Former Northview Assistant Coach Ty Wise Headed To Tennessee
March 1, 2015
Former Northview High School assistant football coach Ty Wise is leaving Graceville High School and heading to Tennessee.
Wise was on the Northview coaching staff for four years. As offensive coordinator, he led a Chiefs offense that accumulated over 1,000 points during the last two seasons and a Class 1A state championship win before heading to Graceville in 2013.
Wise has been named the new head coach at Signal Mountain High School in Tennessee, which is located just outside Chattanooga.
Pictured top: Northview assistant coach Ty Wise celebrates a state championship win for the Chiefs in Orlando’s Citrus Bowl. Pictured below: Wise plans out plays on the sidelines of a Chiefs game in Bratt. NorthEscambia.com file photos, click to enlarge.
Publix, Walmart At Odds Over Florida Grocery, Liquor Bill
March 1, 2015
A wide-ranging alcohol measure that would allow shoppers to pick up fifths of Jack Daniel’s in the same stores where they buy groceries passed its first House test over the objection of Florida’s largest grocer.
Members of the House Business & Professions Subcommittee voted 9-4 to advance the measure (HB 107), which would remove an 80-year-old state law that requires liquor stores to be stand-alone facilities.
The bill has drawn opposition from independent liquor stores, some county sheriffs and Lakeland-based Publix. Meanwhile, support for the measure has come from retailers including Wal-Mart and Target.
Publix lobbyist Teye Reeves said the company’s business model has been to separate its liquor stores from the main grocery operations.
“At the end of the day, Wal-Mart has a very specific business model and Publix does not have the same business model, and we’re concerned that it will put us at a competitive disadvantage,” Reeves said.
But retailers that support the change say their customers are looking for increased convenience.
“A change to Florida’s outdated separation law would remove impediments, expand consumer choice, and level the playing field for all grocery retailers across the state, all while ensuring safeguards and security remain in place,” Wal-Mart spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg said in an email after the meeting.
Target lobbyist Jason Unger told the committee that the company is also looking at its business model, which includes smaller “express” locations in downtowns.
“As far as our expansion model, the separation law in Florida is a detriment,” Unger said.
The proposal, sponsored by Rep. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, also would make other changes in Florida’s alcohol laws. For example, it would allow beer tasting rooms at craft breweries and end the state’s prohibition on brewers being able to fill 64-ounce “growlers” for off-site consumption as they can with other size containers.
But most of Wednesday’s discussion focused on ending the regulation that requires stand-alone liquor stores.
Opponents claim the measure could put small independent liquor stores out of business and would make alcohol more accessible to minors.
“When a minor walks into a liquor store, they stand out like a sore thumb,” said Charles Bailes, chief executive officer of ABC Fine Wine & Spirits. “The barrier is necessary to keep alcohol out of the hands of teens, not because they purchase it but because they steal it.”
Steube said the measure is an effort to reduce regulations, and he disagreed with the contentions that eliminating the barrier will harm small businesses or make it easier for minors to get their hands on liquor.
“If you look at the facts and the data and the research, guess where kids get their alcohol from? Friends and families,” Steube said.
While voting for the overall bill, Rep. Heather Fitzenhagen, R-Fort Myers, said lawmakers need to balance free-market principles with public safety.
“This is not the Berlin Wall, this wall does not need to come down,” Fitzenhagen said. “It’s much safer for our kids to have a separate entrance when they are contemplating risky behavior. And as the mother of two teenagers, I know they do.”
Steube’s measure must still go through the Government Operations Appropriations Subcommittee and the Regulatory Affairs Committee before it can reach the House floor. The annual legislative session starts March 3.
by Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida
Photos: Color Run 5K
March 1, 2015
Hundreds of people took part in the Pensacola Color Vibe 5K Saturday at Maritime Park. A portion of the proceeds from the event benefited the American Diabetes Association. Submitted photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: As The Session Begins
March 1, 2015
The tickets to Associated Industries of Florida’s annual legislative session-eve party are pinned to the bulletin board. Suits and sweaters are back from the dry cleaners. And Tallahassee’s fickle pre-spring weather promises to turn balmy just in time to bring March in like a lamb.
