Area Unemployment Rate Declines
March 26, 2018
The Escambia County area unemployment rate in the latest jobs numbers was 3.8 percent, down just over half a percentage point from a year ago.
“I am proud to announce that Pensacola businesses have created 2,000 new jobs over the year and that the unemployment rate continues to drop. Over the past seven years, we have worked hard to turnaround our economy, and today’s announcement shows Florida is on track to becoming the best place in the world for families and businesses to succeed,” Gov. Rick Scott said.
The industry with the highest growth over the year in Pensacola was leisure and hospitality with 1,200 new jobs. The Escambia County area had 4,717 job openings, including 1,366 openings for high-skill, high-wage STEM occupations.
As of February, Florida’s unemployment rate is at 3.9 percent, a drop of 6.9 percentage points since December 2010; this drop is faster than the national decline of 5.2 percentage points.
The jobless numbers released by the state do not include persons that have given up on finding a job and are no longer reported as unemployed.
Thousands Attend Blue Jacket Jamboree, Livestock Show, Egg Drop (With Photo Galleries)
March 25, 2018
Thousands of people attended the annual Northview High School FFA Blue Jacket Jamboree and the Gulf Coast Agriculture & Natural Resources Youth Organization Annual Spring Livestock Show Saturday in Molino.
The event included plenty of arts and crafts, a car show, a tractor show and more, including a special visit from the Easter Bunny and an egg drop from a ladder fire truck.
The livestock show included 4-H and FFA youth exhibiting hogs, beef cattle, sheep, goats, poultry, and rabbits from Escambia and neighboring counties. The day ended with youth exhibitors auctioning off their market animals.
Travis Book had the grand champion steer, while Jessica Conti had the reserve steer. (Complete livestock show results will be published in a few days when a list is make available.)
For photos from the livestock show, click here.
For photos from the Blue Jacket Jamboree click here.
For photos from the Blue Jacket Jamboree Egg Drop, click here.
The Blue Jacket Jamboree was sponsored in part by NorthEscambia.com.
NorthEscambia.com photos.
Nine Mile Walgreens Robbery Suspect Captured In Tennessee
March 25, 2018
The suspect in the robbery of a Nine Mile Walgreens store has been arrested in Dickson, TN.
David Paul Vaughn allegedly walked in the Walgreens at Nine Mile and Pine Forest last Wednesday morning, pointed a gun at the clerk and demanded pills before fleeing.
Vaughn was placed on the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s Top 10 Most Wanted list before his capture.
Vaughn was wanted by the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation for aggravated burglary and theft over $1000 from an incident that occurred on January 9. Vaughn is also the suspect of a vehicle theft in Indiana. In addition, he is wanted in connection with a home invasion and an assault on a law enforcement officer from Boone County, KY. Vaughn has an extensive criminal history and has warrants in Wilson County for violation of probation.
Scott Signs Bill To Name Part Of Highway 4 The “Sen. Greg Evers Memorial Highway”
March 25, 2018
Gov. Rick Scott sighed a billed Friday that names a stretch of road in Santa Rosa and Okaloosa counties as “Senator Greg Evers Memorial Highway.” Evers, 62, died last summer in a single-vehicle accident near his home in Okaloosa County.
The memorial designation is for part of State Road 4 between Munson Highway and State Road 189 in Santa Rosa and Okaloosa counties.
Evers, a Republican, served nine years in the Florida House before his election to the Senate in 2010. Evers left his Senate seat in 2016 to make a bid for the U.S. House but lost the Republican primary to U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz.
New Gulf Power Crew Heads For Puerto Rico As Another Team Returns
March 25, 2018
Gulf Power is sending another storm team to Puerto Rico to help restore electricity and rebuild the country’s electrical infrastructure, six months after back-to-back hurricanes left most of the island in the dark and destroyed a majority of the energy grid.
The 10-member team, comprised of eight lineworkers and two support staff from across Gulf Power’s service area, will replace a team that recently returned from more than 60 days on the island. This is the second team the energy company has sent since December, who typically spend 30-60 days helping restore power and a sense of normalcy to the people of Puerto Rico.
The team is scheduled to be in Puerto Rico for the next 30 days and will help rebuild the remaining part of the energy grid. While many of the members have been deployed restoring power after crippling snowstorms, thunderstorms and hurricanes, this will be a test of their skills and the ability to adapt to the conditions.
“While we’re used to working in hot weather and humidity during the summer months here at home, the temperatures have been a lot cooler, so we will have to adjust our work schedules and habits,” said Josh Rogers, who will lead the team and is the District Engineering supervisor in Panama City. “Along with the weather, the terrain is another safety concern. We’re not used to mountainous terrain and the narrow roadways we’ll encounter across the island. We just have to remember that along with restoring power, safety is our top priority.”
