
Storms Cut Power For Thousands
April 26, 2015
Gulf Power Company reported over 18,000 customers without power in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties following a line of storms Saturday afternoon.
One of the largest single outages was in the Molino area where about 2,000 customers were out from Quinette Road north to South Pine Barren Road and along Highway 97.
By midnight, less than 3,000 customers were still without power, and by 6 a.m. all but abut 100 customers had been restored. The utility said most customers were restored by 9 a.m. Sunday.
Pictured: Gulf Power crews work to restore power Saturday night. Courtesy photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: Should I Stay, Or Should I Go
April 26, 2015
Normally, the next-to-last week of the legislative session would be spent putting the pieces in place for the ceremonial handkerchief drop on the final day of the annual gathering. Lawmakers would be hammering out a budget agreement — with a setback likely to happen over the weekend — and deals on major legislation would be struck.
This has not been a normal session.
Lawmakers are still trying to get to where they can start negotiations on the state spending plan, and next Friday’s scheduled conclusion of the legislative session long ago became a milestone instead of a finish line. The House and Senate are still an entire health-insurance program and billions of dollars apart on the budget.
Some major legislation is starting to get closed out, but other issues are still looming — and getting close to a resolution on reforming the troubled Department of Corrections is cold comfort when lawmakers know they’re going to be back in Tallahassee at some point in May. Or June.
Those who work in the Capitol often express annoyance at the nighttime and weekend meetings that come with the annual budget negotiations. But as they get a taste of quieter days in the final weeks of the session, some of them likely wouldn’t mind a little bit more noise.
HOW TO DANCE WITHOUT DANCING
House Appropriations Chairman Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’ Lakes, infamously delivered a blunt warning to the Senate about its Medicaid expansion alternative early this month: “We’re not dancing.” And while that might be true as far as it goes — the House has shown no signs that it will give in on the program — the two chambers are beginning to look at each from across the dance floor.
The closest thing to a breakthrough that lawmakers had seen in weeks came Thursday, when the House sent an initial offer to the Senate on the broad outlines of a budget.
There is still no agreement on some of the biggest obstacles to a deal, especially when it comes to the Senate’s plan to use Medicaid expansion dollars to help lower-income Floridians purchase private health insurance, but the discussions are something resembling progress.
“While that conversation is a little narrow for our taste right now, at least we’re talking,” said Senate Appropriations Chairman Tom Lee, R-Brandon.
But a key piece of the puzzle could remain at least partially outstanding until after the state’s new budget year begins July 1: With the state submitting a concrete model for the Low Income Pool, or LIP, program to federal officials on Monday, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will not be able to give a final answer to the state by June 30.
Not that some Florida officials weren’t willing to try.
“We are expediting our submission of this LIP model in order to help CMS speed up their decision,” said Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Liz Dudek. “CMS knows that our budget depends on their rapid response to this model.”
Lawmakers are hoping to get some signs about how much money they can expect from a new version of LIP, currently a $2.2 billion program, set to expire June 30, that is largely used to cover the expenses of uninsured, low-income Floridians who show up at hospitals needing treatment.
The negotiations also followed a tit-for-tat set of meetings Tuesday morning. At a gathering of the full Senate during what was to be a meeting of the Senate Appropriations Committee, lawmakers heard a gloomy picture of what would happen to the state’s economy if the upper chamber’s proposal wasn’t adopted.
Meanwhile, House leaders urged their members to hold strong in the face of an onslaught from business groups, hospitals and editorial boards.
And Gov. Rick Scott said he was ready to call a special session to pass a continuation budget — even if no one in the Capitol had ever heard of a continuation budget.
“If the House and Senate fail to agree on allocations and begin a budget process that can be completed in an extended session, then I will call the House and Senate into a special session to pass a budget that continues current year funding levels for critical services like education, law enforcement, children services, and transportation,” Scott said.
The governor also started calling Republican senators separately into his office to threaten vetoes and use a spreadsheet containing hospital profits to try to get his way. Senators didn’t sound terribly intimidated.
“It tends to galvanize the membership around their president. The most dangerous guy in Tallahassee is always the guy with no hope. So when you extinguish the flame of hope from the members, you give them no reason to negotiate,” Lee said. “So my encouragement would be for us all to put all this behind us and move forward. And that comes from someone who doesn’t entirely have clean hands.”
ALL ABOARD!
With the budget and the negotiating leverage it provides in limbo and time beginning to evaporate, lawmakers started getting creative this week. And that meant so-called legislative “trains,” where multiple bills are combined into single packages. While meant to boost the odds of particular provisions making it into law, the trains just as often derail.
In the Senate Appropriations Committee, more than dozen individual bills eventually glommed onto a single measure (SB 948) that gained approval from the panel. But not before an agreement between Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, and state colleges attracted some controversy.
Negron has been on a crusade in recent years to dial back the number of four-year degrees offered by state colleges, which are largely two-year institutions. After Negron — who could become Senate president after the 2016 elections — threatened more sweeping legislative action, he and the colleges made a deal.
The agreement would explicitly state that four-year degrees are a secondary mission of the colleges and would cap the share of a school’s enrollment devoted to four-year programs, based on where they stand now.
