Northview Volleyball Sweeps Central; Childhood Cancer Benefit Game Monday
September 21, 2018
The Northview Chiefs swept Central Thursday in both varsity and junior varsity volleyball. The NHS varsity won 25-19, 25-14, 25-22. The JV Lady Chiefs beat Central 25-19, 25-10.
For a photo gallery from Thursday’s JV game, click here.
On Tuesday, the JV Lady Chiefs defeated Jay 25-19, 25-19. while Jay beat Northview’s varsity 25-16, 25-20, 13-25, 25-21. And on Monday, Laurel Hill defeated Northview in varsity action, 25-19, 25-18, 25-15.
The Northview Lady Chiefs will host a “Gold Digger” game at 5 p.m. Monday against Lighthouse Christian. All proceeds will go to the American Childhood Cancer Organization.
“We”d love to have a big crowd come out to support our Lady Chiefs,” Northview coach Ashley Salter said. “We will also honor our award winners from our volleyball camp that night too.”
NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Jay Man Wins Title Of National Electrician Of The Year
September 21, 2018
Thursday night, a Jay man was named the National Electrician of the Year by Klein Tools.
With a knock at his front door during a live online video stream, Mike Adams received the good news as his family stood with by his side.
Working in the trades isn’t just a career for Adams.
It’s a family tradition dating back four generations. With his mom, dad, uncles and cousins working by his side, there was never a doubt that Adams would grow to love and live by the rules of the trades.
Through his years as an electrician, Adams learned the importance of proper safety procedures and a dedication to even the smallest details of a job. He instills these lessons in the next generation of electricians as an advisor for SkillsUSA where he has helped lead many students to success in regional and national competitions.
Adam’s work takes him all over Escambia and Santa Rosa counties in Florida and Escambia County in Alabama.
Adams was previously named Klein Tools’ Southeast Electrician of the Year and won the national title. Judging criteria included professional achievement, safety excellence and community dedication.
Courtesy images for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Escambia County Tax Collector Receives State Excellence Award
September 21, 2018
The Florida Tax Collectors Association (FTCA) presented Scott Lunsford, Escambia County Tax Collector, with the Legacy Award for Continued Excellence in Financial Operations at the Fall Education Forum in Orlando. The award recognizes offices that have achieved innovation, customer focus, a well-managed budget and a clean audit in finance operations. The award is given only to those tax collectors previously recognized with the Excellence in Finance Operations Award.
“The Legacy Award is one of the highest achievements the Florida Tax Collectors Association can award a local tax collector,” said Florida Tax Collectors, Inc. past-president Sharon Jordan of Suwannee County. “The judging process was arduous and included a detailed review of the financial functions of the tax collector’s office. I am very proud to say that the Honorable Scott Lunsford has earned the designation. He represents the very top echelon of elected officials.”
Previously, the office earned the Excellence in Financial Operations Award after demonstrating proficiency in four areas of expertise: innovation and automation, a perfect annual audit report, customer focus and budgeting. For the 2018 Legacy Award, Lunsford demonstrated that his office had further improved its financial operations by introducing an enhanced website, EscambiaTaxCollector.com, and new online services that resulted in time and cost savings to taxpayers.
“We have an extraordinary finance team who work diligently to ensure accuracy and excellence,” said Lunsford. “The office also, for the seventh consecutive year, received a Certificate of Merit for achieving a clean audit. The staff of the accounting department are deserving of this recognition, and we are very proud of Chief Financial Officer, Brenda Chestnutt, and her accountants, Aimee Sluder and Lumi Williams.”
Courtesy photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Use Of Drug Database Increase Amid Opioid Fight
September 21, 2018
One of Florida’s main weapons to thwart “doctor shopping” has been expanding substantially after the passage of a tough new law aimed at addressing the continuing opioid crisis.
State officials said Thursday that more than 92,000 health-care providers had registered to use an electronic database that tracks patients who are prescribed controlled substances.
The August total is more than double the number of providers who were registered to use the system the previous year.
Bruce Culpepper, a consultant for the Florida Department of Health, told members of the Health Information Exchange Coordinating Committee about the “major uptick in activity” in response to the new law, which, for the first time, requires doctors to consult the database before writing prescriptions.
The providers made 4.75 million inquiries into the database during August, said Culpepper, who coordinates the department’s health-information exchange activities.
Moreover, Culpepper said Florida has been working with neighboring Alabama and Georgia, as well as Kentucky, on integrating Florida’s prescription drug database with their programs.
The Florida Legislature gave the green light to the monitoring program in 2009. The state required pharmacists to enter information about most controlled substances the following year when the database became operational.
