Risk Of Severe Storms On Monday
April 2, 2017
Here is your official North Escambia area forecast:
Monday: A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms before 7am, then showers and possibly a thunderstorm between 7am and 4pm, then showers and thunderstorms likely after 4pm. Some storms could be severe, with large hail and damaging winds. High near 80. Breezy, with a south wind 15 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New rainfall amounts between 1 and 2 inches possible.
Monday Night: Showers and thunderstorms likely before 7pm. Mostly clear, with a low around 59. Southwest wind 5 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.
Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 86. Calm wind becoming south around 5 mph in the afternoon.
Tuesday Night: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low around 65. South wind 5 to 10 mph.
Wednesday: Showers and thunderstorms likely. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 81. South wind 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%.
Wednesday Night: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low around 53. West wind around 10 mph.
Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 71. Northwest wind 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.
Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 46. Northwest wind around 10 mph.
Friday: Sunny, with a high near 69.
Friday Night: Clear, with a low around 45.
Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 73.
Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 52.
Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 78.
One Injured In Jacks Branch Road Wreck
April 2, 2017
At least one person was injured in a two vehicle crash Saturday afternoon in the 1600 block of Jacks Branch Road, near Perdido Lake Road. Further details have not been released by the Florida Highway Patrol. NorthEscambia.com photos by Kristi Barbour, click to enlarge.
Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: Got Any Summer Plans?
April 2, 2017
Speculation about lawmakers needing a special session is nothing new in Tallahassee; the ratio of legislative sessions to rounds of overtime rumors is roughly 1-to-1.
But with House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’ Lakes, implicitly raising the prospect of a special session in his opening-day speech this year, the rumors were already in overdrive. And the release of budget plans this week is likely only to fuel speculation that lawmakers won’t finish by the scheduled May 5 end of the regular session.
On the bottom-line figure, the House and Senate are roughly $2 billion apart on how much to spend in the budget year that begins July 1.
There’s more where that came from. The Senate apparently doesn’t count another $2 billion in university tuition toward its bottom line, while the House does. So what looks like a dispute between $83.2 billion in the Senate and $81.2 billion in the House might in fact be something more.
All of this in a session where the governor and Corcoran are essentially at war with each other over business incentives. Also, the timeline for negotiating the spending plans is tougher than usual.
The rumors of a special session aren’t new, but every so often they’re right — and this year could be the latest example.
DOLLAR DAZE
The tightness of the calendar goes something like this: The House and Senate’s budget-writing committees are expected to vote on their spending plans next week. The week after that is when floor votes are likely to happen.
That gives lawmakers a little more than two weeks to close the $2 billion or $4 billion gap, depending on how you want to count it, then decide how to spend what’s left over, then get the agreement printed in time for a 72-hour cooling-off period before lawmakers vote on the final package. That’s not a lot of time in legislative terms.
There are some philosophical differences that make the debate that much more difficult. The House and Senate are deeply divided, for example, on whether to fund the business incentives that Gov. Rick Scott loves, but House lawmakers hate.
The Senate wants more than $80 million for programs tied to Enterprise Florida, the state’s economic development agency; the House has already voted to abolish Enterprise Florida. The Senate wants $76 million for tourism-marketer Visit Florida; the House is pitching $25 million.
House Transportation & Tourism Appropriations Chairman Clay Ingram, R-Pensacola, said the budget proposal is “basically following the tenets” of the House bill that included abolishing Enterprise Florida.
“Being a policy bill, I know there are negotiations going on between the House and Senate on the policy of that bill,” Ingram said.
Senate Appropriations Chairman Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, said Tuesday he doesn’t support the House approach on the agencies but that his focus is “getting what we have over here done first.”
“The House does its thing, the Senate does its thing, then we see where it goes,” Latvala said.
Another philosophical divide is on local property taxes for education. The House argues that allowing property taxes to rise with the values of the underlying properties is a tax increase. The Senate doesn’t see it that way, because the rate of the tax — called the millage — doesn’t change.
“We’ve kept that at the same (level) and believe that keeping the millage rate the same is not a tax increase,” said Sen. David Simmons, an Altamonte Springs Republican who oversees the public-schools budget in the Senate.
Asked whether there might be room to negotiate, Simmons’ House counterpart pointed to something Corcoran told a reporter for the Tallahassee bureau shared by the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald.
“I think the speaker was quoted as saying `hell no’ on raising taxes, so I’m just going to defer to his quote,” said Rep. Manny Diaz Jr., R-Hialeah.