By Tuesday, when the 60-day legislative session officially begins, lobbyists and lawmakers will have returned from far-flung places and traded in their fishing rods for Gucci loafers.
Same as it ever was, the 2015 session will commence with the pomp, circumstance and civility that’s made the opening days a ho-hum but must-do requisite for even the most jaded Capitol insiders.
The caustic Dorothy Parker best captured the pre-session sentiment of those for whom the annual pageant evokes a cringe rather than cause for celebration: “They sicken of the calm who know the storm.”
So with a sigh, we bid adieu to serenity, and brace ourselves for the storm.
DISGRACED HOUSE SPEAKER WALKS AWAY A WINNER
Years after being ousted from the speaker’s podium and resigning his House seat over corruption allegations, former House Speaker Ray Sansom walked away from the Leon County Courthouse on Friday as a winner after a Tallahassee judge granted his request to have the state pick up the tab for hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
“I think today completely solidifies the fact that I was completely acquitted. I was found completely not guilty,” Samson, who four years ago was cleared of the charges that drove him out of office, told reporters after Circuit Court Judge Angela Dempsey issued her decision from the bench.
Samson and his criminal defense attorney sued the state to try to force it to pay Sansom’s hefty legal bills under a common-law principle that public officials who successfully defend themselves against charges related to public duties are entitled to have legal costs covered.
But the state argued that the manner in which prosecutor Willie Meggs decided to drop the case, which concerned a 2007 budget item that was supposed to pay for an emergency operations center in Sansom’s Panhandle district, essentially amounted to a settlement of the case rather than a successful defense.
Meggs agreed to drop the case after being assured that Sansom and a political contributor, Jay Odom, would pay $206,000 to help reimburse the state for design costs of the project, which was never built. Sansom’s attorneys note that Odom actually paid the money and contend that Samson was not really a party to the agreement.
Dempsey’s ruling came on the same day that Sansom took the stand, the first time he had ever testified in open court about the case that left a man who was briefly one of the most powerful figures in the state out of office and, for a time, unemployed.
COURTROOM SUNSHINE STRUGGLES
An appellate panel on Monday shut down a case about whether public officials’ use of blind trusts violates the state constitution’s requirement that officials fully disclose their financial interests. Meanwhile, a courtroom fight over whether Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Cabinet violated the state’s Sunshine Laws leading up to the ouster of former Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey, who was forced to resign in December, escalated.
In the blind-trust case, Jim Apthorp, who served as chief of staff to former Gov. Reubin Askew, filed a lawsuit last year alleging that a 2013 law allowing state officials to put their assets into blind trusts violated a constitutional requirement spearheaded by his late boss.
But a three-judge panel for the 1st District Court of Appeal tossed out the challenge, pointing to the “speculative nature” of the case. Apthorp’s case “wholly failed to allege a bona fide, actual, present practical need for a declaration that the qualified blind trust statute is unconstitutional.” In part, it said Apthorp did not allege any public official or candidate had used a blind trust in the most-recent financial disclosures.
Gov. Rick Scott used a blind trust during his first term in office but ended it last year and listed his financial assets as he qualified for re-election. That disclosure showed Scott’s net worth at $132.7 million. After the disclosure, Scott put his assets in a new blind trust.
With Askew leading the effort, Florida voters in 1976 overwhelmingly approved the Sunshine Amendment, which included requiring public officials to disclose their financial interests.
Supporters of the 2013 law say blind trusts prevent conflicts of interest between officials’ public duties and financial interests. A blind trust gives someone else the ability to manage investments without a politician’s knowledge, but it doesn’t require the same level of detail about officials’ holdings as is required by typical financial-disclosure forms.
Judge Brad Thomas, however, wrote a concurring opinion that suggested the court has questions about the constitutionality of the law. He wrote that “our conclusion on jurisdiction should not be read as an imprimatur on the statute’s constitutional validity.”