But it wasn’t until this year that lawmakers also required doctors to use the database to ensure that patients weren’t “doctor shopping,” or seeking prescriptions for addictive drugs from multiple physicians.
The mandate that they check the system before prescribing was one of many changes lawmakers approved to try to abate the opioid crisis.
The Legislature also banned doctors from writing prescriptions for more than three-day supplies of controlled substances. In medically necessary instances, physicians can write prescriptions for seven-day supplies. The new restrictions don’t apply to cancer patients, people who are terminally ill, palliative care patients and those who suffer from major trauma.
Prior to the mandate, just 20.6 percent of the 73,085 licensed medical doctors in the state were registered to use the prescription-drug monitoring program, according to a December 2017 annual report. The medical doctors, however, accounted for nearly one-third of the 35.8 million queries that were made to the database.
Jeff Scott, general counsel of the Florida Medical Association, said doctors initially were confused by the new mandate and whether it applied to them. Scott, who has been with the FMA for 21 years, said it’s been one of the more controversial laws the Legislature has passed in his experience with the statewide physician group.
“We were getting quite a bit of questions about it prior to it going into effect,” he said, adding that the FMA’s offices were fielding as many as 30 phone calls a day over the summer before the law took effect July 1.
Legislators acted this year to address the growing opioid problem. In 2016, for example, fentanyl caused 1,390 deaths, heroin caused 952 deaths, oxycodone caused 723 deaths, and hydrocodone caused 245 deaths, according to a House staff analysis.
Meanwhile, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams on Thursday released a report that said, based on preliminary data, opioid overdoses were responsible for killing 131 Americans daily last year. In 2016, more than 115 Americans died daily from opioid overdoses.
by Christine Sexton, the News Service of Florida
Nine Mile Bank Robbed, Suspect Captured In Cantonment (With Exclusive Photos/Video)
September 20, 2018
A bank on Nine Mile Road was robbed Thursday afternoon, and the suspect was taken into custody at a Cantonment business just minutes later. And NorthEscambia.com has the exclusive photos and video.
Jamil Akil Winns, 35, is charged with the robbery of the Wells Fargo on Nine Mile Road at Chemstrand Road. He allegedly entered the bank and demanded cash before fleeing with an undetermined amount of cash, according to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies caught up with him in the parking lot of A-1 Small Engines on Highway 29 in Cantonment. As seen these photos (video below), Winns was taken into custody without further incident. He was booked into the Escambia County Jail with bond set at $250,000.
Investigators could been seen removing cash from the Winns’ vehicle and placing it into evidence. At least some of the money was visible in the back floorboard of the car.
For more NorthEscambia.com photos, click here.
More details will be posted as they become available.
Pictured: A bank robbery suspect taken into custody at gunpoint at A-1 Small Engines on Highway 29 in Cantonment, and the investigation in the A-1 parking lot. NorthEscambia.com photos by Kristi Barbour and others, click to enlarge.
Wells Fargo photo courtesy Jason Robbins, WEAR 3
ECSO: Beulah Man Charged With Attempted Murder After Lighting Pregnant Girlfriend On Fire
September 20, 2018
A Beulah man has been arrested for attempted murder for allegedly pouring lighter fluid on his live-in, 20-week pregnant girlfriend, lighting her on fire and hitting her in the head with a sledge hammer multiple times with enough force to cause a brain bleed.
Kenneth Dauine Swanger, 45, was charged with attempted first degree premeditated murder and false imprisonment. His bond was set at $1 million.
Tuesday, the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office was notified that the victim was at the USA Medical Center in Mobile.
She told ECSO investigators that Swanger became angry about two weeks ago and accused her of having an affair before pouring lighter fluid all over her body. He then lit a blanket on fire and threw it on her, causing her to catch fire. Swanger placed her in bath because of her screams, telling her that if she was not screaming so loudly he would have killed her, according to an arrest report.
About a week later, Swanger became angry and hit her in the head with a sledge hammer at their shared home in the 10000 block of Beulah Road.
Last Saturday, the victim was able to escape to the Tom Thumb on Nine Mile Road at Beulah Road and call her grandparents in Mississippi to pick her up. She waited at the store about two hours for them to arrive. Once back in Mississippi, she waited two days before going to a hospital, and she was transferred to USA Medical Center in Mobile for her burn injuries.
According to an ECSO report, the victim also suffered severe burns to her stomach, chest, shoulders, neck and back, along with multiple bruises, a laceration to her head, multiple other scratches and broken fingers.
