Online Voter Registration Begins Today In Florida
October 1, 2017
Sunday, Florida will join 35 other states and the District of Columbia in offering online voter registration (OVR) to its citizens. The October 1st launch by the Florida Division of Elections will allow eligible residents who possess a current Florida Driver’s License or Florida Identification Card to submit a voter registration application completely online.
RegisterToVoteFlorida.gov is the dedicated website for new applicants and current voters who wish to update their voter registration. A Florida Driver’s License or Florida Identification Card (ID) along with the last four digits of the user’s social security number are necessary to complete the online process. All other users may use the online application to input their information, but then must print and sign the application, and deliver it to the Supervisor of Elections office.
Security measures to protect the personal information of the applicants, and to verify the identity of the applicant and accuracy of their information, have been put in place. Supervisors of Elections will continue to review every application, whether submitted electronically or on paper.
Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner who originally opposed the policy, said the Department of State has been working over the last two years, in cooperation with the 67 supervisors of elections across the state, to “implement an online voter registration website that provides Floridians with a secure and more easily accessible way to register to vote.”
“The right to vote is sacred in our country and I hope that with this new and convenient method, more Floridians will register to vote and engage in the electoral process,” Detzner said in a statement.
State elections officials said “multiple safeguards” are being used to verify the registrations and to protect personal information, including the use of a “state-of-the-art” firewall, data encryption, captcha boxes, which are designed to thwart bots, and session time-outs after inactivity.
Pamela Goodman, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida, said her organization welcomes the advent of the online registration system but has raised several issues about its implementation.
Goodman said the new system will not follow the law if it requires would-be voters to have either a Florida driver’s license or state identification card as well as the last four digits of their Social Security numbers. Under the current paper registration system, Goodman said voters only have to produce a Social Security number if they lack both a driver’s license and a state ID card.
She said the online law specifically states that online registration requirements can be no different than the current procedures.
Goodman said Thursday that the issue was raised with Detzner but the League of Women Voters has not received a response from the state agency.
“Let’s see what comes out on Oct. 1,” she said. “We remain optimistically hopeful.”
Goodman said a lawsuit would be “our last option,” saying her organization would prefer to work out the issue with Detzner.
Goodman’s group also wants clarity on how third-party voter registration groups, like the league, will be able to use the online system. She also said she would like to see the state and local supervisors of elections promote the availability of online registration.
In Polk County, Supervisor of Elections Lori Edwards said she will take a cautious approach to using the new system.
“I’m hoping for a bit of a slow start so that we can get accustomed to the processes and procedures,” Edwards said. “And if we do detect any burps or hiccups we can fix them with a smaller quantity.”
She added: “Once it’s polished up and perfect, I will promote it. But it’s my nature to go slow.”
by The News Service of Florida and NorthEscambia.com
Friends Of The Library Hold Annual Book Sale
October 1, 2017
The Friends of the Library held their annual Spring Book Sale and Silent Auction over the weekend at the Main Library at 239 North Spring Street, featuring their “famous” $5 bag sale on Sunday.
Thousands of hardcover, paperback, and collectible books were available for purchase, plus a variety of DVDs, CDs, puzzles, and other items. All profits are used to fund programs and enhancements at WFPL branches, including Molino and Century.
Pictured: Shoppers Saturday at the Friends of the West Florida Public Library Big Fall Book Sale. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
ERC And Southwest Alabama Football Scores
October 1, 2017
Here are Saturday scores from ERC and Southwest Alabama youth league football:
ERC Senior scores
Brewton-26, Straughn-0
Baker-50, NWE-16
Jay-60, Neal-27
ERC Junior Scores
Straughn-27, Brewton-12
Poarch-31, Excel-0
Uriah-20, Flomaton-7
NWE-39, Baker-12
Neal-28, Jay-0
ERC Sophomore Scores
Brewton-37, Straughn-0
Poarch-19, Excel-0
Uriah-20, Flomaton-0
NWE-38, Baker-14
Neal-21, Jay-0
ERC Freshman Scores
Brewton-34, Straughn- 0
Poarch-20, Excel-6
Flomaton-34, Uriah-13
Baker-20, NWE-0
Jay-26, Neal-6
SW AL Scores
Mighty Mites (4-7 year olds)
Century 38, Beatrice 12
Tiny Mites (8-10 year olds)
Century 38, Beatrice 22
Pee Wees (11-13 year olds)
Beatrice 20 , Century 0
UWF Defeats FIT, 23-21, On Unbelievable Final Sequence
October 1, 2017
UWF place kicker Austin Williams tweeted earlier in the week about how his desire to kick a game-winning field goal for the first time in his career. On Saturday night he got his wish.