The team from Gulf Power will join forces with other Southern Company crews and a workforce of nearly 3,700 restoration workers and support personnel, including industry mutual assistance crews, and will focus on restoring service to approximately 145,000 customers on the island.
Once they arrive, the team will be assigned to the Barranquitas District of the Caguas Region in the center of the island where the crews will be faced with mountainous conditions. The first Gulf Power team was assigned to the western region of Mayaguez, the same region that has been assigned to the Southern Company incident management team that arrived in December and where Southern Company’s subsidiary, PowerSecure, continues to work.
With nearly 99 percent of customers in the Western region restored, this crew will move into areas where it’s more difficult to gain access to the power infrastructure.
“Our main focus will be to get down there safely, work safely to rebuild the remaining infrastructure that is damaged in some of the hardest-to-reach areas, and get the team back home safely,” said Rogers.
The restoration of the energy grid and getting power to residents is nearly complete. Just last week, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority announced that power had been restored to more than 90 percent of all customers across the island who were impacted by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. According to PREPA, 35 of the island’s 78 municipalities are 95 percent or more energized, while six municipalities have been restored completely.
While Gulf Power will send team members to help finish the remaining restoration, the Pensacola-based energy company has also played a vital role in power restoration not only at home in Florida after Hurricanes Hermine, Matthew and Irma, but also assisting other crews after storms hit in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Texas and New York, deploying nearly 40 times since 2008.
This isn’t the first time many of this team’s members have been deployed on storm restoration duty. Rogers, along with many of the other team members, have helped other Southern Company sister energy companies and municipalities across the Southeast during their time of need in restoring power.
But for Rogers, he knows it’s important to help those who have been without the basic necessities of modern life, such as the ability to flip a switch and have the lights come on or turn the dial on the thermostat and get cool air from the air conditioner.
And he has the support of his family (pictured left).
“I have the best wife anyone could ask for,” said Rogers. “She’s the reason I can deploy so far away for so long. My daughters understand that dad is going to help turn the lights back on for people that have been without power since before Halloween.”
PREPA enlisted the Mutual Assistance Network for aid in accelerating power restoration efforts following Hurricanes Maria and Irma. Edison Electric Institute manages the Mutual Assistance Network, whereby EEI member companies, including Southern Company, may receive and provide assistance in the form of personnel and equipment to aid in restoring power.
Since October, Southern Company has been steadily involved in restoration efforts, including damage assessment; clearing debris; resetting poles; mobilizing equipment; providing temporary emergency power; ensuring adequate generation at power plants; and reinstalling and repairing transmission and distribution lines.
Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
People Take To The Streets During Ciclovia Event
March 25, 2018
People from across the area got moving Saturday during the second annual Ciclovia event.
Ciclovia (seek-low-via)–Pensacola Open Streets originated in Bogota, Columbia, in the 1970s and took off around the world in the 1990’s. Pensacola joined the movement in 2017 with tje first Ciclovia! This event closeed major streets in downtown Pensacola to motorized traffic and opened them up for people to ride bikes, walk, run, play, or whatever moved them.
The idea is to create a safe space for the entire community to come together participate in physical activity, engage with others and explore downtown Pensacola.
For a photo gallery, click here.
Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Northview’s Kite Wins Regional Weightlifting Championship; Bryan, Bush, Helton Place
March 25, 2018
Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: Guns And Drugs In The Crosshairs
March 25, 2018
As the nation girds for marches this weekend led by kids demanding stricter gun regulations, the always-heated debate over firearms continued in the state Capitol.
Florida’s been an incubator for some of the country’s most-lenient gun laws, including the first-in-the-nation “stand your ground” statute that allows people to shoot, without having to retreat, if they feel their lives are in danger.
But since the Feb. 14 horrific mass shooting of 14 students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, the “Gunshine State” has morphed into what many — including U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio — hope will become a model for gun rules.
Rubio, who earned an “A+” rating from the National Rifle Association during his 2016 re-election campaign, is backing a ban on “bump stocks,” which make semi-automatic weapons mimic automatic firearms, a move that’s opposed by the gun-rights organization and which is part of a new school-safety law passed by the Legislature.
Rubio, a Republican, also supports a provision in Florida’s new law that allows law-enforcement officials to seek court orders to remove guns from people who pose a danger to themselves or others. Rubio’s a sponsor of a congressional proposal that would go even further than the state law by allowing family members to seek “red-flag” protection orders from judges.
