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Policing is not rocket science. It's not a knock on police officers, but like newspaper editors we don't have crystal balls to see the future or know what all is going on unless someone tells us. We have some very good police officers and investigators in both Escambia counties and Santa Rosa County, but most will quickly tell you it takes people in a community to point them in the right direction. It takes people in the community helping the police chase down the 'bad guys' instead of chasing down shadows. We've solved a lot of burglaries and...
The Escambia County (Ala.) Commission has some tough decisions ahead. Those decisions deal with trying to figure out what to do with a courthouse that was built in 1959 that is aging and has issues. We attended Tuesday's administrative workshop and the news was scary. We go to the courthouse several times a week and we see the falling ceilings. We were in the courthouse in December, 2015, when a heating pipe busted open and flooded much of the courthouse. That busted pipe may be a blessing in disguise because it helped reveal multiple problems...
The top headline of the July 6, 2017 Tri-City Ledger read 'Fireworks explosions injure two'. We don't want to write that headline or worse next week or the week after. During last year's Fourth of July weekend, 40-year old Grady Barnes Jr., and 17-year old Hunter White lost multiple fingers on their hands due to fireworks explosions in separate incidents. We love fireworks. You can't celebrate the Fourth of July without them. Whether you go to see a fireworks show at Century, Jay, Poarch or East Brewton; it's as American as apple pie. A lot of...
We tip our hat to Maggie Silbernagel in her quest to develop a foster care home in Flomaton for young boys who have fallen between the cracks due to no fault of their own. You read everywhere about the need for foster parents and those willing to adopt children who for one reason or another have been separated from their birth parents. These innocent children have very few choices but those who step up to take them in, give them a hug and love them can turn their lives around. Silbernagel is working to establish the home at the old Charco build...
We stood on the lawn in front of the Escambia County (Ala.) Courthouse Monday morning as Retired Marine Col. Charles Jackson read the names of the 175 county residents who lost their lives during military duty protecting our country. We watched as surviving family members made their way to the specific memorial of the war where their relatives died. It's a touching ceremony. Jackson did say he was glad the 'honor roll' had not been increased over the past several years as fallen veterans from World War I to the current War on Teriorism where...
We agree that poll workers in Escambia County (Ala.) deserve a raise. Roger Williamson approached the county commission Monday asking for a $50 across-the-board raise for the nearly 150 to 160 poll workers who work the polls on election day. Currently we pay the state minimum of $100 per day for poll workers and $125 per day for the inspector. The polls are open for 12 hours but that normally turns into a 16-hour day for the poll workers. Doing the math a poll worker makes about $6.25 per hour and the inspector makes about $7.81 per hour. That...
It took multiple people getting killed at the intersection of Highway 31 and Highway 113 before the Alabama Highway Department finally agreed to put rumble strips on 113 heading into Flomaton. All of those fatalities involved people coming into Flomaton on Highway 113 and whether it was fog or whatever, they plowed into vehicles stopped on Highway 31 attempting to make a left turn. The last crash on Aug. 30, 2010, killed four people, including a father and his son who were making that left...
Our guess is most people don't know what to do with old, out-dated computers, television sets, cell phones and other electronics. Our bet is most people simply toss them into the garbage can. Others take their old TV's out on some old county road and simply toss them out. First off, it is technically illegal to put old electronics in your garbage can. Will the electronic police ever question you, we doubt it. The reason they don't need to end up in a landfill is that electronics contain hazardous materials, whether it's batteries or other...
Hats off to Century Mayor Henry Hawkins and members of the town council for voting Monday night to spend $1,103 to purchase an Automated Defibrillator for the Flomaton Fire Department. Our bet is Hawkins and some members of the council are catching grief over the fact that they bought something for Flomaton. It's some of the same flack the Century Council caught about 13 years ago when they purchased an AED for the Flomaton Fire Department. The state line does not have a wall. From our view, Flomaton and Century are one community working...
The Tri-City Ledger was involved in the first fundraising effort to purchase Automated External Defibrillators for the Flomaton Fire Department several years ago. Fire Chief Steve Stanton wanted to buy two at a cost of about $3,800 each. We were able to help in securing a match – in other words if we could raise $3,800 to buy one, they'd match it to buy the second. We ended up raising more than $20,000. The match doubled to $7,600 and Stanton was able to purchase multiple AEDs and at a reduced bulk price to not only arm Flomaton firemen and p...
You can call her a town planner or whatever, but having Debbie Nickels involved in Century is wonderful. We first Nickles back in the late 1980s when she was actually employed by the town of Century. We've watched her as she moved to the regional planning council and then to her own business – all the time helping to bring money and opportunities to the town of Flomaton. Granted, Nickles gets paid for her services, but she brings a lot to the table. She understands Century. She understands the needs. She also understands how to get money for t...
