Rick's Podcasts

The City of Pensacola is hosting the inaugural “Party in the Park,” a two–day event in Hollice T. Williams Park to promote community engagement in the development of the Hollice T. Williams Equitable Development Framework Plan (Equity Plan) and kick off the park design process.  Rachel Bennett discusses the details

The Equity Plan will consist of five to eight community-driven values or principles that promote equitable and just development practices within the park, as well as development with public funding in the half-mile radius around the park. The city will be facilitating a community engagement table with an Equity survey and information boards at both events. You can access the Equity survey here.

See details for the two–day event below:

Slow Ride + Game of SKATE | Friday, July 26, 5 p.m. – 9 p.m. | Blake Doyle Skatepark

The Slow Ride + Game of SKATE event will include a 5.5-mile Slow Ride around Hollice T. Williams Park and through the Eastside neighborhood and a competitive game of SKATE at the Blake Doyle Skate Park. Participants can take a survey to participate in the game of SKATE for a cash prize and raffle prizes. The first 50 people to take the Equity survey will also eat for free. Additional entertainment at this event will include a DJ and food trucks. This event is sponsored by Bike Pensacola, Upward Intuition, and Brown Bagger.

Bash under the Freeway | Saturday, July 27, 12 p.m. – 5 p.m. | Cecil T. Hunter Pool

The Bash under the Freeway event will include raffle prizes, a DJ, performances, a vendor village, and food trucks. The first 50 people to take the survey will receive free access to the Cecil T. Hunter Pool during the event, as well as a meal ticket for the food trucks. This event is sponsored by East Kings Corner Café and 1216 North.

Rick talks with Wes Moreno, Karen Travers, Jennifer Brahier, Rick Byars, and Rachel Bennett.

The University of West Florida STEM Scholars Program, in the Hal Marcus College of Science and Engineering, has been named a recipient of the Insight Into Diversity magazine 2024 Inspiring Programs in STEM Award. The Inspiring Programs in STEM Award honors colleges and universities that encourage and assist students from underrepresented groups to enter the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, known as STEM. Dr. Karen Molek has the details.

The Young Lawyer Division of the Escambia Santa Rosa Bar Association will present “Erin Brockovich” at 7 p.m. on August 1. Tickets will only be $5.  Alex Messmore shares the details.

Former state lawmaker DeeDee Davis discusses the excitement Kamala Harris brings to the 2004 presidential race. 

Innisfree Hotels’ Project SEARCH programs in Florida have graduated over 50 student interns and hired nearly a dozen for full-time employment. Rianonon Reynolds shares the details.

For more information on Innisfree Hotels, including workplace culture and career opportunities, visit innisfreehotels.com. 

On Monday, we talked with Grace McCaffery about ST Aerospace laying off the Chilean workers. This morning, we heard that the company is working with them.

Mayor D.C. Reeves discussed the issue on "Real News with Rick Outzen" this morning.

"First of all, look, I don't care and what occupation, we don't want people who live in the city to lose their jobs for any circumstance," he said. "I  appreciate Grace coming on Thursday and discussing these things and to be advocate for people... That said, and as she acknowledged Thursday as well, it's difficult to comment on the circumstances of the HR department of a private company, and certainly the city does not."

The mayor said the use of foreign workers at the airport MRO demonstrates the importance of the Pensacola State College training program and its A&P academy. "At the end of the day, we're in dire need of finding talent and it's why you can't go to anything ST-related or airport-related without me saying, you've heard me say it Rick five times at least, how vital I believe that school to be."

He added, "The goal here is to improve the quality of life for families in this city. And I know that's ST''s goal and certainly certainly ours, but at the end of the day, you have an operation to run."

ST Aerospace must find a way to service the UPS planes on the tarmac. "To be fair, wherever those jobs are coming from, I don't know that it helps the community to say, 'Well, we're going to not work. We're going to work on less planes now until we have these jobs filled by Americans.' "

He believes that the hiring of aviation mechanics from Chili and possibly other countries was a "necessity based on trying to find talent."

"I think we're all on the same wavelength here," Mayor Reeves said. " This project came here and was incentivized to come here to help create opportunity for people in the City of Pensacola. So again, I can't speak to what their HR strategy is or what they're doing in terms of hiring and onboarding and offboarding.But, I think overall, mission-wise, we all want the same thing." 
    

Rick talks with Sena Maddison, Alex Messmore, Mike Dobuski, D.C. Reeves, and DeeDee Davis.

Latino Media Gulf Coast president Grace McCaffery says ST Engineering has laid off about 45 employees from Chili.

"They have kind of organized together because they cannot get answers from the company," McCaffery said. "They tell me that the HR director has deferred them to an attorney and neither one of them returns their phone calls and trying to get answers about the situation. They were told they were being laid off for an indefinite amount of time, but they were going to get paid for two weeks. After about the third week, they started getting phone calls that they were being let go."

She said the workers expected long-term employment and sold their homes and jobs. "Most of them actually had a military career in their country, and they took the retirement. They went into retirement to accept this job, expecting it to be long-term because that was inferred to them when they were being recruited. And now just after a year, they're being told they've got to go back."

Jeff Nall is a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Like so many others, he was surprised by Biden's decision.

He said, "Many state level groups were releasing statements reconfirming their endorsement for President Biden yesterday morning, and I was reposting one of those when I actually saw the letter that he wrote."

Nall participated in a Zoom call for Florida delegates last night. "We continued to learn more, and we'll definitely keep you in the loop. I think everybody knows this is pretty fluid. I've got another call on Wednesday, but I see everyone coming around to support Vice President Harris."