The NRA supports allowing law enforcement to seize firearms “from people with mental illness who pose a danger,” Marion Hammer, the organization’s powerful Florida lobbyist and former national president, told The News Service of Florida on Friday.
But, she said, “We do not believe that gratuitous seizures are the answer to the problem.”
It’s too soon to know how Florida’s law will work, Hammer said, “and only time will tell whether or not law enforcement will use it or abuse it.”
Hammer recently took aim at House Speaker Richard Corcoran, who called the new law — which increases the minimum age from 18 to 21 and imposes a three-day waiting period for the purchase of long guns — “one of the greatest Second Amendment victories” in Florida’s history.
The acrimony over guns continued this week, with Corcoran telling the state Constitution Revision Commission to butt out of the issue.
But however ugly the gun debate may be in Florida, Tallahassee provided a reprieve from the contentious climate in the nation’s capital for U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
“It’s great to be here. A little better climate — I’m talking about weather and politics — than Washington, D.C.,” Sessions joked during an appearance before dozens of law enforcement officials Thursday. “It’s a rough bunch up there. I don’t even have a dog. At least you should have a dog in that forsaken place.”
CONSTITUTION PANEL HOLSTERS GUNS
Talk about gun regulations may be all the rage elsewhere, but the Florida Constitution Revision Commission wouldn’t allow debate on firearm-related measures this week.
A majority of the panel, sticking to its rules about deadlines, on Wednesday rejected attempts to introduce three measures that would have imposed stricter gun regulations.
Commissioner Roberto Martinez, a former federal prosecutor who said he owns three guns, tried to introduce a proposal that would put into the Constitution the same gun-related restrictions included in Florida’s new law.
He urged the commission to echo the actions of “the political leadership of this state” this year, saying Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature had “basically been unshackled to address this issue,” despite pressure from powerful special interests. The NRA filed a federal lawsuit shortly after Scott signed the new law and has targeted Republican legislators who supported the measure.
“What is the harm done, if we were to go forward, debate this issue and vote on it? I can’t see any harm,” Martinez, a Republican, said. “What is the benefit? The benefit is unlimited.”
But Attorney General Pam Bondi, a commission member, said the panel was obligated to obey its rules, which set an October deadline for new proposals. She rejected Martinez’s request that the rules be waived because the Valentine’s Day shooting in Parkland occurred months after the filing deadline.
“To say that the shooting came up recently, well, we had Pulse nightclub a year ago. You’ve all known that from day one. No one did anything on that,” Bondi said.
A majority of the 37-member commission agreed with Bondi and voted down Martinez’s motion.
Commissioner Hank Coxe, a Jacksonville lawyer, offered a proposal that included a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and a 10-day waiting period for the purchase of guns. The proposal would have been attached to another measure that met the filing deadline.
But, as with Martinez’s proposal, the commission’s Rules and Administration Chairman Tim Cerio decided Coxe’s proposal wasn’t germane to the underlying measure, which dealt with property rights.
Coxe argued that the commission had signed off on numerous proposals that lawmakers refused to pass — including a potential ban on greyhound racing and a victim’s rights measure known as “Marsy’s Law.”
“The legacy of the CRC is, as we stand here now given the germanity issue, that we worry about victim’s rights in Marsy’s Law, that we worry about the greyhounds, but, because of adherence to this rule, we do not worry about reducing the number of people murdered in the state of Florida,” Coxe said. “Forget germanity. Just waive the rules.”
But, again on a voice vote, a majority of the commission refused to waive the rules, and Coxe’s amendment failed.
WHO YOU GONNA BAN?
The commission, which meets every 20 years and has the authority to place constitutional changes directly on the ballot, moved forward this week with 25 proposals that could go before voters in November.
Voters won’t have a say on guns but could weigh in on schools, hospitals, vaping and offshore oil drilling.
School board members would be limited to eight years in office under a measure (Proposal 43) that moved forward Wednesday.
And Florida’s nearshore waters would be off-limits to future oil and gas drilling under a proposal advanced Tuesday. The measure (Proposal 91) seeks to prohibit oil and gas drilling within about three miles of the East Coast and nine miles of the Gulf of Mexico coast.
“These things (oil rigs) are not what we want along our shorelines,” said Commissioner Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch, a former mayor of Sewall’s Point who sponsored the proposal. “We want to protect our natural resources and our scenic beauty.”
The panel also moved forward with a plan (Proposal 65) to add vaping and electronic cigarettes to a ban on smoking in workplaces already included in the state Constitution.
And the commission advanced a proposal (Proposal 54) that would tie new hospital growth in the state to hospital-acquired infection rates at existing facilities, a measure targeting the state’s controversial “certificate of need” laws.