Whataburger Manager Falls Victim To Phone Scam, Loses Store Cash
September 20, 2018
A manager at the Century Whataburger fell victim to a phone scam, using about $2,000 in restaurant cash to buy gift cards for the scammer, according to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office.
The manager received a phone call from what she believed to be the Whataburger corporate office in which she was told to take all the money out of the registers and go buy gift cards at a retail store, Amber Southard, spokesperson for the ECSO said.
The call appeared to originate from the Whataburger corporate office, with the caller providing a Whataburger employee identification number and following various corporate policies, Southard said. The manager called the number back and it was answered by what sounded like a Whataburger phone system that allowed the store manager to reach the caller’s extension.
The manager “partially closed” the restaurant on North Century Boulevard and took the cash to a retail store to purchase the gift cards as instructed. Due to limits at that store, she was only able purchase a few gift cards and she went to another store to purchase more cards. She had been instructed to provide the gift cards and PIN numbers to the caller.
The incident was reported to the Sheriff’s Office at about 3 a.m. Tuesday. When investigators called the phone number later that day, they reached a recording indicating it was a Church’s Chicken office.
“It appears they changed the recording, possible continuing with their scam,” Southard said.
The Sheriff’s Office found that several of the gift cards had already been used by the scammer to purchase items from the eBay online auction site.
“Taking all the cash from a business and buying gift cards is usually not what an employer is going to ask you to do,” Southard said. “People should always use caution when a caller is asking them to buy gift cards.”
No charges have been filed in the incident, and the manager has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Pictured: The Whataburger restaurant on North Century Boulevard in Century. NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.
Mayor, Councilman Seek To Control Public Information Flow From Century
September 20, 2018
Century’s mayor and a council member are seeking to control the flow of information from the town.
Background: Loans From The Town
In July, the council approved a $12,000 refinance of a delinquent loan for a sitting council member. Sandra McMurray Jackson received a $60,000 loan from the town in April 2003, prior to her election. Current council president Ann Brooks said she received a $50,000 loan in 1997 and made her final payment in 2011. Brooks was not in office at the time the loan originated. She ran unsuccessfully for a council seat in 2003 and mayor in 2006 before being elected to her current council seat in 2007.
A $60,000 loan was also made to “Purrfect Creations” in August 1999, and it was paid off in June 2015, according to a spreadsheet provided by the town. Mayor Henry Hawkins said the loan was to former “council member/mayor” Evelyn Hammond, but document provided do not reflect a personal guarantor. He loan was made prior to her election, he said.
“If you are going to throw dirt, let’s throw dirt all the way around. It wasn’t just one. Now we just happened to allow one to make payments on a reasonable time to get that bill paid,” Hawkins said.
Public Information
“This information is being put out without the council’s knowledge or my knowledge. We need to either designate one person to be a spokesperson for this town. which I think it should have been me. And if we are going to do anything off the cuff, the council better know about it,” Hawkins told the council this week.
“Who gave Ms. Brooks the authorization to represent the town via TV or any other public broadcast without Council approval,” Hawkins wrote in his letter presented to the council September 10.
In a WEAR 3 followup to a NorthEscambia.com story, Brooks told the TV station that she learned about the town’s financial problems through public records. She told WEAR in an on-camera interview that “We need to tighten our belts and we need to cut expenses but instead we have department heads asking for more…We have a gas department that is losing money and is bleeding.”
WEAR 3 and NorthEscambia.com are media partners, often sharing news, photos and videos. WEAR 3 and NorthEscambia.com do not share ownership.
“I did not need authorization from anyone to give my opinion when Channel 3 News came to my office and asked for it,” Brooks told the council this week, reading from a prepared statement. “I have just as much right to free speech as anyone else.”
She also expressed lack of communication from the mayor and town staff to the town council, including insufficient information about town finances discovered by auditors that found “the town’s overall financial condition demonstrated signs of deterioration which, if not corrected, could result in a future financial emergency. The audit found that there were many material weaknesses and deficiencies in the handling of the town’s finances,” she said.
Brooks also expressed concerns after she discovered “that payroll checks were being written when the money was not in the bank account to cover the checks and that payroll taxes were not being paid to IRS because there was not sufficient funds in the payroll bank account”.
“I do not claim that wrongdoings did not happen before the current administration, but no one informed me or the council about them, so we could not be expected to be aware of it. This is the reason we need to be transparent in the town’s affairs. The mayor, the town clerk, and the town’s accountant have a responsibility to inform the council when such issues occur. The town council has a right to know and a duty to act upon such knowledge,” Brooks concluded.