“I think there’s plenty of room for growth, but it isn’t unrestrained, unbridled growth,” Negron said.
Negron has said the increase in four-year programs competes with state universities. Others say the programs are a low-cost alternative for students who aren’t necessarily fresh out of high school.
“Seventy-five percent of the people who earn baccalaureate degrees at our state college system are over 25 years old,” said Sen. Jack Latvala, a Clearwater Republican who is perhaps not coincidentally Negron’s opponent in the Senate presidency race. “In our state university system, 75 percent of those who earn them are under 25 years old. It’s a separate market.”
On Thursday and Friday, the House started its own education train, this one on the floor, when it attached charter school legislation and a proposal dealing with school uniforms to a wide-ranging school choice bill (HB 1145) that has caused some concerns for Democrats.
The bill, which passed on an 80-36 vote, would allow parents to send their children to any school in the state that hasn’t reached capacity, and it would allow non-teachers to enter the classroom in full-time jobs related to their field of expertise — an accountant, for example, teaching a finance class.
“You’re doing a good waltz and you’re doing a bad waltz,” said Rep. Alan Williams, D-Tallahassee. “And when you do that, the dance doesn’t look good.”
Trains were also shaping up on water policy and health-care legislation.
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Ruth (Judy) Griffith
April 26, 2015
Ruth (Judy) Griffith of Cantonment, was born March 12, 1924, and went to be with the Lord on April 25, 2015. She was 91 years old. She was a loving mother who loved her children. She loved to fish and to be with her family. She always loved going to garage sales and buying other peoples stuff to give it back to someone else. She was a thoughtful person who always put other people before herself. She attended and was a member of Pine Forest Assembly of God Church. She loved her church family and her Pastor, Brother Gene. She will always be in our hearts and prayers. We will miss you dearly.
Judy was married to Donald Manuel Griffith and had five children, Daniel Clifford Griffith (Patricia), Dennis Manuel Griffith (Virginia), Gloria Jeanetta Griffith, Glenda Wonnette Weekley (Edward) and Clifford Cleveland Griffith (Becky); 10 grandchildren; 21 great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren.
She was born in Glen Lyn, WV and is preceded in death by her husband, Donald Manuel Griffith; mother, Elizabeth Perdue; father, Robert Lee Martin; sisters, Madeline Pellizzeri and Ethel Stifford; and brother, Junior Martin.
Visitation will take place Wednesday, April 29, 2015, from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. at Faith Chapel Funeral Home North.
Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. on Thursday, April 30, 2015, at Pine Forest Assembly of God with Bro. Gene Hudson officiating.
Burial will follow in Pensacola Memorial Park Cemetery.
Pallbearers will be Danny Ray Griffith, Donald Lynn Griffith, Dennis (Bubba) Griffith, Wayne Clifford Griffith, Coy Edward Carter, III, Jason Donald Weekley and Joshua L. Weekley.
Faith Chapel Funeral Home North is in charge of arrangements.
Oil Field Worker Severely Burned In Saturday Fire
April 25, 2015
An oil field worker was critically injured in a fire Saturday morning outside Flomaton, AL. The worker as transported to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola and then transferred to the USA Burn Center in Mobile.
The fire occurred at an oil facility off Wolf Log Road. When the first firefighters arrived on scene, they found an large “container” of oil on fire, according to Flomaton Fire Chief Steve Stanton.
A medical helicopter was requested to transport the burn victim, but the helicopter was unavailable due to weather.
The Flomaton, Friendship, and Pineview volunteer fire departments from Alabama and the McDavid and Century stations of Escambia Fire Rescue from Florida were dispatched to the blaze. The Escambia County (AL) Sheriff’s Office and Flomaton Police Department also responded.
Further details, including the name and latest condition of the worker, have not been released.
Pictured: Black smoke rises from an oil fire north of Flomaton Saturday morning. Photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Escambia County Honors Longtime Firefighter KC Fehl
April 25, 2015
The Escambia County Commission has issued a proclamation in honor of longtime volunteer fireman K.C. Fehl upon his retirement.
Fehl retired from Escambia County Fire Rescue on April 1 after 28 years of service. He joined the Cantonment Volunteer Fire Department in January 1987 after his interest in fire service was sparked by a neighbor’s yard fire. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in late 1990 and then soon reached the rank captain.
He left the Cantonment VFD for a short time to serve with the Molino Volunteer Fire Department before returning to Cantonment.
Fehl left the fire department in 2003 to start his service as an Escambia County Sheriff’s Office reserve deputy where he served until 2010. He moved to the Cantonment VFD’s board of directors so he could spend more time with his son by coaching his baseball team. In December 2005, he switched to “line duty” with the VFD as a driver with his son Kenny, who is now a career firefighter. Fehl was soon, once again, promoted to lieutenant and then to assistant chief. He also served the Ferry Pass fire district for just over a year.
“With his retirement, Escambia County has lost an invaluable resource that will be impossible to replace,” the county’s proclamation stated.
Commissioners congratulated Fehl, and his wife, Susan Fehl, for their years of service.
Pictured top: Susan Fehl, K.C. Fehl and Escambia Commissioner Grover Robinson. Photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.