The decision “should not be read to lend any support for the proposition that the statute at issue ensures ‘full and public disclosure,’ as mandated by … the Florida Constitution,” Thomas wrote.
In a separate case, the fallout from Bailey’s FDLE ouster heated up this week as media organizations and the government-in-the-sunshine watchdogs filed an emergency motion asking the court to force Scott and the Cabinet, and their aides, to preserve electronic documents related to the issue.
Monday’s motion came in a lawsuit filed earlier this month alleging that Scott and Cabinet members violated the state’s Sunshine Law by communicating through aides about the removal of Bailey in December and the appointment of new FDLE Commissioner Rick Swearingen.
In the document filed Monday in Leon County circuit court, the plaintiffs in the case alleged that Scott and his staff got rid of public records in the past without properly storing them. It pointed to lost emails from Scott’s transition team after the 2010 election and “multiple anomalies” about preserving public records that have been an issue in an otherwise unrelated lawsuit filed by Tallahassee attorney Steven Andrews against Scott.
The media organizations and other plaintiffs allege in the overall lawsuit that the Sunshine Law was violated because Scott and Cabinet members used aides as “conduits” to communicate about the Bailey ouster. Cabinet decisions are supposed to be made in public.
Scott’s office has denied that discussions about Bailey violated the Sunshine Law.
“It has been a longstanding convention for governor’s staff to provide information to Cabinet staff,” the governor’s office said in an email to reporters in late January. “This was the same process the Cabinet staff followed in respect to Gerald Bailey.”
STORY OF THE WEEK: Tallahassee judge Angela Dempsey orders the state to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees amassed by former House Speaker Ray Sansom.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “I will stand by this budget item for the rest of my life as being one of the best things that I’ve ever seen try to be done for my area.”—Former House Speaker Ray Sansom speaking in court about a 2007 budget item that was supposed to pay for an emergency operations center in the then-House budget chair’s district and which led to Sansom’s resignation from the speakership in 2009, and from the Legislature the following year.
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Lillian Fillingim King
March 1, 2015
Lillian Fillingim King, 73, of Molino, passed away on Friday, February 27, 2015.
She was preceded in death by her parents, AJ and Cora Harris Fillingim, and brother Jack Fillingim.
Surviving are her husband and best friend, Ian (John), of 54 years; daughters Deborah Rossi (Robert) and Angela Bonifay and sons David King (Jackie) and Ted King (Jenny); grandchildren Stephen Rossi, Jordan Jack, Jennifer Sanderson, Ian Nowling, and Olivia and Amelia King; step-grandchildren Christopher and Selena Jacks; and two great-grandchildren; sisters, Marian Mobley and Maxine Smith; and a loving extended family.
Lil was a faithful member of Aldersgate United Methodist Church serving as Sunday school teacher, funeral food director (the best sweet tea maker ever!), and vacation bible school registrar.
She established the Molino Mid-County Historical Society in 2000 and served as its president until her death.
With the help of local Escambia County officials, she was instrumental in transforming the vacant Molino School into the much needed Molino Community Center providing a library, museum, meeting rooms, and multi-use auditorium.
Donations in Lil’s memory may be made to Aldersgate United Methodist Church, 6915 US 29, Molino, FL 32577.
Pallbearers will be Robert and Stephen Rossi, Jordan Jack, Robert Mobley, Christopher Jacks and Darryl Bishop.
Honorary pallbearers are Edward Escobar and Marty Lorenz.
Visitation will be Tuesday, March 3, 2015, from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m. at Faith Chapel North.
Funeral services will be Wednesday, March 4, 2015, at 11 a.m. at Aldersgate United Methodist Church.
Interment will follow in Aldersgate Methodist Church Cemetery.
James Robert Yoder
March 1, 2015
Mr. James Robert Yoder, age 65 of Brewton, passed away on Friday, February 27, 2015, at his home.