In the most bizarre and fortunate ending in UWF’s brief 15-game history, the Argonauts were the beneficiary of an intentional grounding penalty on fourth down with time having appeared to have expired, only to gain possession on downs with one tic left and have Williams kick the game-winning 44-yard field goal as time expired for an amazing, 23-21, win at Panther Stadium in Saturday night.
UWF (3-1, 1-1 Gulf South) finished with 314 yards and got timely stops on defense numerous times in the second half, which played a big part in the Argonauts retaining the Coastal Classic trophy for the second-consecutive year. The trophy started last season as an added bonus to the rivalry between the only Division II football playing schools in the state of Florida. UWF upset then 16th-ranked FIT last year, 42-39, in Pensacola.
This year UWF had to overcome a strong effort from Florida Tech’s Antwaun Haynes, who finished with 170 yards on 31 carries. His 1-yard scoring run midway through the third quarter put the Panthers ahead 20-13.
But the Argonauts responded on the next possession with a 15-play, 80-yard drive that ended with a Chris Schwarz touchdown from a yard out to pull the visitors to within 21-20. Schwarz had 16 carries for a career-high 76 yards as UWF finished with 115 on the ground.
The teams traded punts on the next six possessions after Schwarz’s run before the turnover on downs.
FIT opened the scoring in the first quarter when backup quarterback Trent Chmelik found Corey Lane on a out route for a 14-yard touchdown. UWF used the longest play of the night 50 seconds later when Mike Beaudry connected with Ka’Ron Ashley for 76 yards down the right sideline to tie the game at 7-7. Ashley ended the game with three receptions for 94 yards – both career-highs for the redshirt freshman.
On the ensuing possession Chmelik called his own number from three yards out for a 14-7 edge. Williams made two field goals – including one with 34 seconds left in the half – to pull the Argos within 14-13 at the intermission.
Williams logged three field goals, including a school-record long with the 43-yarder in the first half and the game-winner from 44 yards at the end of the night. The sophomore transfer also put four of his five kickoffs into the end zone for touchbacks. He is now 8-of-9 on the year – and a perfect 3-for-3 from 40-yards or more – with a team-high 35 points.
Josh Marshall made a career-high 13 tackles on defense, while Josh Smiley added 11 stops, one for loss and a pass break-up.
FIT (3-2, 2-1) outgained UWF, 380-314, with the sizeable edge on the ground with a 253-115 margin.
Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: Democrats Get Chance To Celebrate
October 1, 2017
With piles of debris rotting in the Florida sun and rain after Hurricane Irma tattooed much of the state, officials are turning their attention to an even more dire disaster in Puerto Rico.
More than a week after Hurricane Maria ravaged the territory, a developing “humanitarian crisis” spurred a bipartisan demand from Florida’s U.S. senators to demand that “the cavalry” — in the form of the military — hightail it to the island to get the situation under control.
And Gov. Rick Scott took time out from crisscrossing the state before and after Irma to make a brief visit Thursday to Puerto Rico, where he met with the island’s governor. On Friday, Scott hopscotched to Washington, reporting in to his pal, President Donald Trump.
Closer to home, what really had insiders on both sides of the aisle abuzz this week was Tuesday’s win by Democrat Annette Taddeo, who bested Republican Jose Felix Diaz in a highly competitive matchup for an open state Senate seat in Miami-Dade County.
The election, considered a referendum on Trump and a test of Democrats’ ability to compete in next year’s mid-terms, will undeniably inject some much-needed enthusiasm — and cash — into the Dems’ attempts to weaken the GOP’s stronghold in the state.
But it’s also prompted Republicans to huddle about how to distance GOP candidates from the president, a tough task considering the Twitter-happy Trump shows no signs of abandoning his stream-of-consciousness posts.
Perhaps the rapidly worsening catastrophe in Puerto Rico and what many viewed as Trump’s lackluster response when compared to hurricanes Harvey and Irma in Texas and Florida, contributed to Taddeo’s success.
Maybe, as one of Diaz’s consultants posed, Trump’s harsh criticism of National Football League players who kneeled during the national anthem drove more black voters than expected to the Miami polls.
Or could it be that, in the words of GOP strategist Rick Wilson — one of the founders of the “Never Trump” movement — “Everything Trump touches dies?”
That seems unlikely. But what is certain is that it all adds up to what without a doubt will be a very exciting year in the Sunshine State, if only for political junkies.
FLIPPING FLORIDA BLUE?
Despite being outspent by Diaz and his supporters, Taddeo coasted to victory in the race to replace disgraced former Sen. Frank Artiles, who resigned this spring after a racially tinged and profanity-laced outburst at a private club near the Capitol.
While Taddeo trailed Diaz in mail-in ballots, she made up the difference on Election Day and in early voting, winning by a decisive 3.75 percentage-point margin, according to results posted on the Miami-Dade County elections office website.