And that’s before getting to different priorities. The Senate wants to boost funding for higher education, a chief priority for Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, while the House is seeking less. There are also differences over which employees should get raises, and how much.
SEE YOU IN COURT — OR MAYBE NOT
Scott and Corcoran shared something in common this week: They both earned victories in trying to get someone out of the courtroom.
A circuit judge sided with Scott on Tuesday in a dispute over the removal of Central Florida State Attorney Aramis Ayala in the high-profile case of accused cop-killer Markeith Loyd.
Orange County Circuit Judge Frederick Lauten’s ruling came after Scott yanked Ayala, the elected prosecutor for Orange and Osceola counties, from the case because she refuses to seek the death penalty for Loyd or any other defendant.
Ruling from the bench, Lauten refused to reinstate Ayala as prosecutor in the case after Scott reassigned it to Ocala-area State Attorney Brad King, an outspoken proponent of the death penalty.
Ayala had asked the court for a temporary stay of the proceedings in Loyd’s case while she challenged whether Scott has the authority to oust her.
Ayala immediately pledged to appeal Lauten’s ruling.
“By inserting his personal politics into this case, Governor Scott’s unprecedented action is dangerous and could compromise the prosecution of Markeith Loyd and threatens the integrity of Florida’s judicial system,” Ayala said in a statement Tuesday. “We will move forward to expose the governor’s action as unlawful and unconstitutional in a way that does not compromise the successful prosecution of Markeith Loyd.”
Scott wasn’t backing down. His office issued a statement after Lauten’s ruling that said the governor “stands by his decision to assign State Attorney Brad King to prosecute Markeith Loyd after State Attorney Ayala refused to recuse herself.”
“As Governor Scott has continued to say, these families deserve a state attorney who will aggressively prosecute Loyd to the fullest extent of the law and justice must be served,” the statement said.
Corcoran’s victory, meanwhile, came on a House bill that would limit Supreme Court justices and appeals-court judges to two consecutive terms in office.
House members voted to approve the measure (HJR 1) on a 73-46 vote nearly along party lines. The defection of six Republicans was almost enough to kill the amendment, which needed 72 votes to get through the chamber.
Legal organizations across the political spectrum have opposed the legislation, but Corcoran brushed that off.
“That tells you we are doing what is right,” Corcoran said. “And neither special interest hand-wringing nor political influence will stop the House from doing what is right. It boils down to this — we believe that no government job should be for life.”
But opponents argued that the measure was aimed at weakening the judicial branch after a string of Supreme Court rulings that have stymied Republicans who dominate state government. Many of those rulings have been issued by majorities featuring long-serving Democratic appointees.
“At the end of this day, the bill will have one major chilling effect: a less-independent judiciary beholden to the executive and legislative branches,” said Rep. Evan Jenne, D-Dania Beach.
Right or not, the proposal faces long odds in the Senate, which has traditionally watered down or rejected House bills that take on the courts.
ON THE TURN?
The years-long quest to pass a new gambling package continued this week, as the House and Senate both moved forward gambling bills, setting the stage for the first serious negotiations in years between legislative leaders — and the Seminole Tribe of Florida — on the thorny issue.
That’s the optimistic version, because the proposals are essentially diametrically opposed to each other.
The Senate overwhelmingly approved a measure (SB 
that is friendly to the pari-mutuel industry. The bill would allow slot machines in eight counties where voters have approved them, legalize controversial card games at the heart of a legal battle with the Seminoles and allow nearly all tracks and jai alai frontons to do away with live racing or games, a process known as “decoupling.”
Hours later, a major House committee supported a more status-quo measure (HB 7037) focused on a 20-year agreement with the Seminoles, called a “compact.” A portion of a 2010 compact that gave the tribe exclusive rights to operate banked card games, such as blackjack, at most of its casinos expired in 2015, prompting a new round of negotiations — and litigation — with the state.
But discussions about a new compact failed to gain traction last year, after lawmakers did not approve a deal struck by Scott and the tribe late in 2015.
While the House and Senate now are coming from opposite ends of the spectrum, Republican legislative leaders acknowledged Thursday the packages provide a starting point for lawmakers to work toward a consensus during negotiations.
“Right now, I think we’ve demonstrated the two bodies can disagree as to what the fundamentals of a bill can look like, but that doesn’t mean the idea is dead,” House Commerce Chairman Jose Felix Diaz, R-Miami, told reporters after his committee supported the House version Thursday. “We’re very far apart. That’s for sure. They’re almost like alternative bills. I don’t know what our pressure points will be.”