Mr. Yoder was a native of Charleston, West Virginia and a resident of Brewton since 1956 coming from West Virginia. He was a veteran having served in the United States Air Force and during his working years, he worked for the Escambia County Road Department as a foreman. Mr.Yoder was a member of Bethel Mennonite Church and is preceded in death by his parents, Hansel French and Alice Pearl Black Yoder, Sr. and his brother, Donnie Yoder.
Survivors include his wife, Monika Sue Yoder of Brewton; daughters, Barbara (Leo) Luker of Atmore and Christy Yoder of Brewton; brothers, Dale (Glenda) Yoder of Atmore, Charlie (Debbie) Yoder of Brewton and Hansel French (Judy) Yoder, Jr. of Kansas; sister, Flora (Mack) Odom of Orlando; grandchildren, Kayla Yoder, Whitney Tolbert, Dillian Crutchfield and Blake Luker.
Visitation will be held on Monday, March 2, 2015, at Craver’s Funeral Home Chapel beginning at 10:30 a.m. until service time at 11:30 a.m. with Rev. John Kemp and Rev. Woody Jackson officiating.
Craver’s Funeral Home Directing.
Report: Crime Is Down In Escambia County
February 28, 2015
Crime in Escambia County was down 9.6 percent in 2014, while the number of violent crimes was down 1.2 percent, according to the latest numbers released Friday by the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office. There were 1,761 violent crimes in Escambia County in 2014, down from 2,271 in 2008, the year before Sheriff David Morgan took office, a news release stated.
The numbers, Morgan said, disprove a common misconception that crime is up in the county.
“Often the perception, cast through social media,is that crime is on the rise. However, these are the accurate statistic sand they reflect a continually positive trend,” the sheriff said.
According to the report, there were 18 murders in Escambia County in 2014, down 21.7 percent from 23 reported in 2013. Robberies were also down by a double digit percentage, a 17.3 percent drop from 370 in 2013 to 306 in 2014. Rapes were up just under 10 percent from 135 in 2013 to 148 in 2014, and there was a slight increase in aggravated assaults. All other violent crime categories were down.
Burglaries and mother vehicle thefts were down about 15 percent, while larcenies were down about 10 percent. Domestic violence offenses were down slightly overall
“With our limited resources, we are focusing on violent crime. Our continued goal is to make Escambia County safe and improving the quality of life for our families and businesses. Much of our success in reducing crime is due to our partnerships with the communities we serve.We encourage citizens to form or join neighborhood watch groups and report suspicious activity to Gulf CoastCrime Stoppers.Let’s work together to make Escambia County a better place to work, worship and play,” Morgan said.
The Pensacola Police Department’s annual crime report released Friday also showed an overall 8 percent reduction of the city’s crime rate compared with 2013. The report shows a 9.4 percent reduction in the non-violent crime rate and a 5.1 percent reduction in the violent crime rate, resulting in an overall reduction of 8 percent.
“Not only does this show a decrease in violent and non-violent crimes within city limits, but also it reflects the outstanding work done on a daily basis by our officers,” said Chief Chip W. Simmons.
The Uniform Crime Reporting statistics are submitted and accepted yearly by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Questions Raised About Proposed Florida Pot Rule
February 28, 2015
A lawyer for the Legislature is questioning the Department of Health’s proposed medical-marijuana rule, slated for a public vetting on Monday.
The top lawyer for the Joint Administrative Procedures Committee raised concerns this week about a variety of issues, including a scoring system proposal to decide “dispensing organizations” that will grow, process and distribute the non-euphoric marijuana legalized last year.
The proposal under scrutiny is the department’s second stab at creating a framework for types of cannabis that are low in euphoria-inducing tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, and high in cannabadiol, or CBD, authorized by the Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott last year for patients who suffer from severe spasms or cancer. An administrative law judge tossed the department’s first attempt at a rule, finding fault with a proposed lottery to choose five nurseries across the state to kick off Florida’s pot industry.
The latest plan, issued after a rare “negotiated rule” workshop last month, replaces the lottery with a scoring system. The weighted scorecard would rate applicants based on cultivation (30 percent), processing (30 percent), dispensing (15 percent), financials (20 percent) and medical director (5 percent).