“I told you it was a people-powered (campaign). I meant it. It really was,” Taddeo, a 50-year-old businesswoman who was born in Colombia, told The News Service of Florida in a telephone interview Tuesday night.
Democrats in Florida and across the nation crowed about Taddeo’s defeat of Diaz.
Florida Democratic Party Chairman Stephen Bittel called Taddeo’s triumph “a win for all of Florida.”
“Annette will head to Tallahassee ready to fight for higher paying jobs, affordable health care and fully funded public schools. Democrats across the state are energized and mobilizing to flip Florida blue. After nearly 20 years of harmful GOP policies, voters are ready for a better deal,” he said in a statement.
Taddeo ran unsuccessfully twice for Congress, most recently last year, and was U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist’s running mate in his failed 2014 attempt to recapture his old job as governor.
She was outgunned financially by Diaz, who had the backing of GOP Senate leaders. The abbreviated contest carried a whopping price tag of more than $2 million, including spending by the candidates, political committees affiliated with the Senate hopefuls and outside groups.
Around noon Tuesday, Diaz, a Cuban-American who resigned from his state House seat to run for Senate, was buoyed by news that mail-in ballots received over the weekend increased a Republican turnout edge by several thousand votes. But Taddeo — who nailed down the endorsement of former Vice President Joe Biden late last week — more than compensated by topping Diaz in early voting and in ballots cast on Election Day.
The abbreviated and heated contest was characteristic of Miami-Dade’s brand of rough-and-tumble politics.
Supporters of Diaz painted Taddeo as a communist sympathizer, linking her with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, an unfounded accusation she characterized as “painful.” The FARC kidnapped Taddeo’s father, who fought in World War II for the U.S., prompting her family to flee Columbia when she was a child.
Taddeo and her backers, meanwhile, portrayed Diaz as a lobbyist “insider” and repeatedly tied the Republican to Trump. Diaz once appeared on Trump’s television show, “The Apprentice,” and endorsed the president.
The swing district is almost evenly split between Democrats, Republicans and independents, with Democratic having a slight voter-registration edge, and has a large Hispanic population.
While many of the district’s older Cuban-American voters continue to support Trump, the president remains unpopular with younger Cuban-Americans and other Latinos, such as those from Taddeo’s country of origin, Colombia.
Many Hispanic voters are especially unhappy about Trump’s decision to undo an Obama-era policy that would protect from deportation undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, known as “Dreamers.”
And the controversy over whether National Football League players should kneel during the national anthem got in Diaz’s way, according to J.C. Planas, a former Republican state representative who teaches election law at St. Thomas University.
Trump’s tweet storm over the weekend, excoriating players for kneeling, bumped up turnout on Sunday, the last day of early voting, and on Election Day, Planas said.
“It really boosted Democratic, particularly African-American Democratic turnout. Big time,” the Diaz backer said.
TURNING UP THE HEAT ON AIR CONDITIONING
While Maria may have dominated this week’s news, fallout from Irma continued to ferment.
An industry group filed a legal challenge to new requirements by Scott’s administration that nursing homes and assisted-living facilities quickly install generators to power air-conditioning systems.
LeadingAge Florida, which represents more than 100 nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, filed the challenge late Tuesday in the state Division of Administrative Hearings.
LeadingAge Florida and another industry group, the Florida Health Care Association, contend that it is unrealistic to expect facilities throughout the state to install generators within 60 days, as required in the emergency rules issued last week by the state Agency for Health Care Administration and the state Department of Elder Affairs.
State health officials issued the emergency rules after eight residents of The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills died Sept. 13. Four more died later. The Broward County facility’s air-conditioning system was knocked out Sept. 10 by Hurricane Irma, but residents remained in the sweltering 152-bed home until the deaths and a resulting evacuation.
In the legal challenge, LeadingAge Florida said penalties for failing to comply with the generator requirements could include revoking the licenses of nursing homes and assisted-living facilities.
“There is no emergency that requires the imposition of an impossible deadline and the imminent revocation and imposition of fines on assisted living facility and nursing home licenses throughout the state,” the 17-page challenge said. “The emergency rules would create an emergency rather than solve one.”
Meanwhile, nursing-home administrators and long-term care lobbyists remain in the dark about what, if anything, the state will do to help offset what could be a $240 million price tag for the generators.
Members of a nursing-home payment workgroup learned Tuesday they may have to wait until November before state Medicaid officials discuss generators and whether the facilities can be reimbursed under an existing cost-based reimbursement system that has been in effect for more than 20 years or through a prospective payment system that starts in October 2018. Under a prospective payment system, facilities receive prepaid fixed amounts.