The proposals went to the commission’s Style and Drafting Committee, which is looking at how to group the measures and write ballot summaries. The commission must take final votes by May 10 on which measures will go before voters in November.
JUST SAY NO
Sessions was in Tallahassee to announce the addition of more than 250 Drug Enforcement Administration agents at “opioid hot spots” throughout the country as part of President Donald Trump’s effort to combat the opioid epidemic responsible for 64,000 deaths nationwide in 2016.
Sessions was unapologetic about the Trump administration’s plan to seek the death penalty in drug-related cases, which has sparked pushback from Democrats and others who accuse the president of targeting minorities in a newly resurrected war on drugs.
“We will not hesitate to pursue maximum sentences allowed by law, and if appropriate, the death penalty. Our message should be clear. Business as usual is over,” Sessions said. “Plain and simple, drug traffickers show no respect for human dignity. They put their greed ahead of the safety and even the lives of others, knowing people will be dying as a result of their products.”
Also this week, Scott signed a sweeping package aimed at keeping patients from getting hooked on powerful prescription drugs and then turning to even deadlier street drugs like heroin and fentanyl. The $65 million package, nearly half of which comes from federal funds, includes a controversial provision that places limits on prescriptions that doctors can write for treatment of acute pain.
STORY OF THE WEEK: The Florida Constitution Revision Commission advanced 25 measures for the November ballot, setting up final votes on the proposals before May 10.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “As one of the referee’s law professors might explain, dealing with Sacks was ‘like handling a rattlesnake wrapped in tissue paper.’ Unfortunately, respondent (Gilbert) was not up to the task.” Leonard Hanser, a referee for The Florida Bar, referring to Steven Sacks, who was hired by Hollywood lawyer Randolph Lawrence Gilbert after Sacks was released from federal prison for embezzling $7 million. Sacks later embezzled more than $4 million from Gilbert, who was disbarred Thursday by the Florida Supreme Court for failing to properly oversee his employee.
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Fire Chief Selection Begins Monday, Local Applicant Turns To Social Media Push
March 25, 2018
One of the 77 candidates for the Escambia County fire chief job is turning to social media in an attempt to distinguish himself from the pack.
Ferry Pass District Fire Chief Michael Aaron created the “Michael Aaron for Fire Chief” Facebook page where the 24-year veteran of the fire service details his experience, certification and qualifications for the job. He also details his position on various issues such as pay and staffing
“I’m interested in becoming the next Fire Chief of Escambia County Fire Rescue because I believe I have what it takes to lead the department into its next chapter. I’m home grown and literally grown up inside the doors of this organization and I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t work,” he said.
“I knew at a young age that I wanted to earn the position of fire chief. Not for a title, not for the pay, not for the big office with my name on the door but, for the betterment of the organization, for the men and woman of this fire department and most of all for the community in which we serve and protect. Growing up in the community has given me a since of pride in what it do and with that my goal is to better this department in every way possible,” he told NorthEscambia.com.
“My main goal is to let people know who Michael Aaron is. So I asked myself one question ‘what is the best way to get the word out about something or someone’ the answer is easy, Facebook. We live in the 21st century and everyone has Facebook or knows someone that has it,” Aaaron said. “Growing up in Pensacola I have a lot of friends that support me in what I am trying to do, so all I have done is asked for them to follow the page that I have set up and share the ideas I have. I don’t know if I would call it so much as ‘campaigning’ but more of an opportunity for people to learn more about myself and what I plan of doing within the fire services.”
Aaron is one of just a few local candidates for the Escambia County Fire Rescue chief position. Others are Molino District Fire Chief Anthony Manning, current Pensacola Fire Chief David Allen, former Pensacola Fire Chief Matt Schmitt and former Pensacola Deputy Fire Chief Joseph Glover (a current part time ECFR employee), and current ECFR lieutenants Daniel Akerman and Richard Bode.
A selection committee meeting for the Escambia County fire chief position is scheduled for Monday at 8:30 a.m. to review applications submitted for the position. The meeting will take place in the fourth floor training room of the Ernie Lee Magaha Building at 221 Palafox Place. It is open to the public. After reviewing the applications, the committee will shortlist the candidates they wish to interview.
Photos contributed for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Splish Splash Spring Break Bash: Century’s Splash Pad Opens For The Season
March 25, 2018
The Town of Century held a “Splish Splash Spring Break Bash” Saturday morning to celebrate the season opening of the town’s splash pad, just in a time for spring break. In addition to wet (and windy) fun on the splash pad, the event featured free good, music, karaoke and more family fun activities. The splash pad at Showalter Park on Kelly Field Road is now open daily, 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
.