Councilman Gomez Takes Issued With The Media, Public Expression
“I don’t know a whole lot about the loans, but I know that there was three loans,” Councilman Luis Gomez, Jr. said, pointing out that the loans all originated prior to the borrowers being elected to office.
“I don’t need people walking up to me, ‘when is Century going to give me a loan’,” Gomez said. “I wasn’t a councilman 20 years ago…I didn’t agree to issue nobody a loan, and neither did this administration….we just gave a refinance to one of the people sitting on this council.”
“But if you read the story, Century, and the mayor and the council are going around giving out loans when we can’t even pay our gas bill. You see what I’m saying? It just looks crazy in the headlines, but the reality of it was this was given 20 years ago.”
The $12,000 loan refinance for current council member Jackson was approved by a 4-0 vote, including an affirmative vote from Gomez, on July 16, 2018. . Jackson did not cast a vote. An independent auditor noted that the “transaction may constitute a violation” under a Florida law that governs the standards of conducted for public officers.
When NorthEscambia.com publisher William Reynolds pointed out to the council that many of the newspaper’s public records requests for loan documentation and payment documents made two months ago have not been fulfilled,” Gomez said those public requests are irrelevant.
“If the press or anybody else making public records requests actually got those records, we might know what you are doing,” Reynolds said.
“My point ain’t what you just said,” Gomez responded. “They point of what you saying is you are looking for a request. My point is it should have been hashed out at this table prior to it getting to you and you putting your version out…If you had of got the correct story from this collective bargaining agreement through this council, you would had got the story right the first time, rather than trying to correct it for the next six months.”
“I have not tried to correct anything, and the law doesn’t dictate what this council tells me, the law dictates that you provide the public records that are requested,” Reynolds said.
“The thing that ends up on your paper, blog, or whatever it is, it needs to be discussed among us so we don’t look like country bumpkins in Century anymore. I don’t know what you gonna print tonight, but I’m just telling you it’s real simple…You know it’s two or three ways you can spin a story…If we get the most accurate, and fair and balanced version of the story, it’s just less hassle and it just makes the whole operation run a little bit more smooth.”
“If it’s something that we can handle in house,” he said, “I’d rather hear it from Mrs. Brooks rather than hear it from William (NorthEscambia.com) or Gretchen,” he said. “Gretchen” is a reporter for the Tri-City Ledger, a weekly newspaper that routinely covers most Century council meetings. “That’s what I thought all of us was at this table for, try to advance Century to a better light and a better way of living for all of the citizens….not making it look like we’re idiots.”
Gomez also took issue with comments made on NorthEscambia.com stories that portray Century in a negative light. NorthEscambia.com allows public comments on a variety of platforms – the web, multiple Facebook pages and Twitter.
“When everybody at this table is dumb, nobody’s educated, and Century just needs to fold up and sell it to the county and become a become a dust ball in the wind,” were some of the public comments Gomez cited.
“If I offended anybody, I apologize,” Gomez concluded. “And, let’s make, like Donald Trump says, Century great again.”
FWC Law Enforcement Report: Gopher Tortoise Possession And Illegal Alligator Hunting
September 20, 2018
The Florida FWC Division of Law Enforcement reported the following activity during period August 24 through September 6 in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties.
Officer Lewis was checking users in the Blackwater State Forest when he saw a gopher tortoise in the bed of a truck. He identified the owner of the truck and evidence indicated that it had been in the truck for a while, and the man was far from where he picked the tortoise up. Officer Lewis charged the man with the unlawful possession of a threatened species.
Officer Hutchinson and Lieutenant Hahr were patrolling near the Escambia River when they saw a boat with alligator hunters. After watching the subjects attempting to take alligators, they contacted them to check their permits. Two of the three men onboard were permitted to take alligators, but their permits were not for Escambia County, which included the tributary where they were located. The two men were cited for attempting to take alligator outside their harvest area.
This report represents some events the FWC handled; however, it does not include all actions taken by the Division of Law Enforcement. Information provided by FWC.
NorthEscambia.com photo.
Beulah Road To Close At Nine Mile To Close Next Week
September 20, 2018
The intersection of Beulah Road and West Nine Mile Road will experience a night detour and closure beginning Wednesday, Sept. 26 at 8 p.m. Traffic will be detoured from West Nine Mile Road to Rebel Road onto Beulah Church Road.
The road closure is expected to remain in effect for approximately one day from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. Every effort will be made to expedite construction to reopen the road before Thursday, Sept. 27 at 6 a.m.
Construction will consist of upgrading and installing new pipe.
For a detailed detour map, click here.
If other lane or roadway closures are necessary beyond the anticipated time periods, another notice will be issued.