Senate bill sponsor Bill Galvano, a Bradenton Republican slated to take over as president of the chamber after the 2018 elections, said lawmakers need to act to provide certainty for the industry and to maximize revenue from the tribe and the pari-mutuels.
“We have this ambiguous, unpredictable state of flux out there that needs to be wrangled in,” Galvano told reporters.
If nothing else, perhaps gambling could be resolved in a special session.
STORY OF THE WEEK: Lawmakers unveiled budgets separated by billions of dollars, beginning the long process of coming to an agreement on the annual spending plan.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Obviously, searches of EDRs (electronic data recorders) in motor vehicles were not on the minds of the first United States Congress when the Fourth Amendment was introduced in 1789, and the United States Constitution’s right to privacy sheds no light on the subject (particularly since there is no provision actually describing such a right to privacy).”—4th District Court of Appeal Judge Alan Forst, dissenting from a ruling that said authorities needed a warrant before they could download information recorded in a car’s “black box.”
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Football Team Members Hold Car Wash
April 2, 2017
Northview High School Football’s linemen held a car wash Saturday getting ready for their summer camp. The car was held at Advance Auto Parts in Atmore. Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Ashley Nicole McCullough
April 2, 2017
Ashley Nicole McCullough joined her Lord and Savior in Heaven on March 28, 2017. She was born in Milton, Florida on April 3, 1985, to Richard and Evelyn Pope. Ashley spent most of her life in Jay, and graduated from Jay High School in 2003. She met her soul mate, Brett, in 2008 and they joined their hands in marriage on June 9, 2012.
Ashley is survived by the lights of her life, her husband, Brett McCullough, and their daughter, Taylor. She is also survived by her father and mother, Richard and Evelyn Pope; her sister, Stephanie English (Richard); her mother-in-law and father-in-law, Richard and Lisa McCullough; her sisters-in-law, Kristin Rutherford (Kendall) and Kimberly McCullough; and her nieces and nephews, Shelby, Ryan, Xander, Madalyn, and Paisley. She is also survived by numerous other family members and friends, many of whom were like family to her.
Ashley was a selfless woman of faith who dedicated her days to helping those around her, always ensuring her smile lit the way. Ashley’s beautiful life will be honored and celebrated at Faith Chapel Funeral Home North.
Visitation will take place on Tuesday, April 4, 2017, from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m.
Funeral services will be on Wednesday, April 5, 2017, at 10 a.m. at Faith Chapel Funeral Home North.
Interment will immediately follow at Pensacola Memorial Gardens.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Go Fund Me account (“McCullough Family Memorial Fund”) which has been created in order to provide funding for the health, education, and well-being of Ashley and Brett’s daughter.
Family and friends extend their deepest gratitude for the overwhelming support, prayers, and love from the Tate High School Baseball Program and Boosters; Ashley’s employer, PR Chemical & Paper Supply Company; and surrounding community.
William Eugene McKinley
April 2, 2017
Mr. William Eugene McKinley, 42, passed away on Sunday, March 26, 2017, in Perdido, Alabama.
Mr. McKinley was a native and lifelong resident of Perdido, AL. He is preceded in death by his parents, Edgar and Dorothy McKinley.
He is survived by his step-mother, Gladys Etheridge of Perdido, AL; one step-brother, William Etheridge of Castleberry, AL; four step-sisters, Jennie Etheridge of Castleberry, AL, Marie Etheridge of Perdido, AL, Virginia Meeks of Key West, FL and Elziabeth Norwood of Atmore, AL; one aunt, Dorothy Hubbard of Perdido, AL and one uncle, Harvey McKinley of Perdido, AL.
Funeral services will be Monday, April 3, 2017, at 2 p.m. at the Petty-Eastside Chapel Funeral Home with Sis. Helen Stewart officiating.
Burial will follow at the Dean Cemetery.
Petty-Eastside Chapel Funeral Homes is in charge of all arrangements, Atmore, Alabama.
Former Tate Coach Faces More Allegations Of Abuse, Performing Unlicensed Student Physicals
April 1, 2017
Eight additional potential victims have come forward with sexual abuse allegations against Charlie Mabern Hamrick, a former Tate High School coach and church youth minister, according to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office.
