Pensacola Florida Chamber Of Commerce

Pensacola to host hearing on oil spill

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-West Miami, requested and helped organize the hearing to evaluate what’s needed for long-term recovery and what role Congress can play.

“It’s important to me that the Senate not forget about the work that remains to be done in helping the Gulf Coast region recover from the oil spill,” Rubio said. “This hearing will be a valuable opportunity to hear from important small-business owners about what we can be doing in Washington to help businesses and families get back on their feet.”

The committee chairman, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., liked the idea of documenting the recovery effort and exploring how to better manage future disasters.

“As a Gulf Coast senator myself, from one of the hardest-hit states by this disaster, I share your concern about the short-term and long-term recovery needs in the Gulf Coast region,” Landrieu wrote Rubio in agreeing to hold the hearing, scheduled for 9:30 a.m. in the Amos Performance Studio at Pensacola State College.

The oil spill, the worst in the country’s history, began April 20, 2010, when BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig near Louisiana exploded, killing 11 people. The well connected to the rig spewed 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf before it was capped nearly three months later.

Oil washed up on Florida beaches from Perdido Key to Panama City, and hurt tourism across the state.

BP committed $20 billion over four years to pay economic damages. But claimants and local government officials have criticized the amount and pace of payments from the Gulf Coast Claims Facility headed by Ken Feinberg.

Witnesses at the hearing will include Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll; Collier Merrill, chairman of the Pensacola Chamber of Commerce; Capt. Bob Zales, president of the Panama City Boatmen Association; Joe Gilchrist, co-owner of the Flora-Bama Lounge on Perdido Key; and Duren.

Pensacola priest to protest Orlando's homeless-feeding rule – The ...

An Orthodox priest from Pensacola is coming to Orlando to lead a demonstration in support of a group that has faced legal trouble for feeding the homeless in Orlando’s Lake Eola Park.

“The criminalization of public service to the poor is to criminalize poverty itself,” said the Rev. Nathan Monk. “The continued efforts of the City of Orlando to prevent distribution of food to the poor is a violation of the constitution at its highest form. To prevent one human from reaching out to help another human in need is contrary to the decency we have all been taught from our youth.”

Monk, of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese , has scheduled the protest for Saturday, July 9 at 4 p.m. at Lake Eola Park. He also plans to distribute a hot meal of bread loaves and fish to the people present at the event.

Monk, a homeless rights activist known to many as “Father Nathan,” has set up a Facebook page for the event and expects a crowd of about 300 people. He once protested an ordinance than banned panhandling in Escambia County by holding a sign bearing the words “Feed the Poor” in the areas where homeless people had formerly gathered.

Several members of the group Orlando Food Not Bombs have been arrested for violating a city rule that prohibits providing food to large groups of people in the city’s downtown parks without a permit.

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer has called the group’s members “food terrorists.”

Monk said he supports Food Not Bombs.

“We stand alongside Food Not Bombs and any person that wishes to distribute free food to those who are in need,” Monk said. “Beyond this, we are standing up for those who are hungry and forgotten, as it is them who are suffering at the hands of this unjust policy.”

‘Anonymous,’ a computer hacking group, has also hacked three Orlando-related websites — including the site of the city’s Chamber of Commerce — as a protest against the ordinance.

Dear Anonymous,

Please get all of you facts before you go doing anything crazy. Everyone wants to distribute free food to those who are in need. The city is just asking them to do it a few blocks over from where they are now. FNB is making this harder than it needs to be. I live downton and pay an xtra tax to make and keep downtown a very nice place. That park is run by my tax dollars and none of the people gathering have put the money into it the way that the downtown residents have. Just move to the other location and everyone eats, everyone stays out of jail, and everyone is happy. Not that hard to understand….

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