Wake up Call for Tuesday: State Rep. D3 Candidate Nathan Boyles

 

Today on the wake-up call live on WPNN 103.7 we welcomed to the program former Okaloosa County Commissioner and current District 3 State Representative Candidate Nathan Boyles.  He is one of 9 candidates vying for this seat which was vacated by Dr. Joel Rudman.  Dr. Rudman, who we have had on the show, was running for U.S. Congress and thus he had to resign to run.  We discussed his campaign, his priorities if elected, how his campaign is going, and how folks can get plugged into his campaign if they would like to do so.

In addition to this, we discussed:

-local news—Warrington Prep struggles, a fatal car accident in Northern Santa Rosa County, and the Pensacola Ice Flyers firing their coach.

-The latest on the Toronto Plane crash

-DOGE getting push back

-Elon Musk on Trump Derangement syndrome

-DEI School programs in Ohio put on notice to comply with Trump’s Executive Order

-Riverside California Sheriff Chad Bianco running for Governor of the state

--and much more

You can hear a complete recording of today’s live show here.

We are live each weekday morning from 6:00AM-8:00AM on WPNN-Pensacola's Information Station, where local, conservative morning-drive talk radio is ALIVE and Well and where we give you the most powerful hour(s) in local morning drive talk radio.

News, weather, traffic, humor, and educated, intelligent discourse with no PC filters....

The Wakeup Call with Jeff Bergosh on WPNN FM 103.7:  Radio UNRESTRAINED.

New Medical Examiner Facility Proposal Could be a Step in the Right Direction

Everyone everywhere who takes the time to tour the current state of our Medical Examiner's spaces in Escambia County knows one thing.  The spaces are deficient, inadequate, and undersized.

This was painfully evident when I toured the facility in 2021.  We also discussed the facility's deficiencies during one of my coffee with the commissioner events  in 2021.  We have long known there is a problem.

The difficult thing now is finding a way forward in solving this issue that works for all four counties that must fund this essential (and expensive) service.  Many have worked hard at a compromise.

The approach that didn't work:  Attempts by some from other counties to dictate to Escambia County what we should do.  Those sorts of overtures fell on deaf ears.

Because Escambia County is where most of the deaths occur, so naturally it makes sense for the ME's office to be located here.  At our latest meeting where this was discussed, a commonsense plan to expand the current ME location footprint with additional cooler space (desperately needed) and additional office and parking spaces was put forward as a workable, interim solution.  And those plans have subsequently moved forward.

In speaking with a local professional in the funeral home industry about this, some salient points were imparted to me:   "Jeff, we have the most death here in Escambia County.  Even if it is someone from the other counties, if they are really sick they end up over here in Escambia County at one of the big three hospitals where unfortunately many of them die.  In addition to that, there are folks from Baldwin County that end up in our hospitals here and many of them die here, too.  So, in my business, I see that most of the death happens here, so is it really prudent to be driving over to a county to the East with bodies from Escambia County?  I mean, I'll do it--but it will put an additional cost on the families because there are costs associated with transporting bodies."

For my part ----my thinking on this has been: I believe the ME office should be modernized, it should be improved, and additional space and cooler capacity should be added.  But it should be added here--because this is where most of the crime deaths, overdose deaths, and hospital/hospice deaths happen--let alone we in Escambia are the population center of the circuit and therefore have the highest percentage of deaths from natural and all causes.  By a longshot.  The current location of the ME facility is where it should be because of this.

Is this ideal for the other four counties, for Walton County?  No, it isn't.  But the geographic realities of the layout of this four county circuit is what it is---and in other parts of the country even larger "geographic" areas are similarly serviced by one standalone ME facility. In some cases even smaller facilities like the one in Leon county, for instance, which is a metal prefabricated/preengineered building (PEB).

With this as the backdrop--now comes a new proposal from Craig Coffey--Deputy Administrator for Okaloosa County and currently the chairman of the four county medical examiner support entity, "DOMES."  Coffee's newest proposal could be step in the right direction--as it at least recognizes the necessity of having ME capability in Escambia County.   Where I think it needs further tweaking is that the facility in Santa Rosa should be smaller than 17,000 feet and it should be the annex, NOT Escambia county.  

The rest of the proposal, particularly the percentages of payment responsibility, look good to me.

This proposal, below, will be discussed tomorrow at the regular BCC meeting.

Could the Interim Medical Examiner's Compensation Approach $1 Million for FY 2019-2020?

The proposal above was submitted by the 4-County, First Judicial Circuit Interim Medical Examiner for next Fiscal Year.  

This will be on the board's agenda for consideration later today, and the other 3 counties in the circuit would need to approve this as well in order to move forward. 

With a base salary of $350,000.00 plus $1,250 per each additional autopsy performed above 250 autopsies yearly--the total compensation for this doctor could approach $1 Million Dollars--if the office only performed the same number of autopsies performed last year (729).  

We all love our doctors, we LOVE them. And we know doctors in private practice command gigantic salaries.  We all know this, and we get it.  

We are now being told that the salary offered for a Medical Examiner is too low. 

We are also being told that we had very few applicants due to the "politics" of the area--whatever that means.  Will there be more than one doctor?  Do we know?  The way the last deal went, we were funding for two (2) Doctors but the office never hired a second doctor and best I can tell, the one doctor pocketed the money/salary of what should have been a second MD.  Will this happen again, will we pay one guy $1 Million next year?

Here is the Key for me:   this is a HUGE salary to pay.  Huge.  Part of the issue I had when the whole Medical Examiner issue erupted last year was the way money was moved around between the previous ME's office and her private company leading to her garnering compensation approaching $700K.  Meanwhile, we are still in the midst of litigation to recoup funds Escambia County feels we are owed from that debacle.   Who knows where that will land.

And now this proposal is being put in front of us.

I don't know that we can pay this high of a salary in the public sector--we cannot pay private level wages with public dollars, I just don't know how this can be justified.