Hamrick, 54, is already facing over 40 child sexual abuse charges — including 36 counts of capital sexual assault that each carry a maximum sentence of life without parole. All of the abuse charges he faces so far stem from the investigation into allegations made by four people.
As of Friday afternoon, deputies had not filed any additional charges as they continue their investigation into allegations that range from 1984 to 2015.
The latest allegations made by eight additional people include the possibility that Hamrick gave unlicensed physical exams to athletes at Tate High School during is 2012-2015 tenure there as a supplemental football coach. Those physicals, it is alleged, may not have been limited to just football players, according Amber Southard, spokesperson for the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office. The physicals included genitalia exams.
“Anyone that received a physical from Hamrick is asked to contact the Sheriff’s Office,” Southard said. Harmrick was not licensed in any way to conduct physicals, she said. Based upon the allegations, he may be charged with practicing medicine without a license.
Escambia County School Superintendent Malcolm Thomas said the district learned the possible improper physicals late this week.
“Under no circumstances should any school district employee conduct a physical on students,” Thomas said. He said information concerning the allegations had been turned over to law enforcement.
Hamrick was paid a supplement as a football coach at Tate High School from August 1, 2012, to September 14, 2015. He was not a teacher and did not have students under his watch in a classroom.
“He passed all the of the background checks at the time,” the superintendent said. “But a background check only tells you what someone has been caught for in the past, not any ongoing deep, dark secrets.”
Thomas said Hamrick was terminated from the district in 2015 due to allegations of financial impropriety in her personal life.
The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office is asking anyone that may have had a physical from Hamrick or believes they were abused by him to call them at (850) 436-9620.
For a previous story, click here.
Escambia Man Gets 35 Years For 2015 Murder
April 1, 2017
An Escambia County man was sentenced Friday to prison for a 2015 murder.
Jeremiah Farrish was sentenced to 35 years in state prison with 25 years as a mandatory minimum for second degree murder in the death of Eugenio Acosta.
On August 8, 2015, Acosta was found shot multiple times at a residence on Lakeview Avenue. Prosecutors said Acousta was killed during the course of a robbery.
Farrish, Jesse Square and Iesha Robinson were originally charged in this case. Square was acquitted at trial. Robinson pled to a reduced charge of manslaughter and was previously sentenced to 10 years in state prison.
Farrish pled guilty to second degree murder in exchange for testifying against his co-defendants.
Sunny Sunday; Storms By Monday
April 1, 2017
Here is your official North Escambia area forecast:
Tonight: Mostly clear, with a low around 56. South wind around 5 mph becoming calm.
Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 84. East wind 5 to 10 mph becoming southeast in the afternoon.
Sunday Night: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 1am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 65. Southeast wind around 10 mph.
Monday: Showers and thunderstorms. Some of the storms could be severe and produce heavy rainfall. High near 80. Windy, with a south wind 15 to 25 mph, with gusts as high as 35 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%.
Monday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before 1am. Partly cloudy, with a low around 60. South wind 5 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph.
Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 85. West wind around 5 mph.
Tuesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 61. South wind around 5 mph.
Wednesday: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 82. South wind 5 to 10 mph.
Wednesday Night: Showers and thunderstorms likely. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 56. South wind around 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%.
Thursday: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly sunny, with a high near 71.
Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 47.
Friday: Sunny, with a high near 72.
Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 48.
Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 73.
Tate, Navarre Honor Ashley McCullough; South Walton Tops Northview
April 1, 2017
Tate 4, Navarre 2
Friday night was about sportsmanship and the brotherhood of baseball as the Tate High School Aggies and the Navarre Raiders honored Ashley McCullough.
Ashley, the wife of Tate pitching Coach Brett McCullough passed away suddenly and unexpectedly Tuesday. The Aggies’ GoFundMe page for the family had raised over $17,000 as Friday night for Brett McCullough and the couple’s two-year old daughter Taylor. Click here to donate.
Catholic, West Florida, and Milton high schools have all donated to the family.
The Tate Aggies and Navarre Raiders stood as one family and posed for photos Friday night. Later, on the field, Tate topped Navarre 4-2.
Logan McGuffey earned the win for Tate Aggies Varsity. He pitched five innings, surrendering two runs, eight hits, and striking out five.
Jesse Sherrill went 2-3 for Tate with a RBI. Also for Tate: Reid Halfacre 1-3, R; Logan Blackmon 1-3, 2B, R; Corben Young, R; Mason Land 2-3, 2B; Kyler Hultgen 1-2.
South Walton 4, Northview 2