'You can't put a price on safety'. We've heard that statement many, many times. To some extent it's true, in other times it's not. We applaud the Town of Flomaton and the Escambia County School Board working out an agreement where the town will pay to have an additional resource officer on the Flomaton schools' campus for the remainder of this school year. Whether or not that resource officer will be on campus next year is still in negotiations. When you get right down to it, there is a price put on safety. The problem comes with how much...
In the movie Field of Dreams they said 'build it and they would come'. It was a great movie, especially if you are a baseball fan. We see that the city of Birmingham is hoping that logic is true as leaders look to raise taxes to build a new football stadium downtown. Long gone are the hopes of Birmingham building a dome field to replace the aging Legion Field. This past Saturday, state officials gathered at Claude D. Kelley State Park, which we all know as Little River State Park, that encompasses both Escambia and Monroe counties in Alabama....
March 14, to some known as PI day because of the famous mathematical symbol and its abbreviated numarical value of 3.14, this year saw the passing of Stephen Hawking. Hawking, a renowned theoretical physicist, was hailed as the smartest man in modern science by many throughout the world. His ground breaking research and theories helped to prove the existence of black holes. Hawking’s untimely death at the age of 76, also falls on the birthday of another brilliant scientist, Albert Einstein. Both men helped to pull science and the u...
We've learned over the years that we have good law enforcement officers doing good works as they try to solve crimes. We've also learned that most cases were not only solved by good police work, but by members of the community stepping forward with information. The community provides the eyes and ears because law enforcement can't be everywhere all the time. Flomaton is currently looking for two suspects who kicked in the front door of the Chevron Station at the intersection of Highways 113 and 31 early Tuesday morning. We have a photo of one...
We applaud the Flomaton Police Department and the Escambia County (Ala.) Sheriff's Office for their efforts at Flomaton schools this week in the wake of some alleged threats made over social media. Police Chief Bryan Davis received information late Monday afternoon that threats had been made on social media. According to Davis, his office scoured through Facebook and other social media sites and found no direct threats to the Flomaton schools. But in the aftermath of the recent shooting in Parkland, Fla., the police department and sheriff's...
Like Flomaton Councilman Buster Crapps, we had some reservations about the town taking ownership of the old Jackson Theater in downtown Flomaton. Our concerns were, like his, how much money will the town have to spend to keep the building up. But we also agree with Councilman Roger Adkinson who said the town could not afford to pass up the opportunity to hang on to a historical building that was given to the town free of charge. For years we've listened as Flomaton residents wished they had the old train depot back. It's long been destroyed....
We've seen this situation before. A student brings a hunting rifle or shotgun to school and leaves it in his or her vehicle. The gun is found and the student is expelled. This Monday a Flomaton High School student was suspended after his hunting rifle and compound bow was found inside his locked vehicle. At this point in time the student has been suspended, but our bet is he will likely be expelled once the case filters through the process. We saw a Flomaton teacher lose his job when his gun was found inside a bag, which was inside his locked...
Housing and feeding inmates has been an issue since we began housing and feeding inmates. It's like everything in government, we want criminals behind bars but we don't want to pay to keep them there. Feed them bread and water and make them turn big rocks into little rocks with a sledge hammer. That's fiction, not reality Sheriff Grover Smith is one of 49 Alabama sheriffs who has been named in a lawsuit claiming he's not turning over documents that show whether or not he personally gained from leftover money intended to feed inmates. That quest...
The Flomaton Town Council is on the right track as it reviews old leases and agreements with the Escambia County School Board concerning the use of Hurricane Park. As Councilman Charlie Reardon said, leases and agreements reached in the 1980s are probably out of date and need to be revised. Several issues keyed this discussion. One was looking out at the Little League field at 9 p.m. with two people playing and all the lights burning; another was when the high school locked the gates to the big baseball field. We learned Tuesday night that the...
It takes caring people to be a community and the children are our future are a couple of the cliches that come to mind when you see people rallying together to help others. We saw that last Thursday when Jeremy Dunn was reported missing. Sheriff's deputies, police officers, firefighters and more came to help search for the 28-year old man. Police Chief Bryan Davis said as many as 100 people were willing and ready to begin walking through the woods in freezing temperatures to help find Jeremy. The community search wasn't needed after Jeremy...
They have a New Year's Eve ball drop in New York City and Brewton will drop its blueberry ball the same night. The town of Century dropped the ball last week when the town council voted not to honor a verbal agreement with the Paces Foundation over water and sewer connection fees associated with a $10 million apartment complex in the town. In 2015, former Mayor Freddie Wayne McCall Sr., and Town Planner Debbie Nickles negotiated the deal to bring the 50-unit apartment complex to Century. Part of the deal included connection fees. McCall and...
The Escambia County (Ala.) Sheriff's Office recently solved several burglaries due to 'nosey' neighbors seeing suspicious activity in their neighborhoods. Ask any law enforcement agency and they will tell you most crimes are solved by people coming forward with information. They solve most crimes by people in the community reporting suspicious activity. We've got a lot of great law enforcement officers in this county, as well as Escambia and Santa Rosa counties in Florida. But they can't be everywhere, all the time. The recent burglaries...