STORY OF THE WEEK: Democrat Annette Taddeo defeated Republican Jose Felix Diaz, a former state representative, in a special election for a Miami-Dade Senate seat.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Where the hell is the cavalry?” — U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., calling for more federal aid to Hurricane Maria-ravaged Puerto Rico.
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Motorcyclist Killed When He Hits Vehicle Backing From Driveway
October 1, 2017
A motorcyclist died in Escambia County Saturday night after hitting a car that had just backed out of a residential driveway.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol, 54-year old Michael Brouwer backed his 2005 Dodge Ram from a driveway onto Bellview Avenue about 7:10 p.m. The truck was struck by 52-year old Patrick Michael Carr on a Harley motorcycle traveling eastbound on Belleview Avenue.
Carr was pronounced deceased at the scene by Escambia County EMS.
Any charges in the accident are pending the outcome of a FHP traffic homicide investigation.
Winston B. Day
October 1, 2017
Winston B. Day, 87, of Cantonment, FL, passed away on Friday, September 29, 2017. He was born on April 15, 1930, in Huxford, AL, to the late Bernard and Vera Day. He attended McCullough High School and graduated in 1948. Winston served in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953 and received the Bronze Star. After serving in the United States Army, Winston worked at Monsanto and retired in 1985.
He is preceded in death by his wife, Eddis; son, Donnell Day; grandson, Nicholas Stimmell; parents; two brothers, Joel and Raymond Day; and son-in-law, Jay Pierce.
Winston was a devoted and loving father to Marilyn (Michael) Stimmell, Sandra Melton (Greg Werhan), Janet Day and Rhonda Lott; four grandsons, that he loved dearly, Clint (Alyssa) Riggan, Brandon (Jami) Melton, Nathanael Stimmell and Zach (Kala) Stimmell; and three great-grandchildren, Hunter and Hailey Riggan and Caisi Melton.
Visitation will be held on Thursday October 5, 2017, beginning at 10:30 a.m.
Funeral services will begin at 11:30 a.m. at the Faith Chapel Funeral Home North.
Interment will follow at Oak Hill Cemetery in Atmore, AL.
Faith Chapel Funeral Home North is in entrusted with the arrangements.
William Joseph Philyaw
October 1, 2017
William Joseph Philyaw, 69 of Atmore, AL, passed away Monday, September 25, 2017, in Fairhope, AL. He was a laborer with lumber. He was born on July 5, 1948, in Flomaton, AL to the late Joe Junior and Louise Odom Philyaw.
He is preceded in death by his parents; and brothers, Tommy Philyaw and Joe Edward Philyaw.
Survivors include his wife, Linda Joyce Foster Philyaw of Atmore, AL; four daughters, Kimberly Mosley, Pamela (Richard Wainwright, Jr) Philyaw, Cindy (Michael) Lawson, Teresa (Jody Henderson) Hayles, and Mary (Kevin) Corbin all of Georgia; 14 grandchildren; and many nieces and nephews.
Services were held Friday, September 29, 2017, at Grace Fellowship Church, with Bro. Gene King and Bro. Glenn Weber officiating.
Interment was in Stapleton Cemetery.
Johnson-Quimby Funeral Home is in charge of all arrangements.
Dewey H. Janes
October 1, 2017
Dewey H. Janes 79 of Atmore, AL, passed away Tuesday, September 26, 2017, in Atmore, AL. He was a maintenance mechanic for Chemstrand/Monsanto. He was born on May 28, 1938, to the late Ernest and Florence Smith Janes. He served in the U.S. Army. He was a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ.
He is preceded in death by his parents; daughter, Deborah Janes; sisters, Addie B. Johnson, Lois Harris, Eunice Musgrove and Jewel Monie.
Survivors include his wife of 57 years, Margaret Jefferies Janes of Atmore, AL; two sons, Brian Keith (Tracy) Janes of Millbrook, AL and Jerry (Danna) Janes of Atmore, AL; brother-in-law, Joseph Jefferies of Atmore, AL; grandchildren, Marina Janes, Carson Janes, Anna Grace Janes and Jamison Janes; step-grandchildren, Shawn Williams and Savannah Williams; and many nieces and nephews.
Services were held Saturday, September 30, 2017, from Johnson-Quimby Funeral Home Chapel with Bro. Mark Jones officiating.
Interment was in Oak Hill Cemetery.
Johnson-Quimby Funeral Home is in charge of all arrangements.
ECUA Raises Water, Sewer And Trash Rates
September 30, 2017
Emerald Coast Utilities Authority (ECUA) customers will see an increase in their water, sewer and sanitation pickup rates.
The ECUA board voted to raise sanitation collection fees by 5 percent, from $21.31 a month to $22.38 a month for the average residential customers for weekly collection of recycling, yard waste and bulk waste items.
Water and sewer rates will increase by 3 percent — just over $2 a month more for the average 6,000 gallon residential user.