But, in a 14-page letter Thursday to the health department’s Office of Compassionate Use Director Patricia Nelson, the legislative committee’s chief attorney, Marjorie Holladay, suggested that the proposed scoring system is too vague.
“It does not appear that part III of the application contains any ascertainable minimum thresholds or standards to demonstrate each item,” Holladay wrote.
Under the law, five nurseries that have been in business for 30 years or longer and cultivate at least 400,000 plants would be eligible to apply for licenses in five regions.
But Holladay’s letter also requested an explanation of the department’s decision to allow “dispensing organizations” to grow the product in one place, process it in another and distribute it in other locations, the same issue that prompted a request for a hearing Monday on the proposed rule.
The Joint Administrative Procedures Committee plays a key role in overseeing state regulations and frequently requests more information when new rules are proposed. Two months before Administrative Law Judge W. David Watkins struck down the original proposal in November, Holladay sent health officials a similar inquiry.
In Thursday’s letter, she also asked why health officials are asking applicants to provide information about their relationships with independent laboratories because nothing in the proposed rule requires testing, an expensive process that could raise the cost imposed by the rule, another issue brought up by Holladay.
Florida law requires legislative approval of rules if regulatory costs for all the businesses that participate in the program exceed $200,000 in one year, or $1 million over five years. At last month’s negotiating session, the 12-member panel, hand-picked by health officials, went to great lengths to eliminate costs directly associated with the rule, instead embedding them into the application.
The committee estimated that 15 nurseries would apply for the licenses, bringing the cumulative cost of the rule to just under $1 million.
But the proposal does not address how much the biannual renewal fee would be, Holladay noted.
“Depending on the amount of this fee, the statutory threshold for legislative ratification could be triggered, especially because there will be three renewal fees to be paid by the five dispensing organizations seeking renewal within five years after implementation of the rule,” Holladay wrote.
Health officials had wanted to avoid legislative approval in order to get the product to eligible patients sooner. The law had required the department to have selected the five dispensing organizations by Jan. 1 of this year, but the legal challenge created a delay.
Senate Regulated Industries Chairman Rob Bradley, whose panel is expected to take up other medical-medical marijuana legislation this session and who was instrumental in passage of the low-THC measure last year, said he wants the issue resolved.
“If it’s required, it needs to be done,” Bradley, R-Fleming Island, said.
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Tate High Drama To Host Dessert Theater Tonight
February 28, 2015
The Tate High School Drama department will host an entertaining dessert buffet Saturday night at 7:30 in the school cafetorium.
The performances will include all of the individual events that went to a recent district drama festival, followed by this year’s one-act entry, “High School Reunion”. While guests are being entertained, they can enjoy the goodies from buffet of fine desserts.
The show and all-you-can-eat desserts are just one price – $8.
Pictured: Tate Drama students. Photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Mostly Sunny Saturday
February 28, 2015
Here is your official North Escambia area forecast:
- Saturday Mostly sunny, with a high near 58. Northeast wind 5 to 10 mph.
- Saturday Night Cloudy, with a low around 42. East wind 5 to 10 mph.
- Sunday A 30 percent chance of showers. Cloudy, with a high near 62. Northeast wind around 5 mph.
- Sunday Night A 30 percent chance of showers. Cloudy, with a low around 50. East wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.
- Monday A 30 percent chance of showers. Cloudy, with a high near 69. Calm wind becoming south around 5 mph in the afternoon.
- Monday Night A 20 percent chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 57. Southeast wind around 5 mph.
- Tuesday A 20 percent chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 75. South wind 5 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.
- Tuesday Night A 20 percent chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 63. South wind around 10 mph.
- Wednesday A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 73.
- Wednesday Night Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 44. Chance of precipitation is 60%.
- Thursday A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 51.
- Thursday Night Mostly cloudy, with a low around 32.
- Friday Mostly sunny, with a high near 55.