BB&T Corp.’s $29.7 billion purchase of SunTrust Banks Inc. received near unanimous approval Tuesday from both banks’ shareholders. The corporate name of the combined bank will be Truist Financial Corp. The banks…
Bay bridge shifts Sunday evening
The traffic shift for U.S. 98 eastbound traffic (Pensacola to Gulf Breeze) to the new Pensacola Bay Bridge is scheduled to begin Sunday evening, Aug. 4 and U.S. 98 westbound (Gulf Breeze to…
Pensacola to assess athletic field chemicals
by Jeremy Morrison, Inweekly The city of Pensacola’s Environmental Advisory Board will be looking into exactly what chemicals are used to care for municipal athletic fields and parks. A request to explore…
Sheriff fills in for lack of campus security officers
According to Col. Mindy Young, Escambia County School District is down to 13 candidates in training to be campus security officers–a drop from the 18 candidates Superintendent Malcolm Thomas told the media…
Pensacola Entrepreneur Initiative
Effort to be led by D.C. Reeves, co-founder Perfect Plain Brewing Company Press Release: Northwest Florida has many great components to start and grow small businesses that includes things like courses, training…
Retailers ready for back-to-school tax ‘holiday’
By Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida TALLAHASSEE — Florida’s retail industry is gearing up for this year’s back-to-school sales tax “holiday†on clothes, classroom supplies and computer equipment, with the…
Backpack fundraiser – Aug. 1
In partnership with Ryan and Ellis Group at Merrill Lynch and South Market, Feeding the Gulf Coast will be hosting a happy hour at the new Studer Community Institute Building Atrium. The…
District chooses to allocate less to teachers’ salaries
Government officials can always find money for what the items they want to fund. Santa Rosa and Okaloosa school districts have allocated the funds to pay their teachers more than Escambia County….
Thomas defends millage cut, ignores capital needs
Superintendent Malcolm Thomas defended his rollback of the millage rate to the Pensacola News Journal saying the revenue cut couldn’t have improved teachers’ salaries. Thomas said the part of the millage rate…
State Rep deletes Twitter account
State Rep. Mike Hill has deleted his controversial Twitter account, @MikeHillFL. Hill had blocked several journalists, including Andy Marlette and me, from seeing his tweets, which the Florida Democratic Party had labeled…
Superintendent confirms campus safety problem
Escambia County Superintendent of Schools Malcolm Thomas told WEAR TV that out of the over 100 applicants only 18 passed the screening process to be trained as campus safety officers, confirming the…
Presser Notes: HR, SCAPE & Stormwater
By Jeremy Morrison, Inweekly With Pensacola Mayor Grover Robinson out of town, City Administrator Chris Holley fielded the weekly press conference Monday morning. The administrator provided a roundup of city efforts on…
Buzz: District has shortage of campus safety officers
The talk among the sheriff’s deputies is the Escambia County School District may not have enough campus security guards to protect all the district’s public schools. Less than a third of the…
WEAR TV 3 reads blog
The local Sinclair station apparently reads Rick’s Blog. Channel 3 announced at its 11 am newscast that the station will be digging deeper into the database on which we reported this morning…
Buzz: GBHS hires former Wahoo
Gulf Breeze High School has hired former Pensacola Blue Wahoo Travis Mattair as its new baseball coach. Mattair, age 30, played in 788 pro baseball games. He hit 63 homers, drove in…
Struggling district cuts millage
Parents have contacted Inweekly about the Escambia County School Board’s vote yesterday to cut the millage from 6.325 in 2018-2019, to 6.043 in 2019-2020. In the district’s press release, School Superintendent Malcolm…
Opioid Crisis: Who sold most opioids in our area?
The Drug Enforcement Administration has a database that tracks every single pain pill sold in the United States — by manufacturers and distributors to pharmacies in every town and city. The Washington…
Timeline: Satterwhite’s contribution
Inweekly has been blessed with many gifted writers. Christopher Scott Satterwhite has provided a scholarly approach to his work. It comes naturally to Satterwhite, since he’s an English instructor at the University…
Newpoint scandal: District ‘asleep’ while millions stolen
Last year, Marcus May, the founder of Newpoint Education Partners, was convicted of stealing over $5.2 million through a complicated scheme involving Newpoint-managed charter schools in Escambia, Bay, Broward, Duval, Hillsborough, Holmes…
Council hunkers down with the budget
By Jeremy Morrison, Inweekly The Pensacola City Council this week is settling in for two days of workshops to review Mayor Grover Robinson’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2020. The workshops —likely…