Press Release: Under a proposal announced today, Mayor Ashton Hayward is calling for a full-scale study of the City’s purchasing and contracting practices relating to minority-owned businesses in the area. Mayor Ashton…
Category: News
Quote of the day
My daughter Cat Ellis runs every summer a Miracle Camp for kids who battle rheumatoid arthritis, a disease that Cat herself has suffered from since she was in high school.The kids have…
Why I do what I do
I received this email yesterday: From: Erin Beckett (Markes) Subject: Jaden Markes It is coming up on the third year that I lost my precious angel and I’m just now able to…
School Board to air thoughts on superintendent
Here is something that will never happen in Pensacola, but it should. The St. Pete Times reports that the Pinellas County School Board wants to talk publicly about frustrations with its superintendent’s…
Okaloosa County Tax Collector resigns
Chris Hughes has announced his resignation as Okaloosa Co. Tax Collector. For the past 4 years, Hughes has been in trouble. A Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation in 2007 uncovered allegations…
OPEC talks collapse
Reuters reports that OPEC talks broke down in acrimony on Wednesday without an agreement to raise output after Saudi Arabia failed to convince the oil cartel to lift production. Brent crude rose…
Is it time to dissolve SRIA?
The Santa Rosa Island Authority survived two efforts in the Aughts –or what some in Pensacola are starting to call the “Bull$#% Decade”–to abolish it. First, W.D. Childers and then later George…
Maritime Park Aerials
The park is moving along. Blue Wahoos will be playing next spring.
Barbie, it’s over
That’s the slogan for a new Greenpeace campaign against Mattel. The LA Times reports: Activists rappelled down the face of the 15-story El Segundo headquarters of Mattel, the world’s largest toy company,…
FCAT Science scores a mixed bag
You have to love how the daily newspaper spins the FCAT scores of the Escambia Public School District, without any critical analysis. The paper ignores the reading and math, but hones in…
Buzz: County may privatize juvie
Escambia County Administrator Randy Oliver told the IN yesterday that he is looking into privatizing the county juvenile detention. The state is charging the county $280 per day for each person in…
Early learning critical to reading improvement
I received this email from the head of the Early Learning Coalition: Rick, I believe the facts in your 6/2/11 Buzz article are correct. However, I think your perspective on the facts…
Escambia County avoids budget crisis
Escambia County Administrator Randy Oliver stopped by the IN offices to discuss the 2011-12 budget. The good news is the budget is balanced without a tax increase despite a projected 3.5 percent…
Warrington Middle’s turnaround still hasn’t happened
Warrington Middle is still struggling. The one bright spot was its FCAT reading score for its eighth grade– 8 percent more scoring 3 or higher. The incoming sixth grade class did poorly…
Escambia Middle Schools have similar results in reading
Warrington Middle finished at the bottom Sixth Seventh Eighth Total STATEWIDE AVG. 67 68 55 190 BROWN BARGE MIDDLE SCHOOL 94 95 84 273 RANSOM MIDDLE SCHOOL 74 81 67 222 JIM…
Four Escambia Middle Schools best state average in math
Escambia County has nine public middle schools. Four of them beat the state average for students who scored 3 or higher on the math portion of the test. Warrington Middle finished at…
Little or improvement in FCAT math
As with reading, Escambia School District was below the state average for percentage of students who score 3 or above on the math tests. Seventh grade was 10 points below state average,…
Little improvement in FCAT reading, grades 4-10
The FCAT reading scores show a slight improvement for Escambia County, but all its grades, except for ninth, had a lower percentage of students score 3 or above than the state average. …
Escambia/Pensacola gets EPA brownfield grants
Press Release: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that it will award a total of $7 million in Brownfields grants to 10 communities in Florida for the assessment and cleanup…
Test results on local oysters
From Emerald Coastkeepers: Through funding from Gulf Coast Fund and our members, Emerald Coastkeeper has initiated a long-term oyster sampling project. Every six months we are collecting oysters inland of Perdido, Pensacola…