Entries Tagged 'Magnolia Springs' ↓

Two Magnolia Springs teenagers — Joshua Wilson and Justin Smith, both 18 — remain in the Baldwin County Corrections Center, accused of committing a string of armed robberies involving Hispanic residents of south Baldwin County.

On Monday night and again Tuesday night, Baldwin County Sheriff’s Deputies received calls about gunpoint robberies of Hispanics in the Bon Secour area, said Sheriff’s Office spokesman Maj. Anthony Lowery. In both cases, Hispanic men were approached by two white men — identified as Wilson and Smith by Tuesday’s victim — and were robbed of jewelry and cash at gunpoint.

The men targeted Hispanics, believing many of them are illegal, undocumented workers who would not alert police out of fear of deportation, Lowery said.

Teens targeted Hispanic men

Baldwin County officials said today that 142 total Republican voters in the Foley Civic Center and Magnolia Springs Wesleyan Church polling places didn’t receive the ballot with a school board race on it during Tuesday’s primary.

That includes 55 voters at precinct No. 36 in Magnolia Springs and 87 voters at precinct No. 38 in Foley, Probate Judge Adrian Johns said this afternoon.

Baldwin County Republican Party leaders will meet in coming days to decide whether to redo voting for the entire District 5 race or just at those polling sites, the local GOP chairman said today.

Baldwin school board vote could be redone

Another stolen election in Baldwin County?

After a century of little regulation of community roadsides, town residents could soon have new rules saying what is and isn’t allowed along rights of way, municipal officials said.

The Magnolia Springs Town Council plans to vote May 27 on two ordinances regulating the use of rights of way along municipal roads. One is a general ordinance establishing regulations for the town-owned roadside property. The second bans most parking on rights of way, said Councilman Joe Sankey.

Town considers right-of-way laws

A 33-year-old man died in a one-vehicle accident today when his Chevrolet Cavalier left Baldwin County 49 near Magnolia Springs at about 5:30 a.m., according to State Troopers.

Troopers did not release the man’s name, pending notification of next of kin. The man had a Tennessee driver’s license, and it was unclear as of early this afternoon whether he lived there or in Alabama.

Magnolia Springs wreck kills 1

Developers of a south Baldwin County subdivision have agreed to donate 20 acres for a new school, ending more than a year of back-and-forth negotiations involving Georgia-based Samaritan Development and the county school board.

The 20-acre campus, expected to be an elementary school, will be part of SweetBay, a 200-acre community near Magnolia Springs that’s planned to eventually have more than 2,000 housing units.

Developer pledges property donation

A 2-year-old boy remains in the hospital today after a 100-pound, mixed-breed bulldog that belong to his family attacked the child.

Baldwin County Sheriff’s Major Anthony Lowery said a LifeFlight helicopter transported the boy to a Mobile hospital for treament of injuries to his face, neck and left hand suffered in the late Sunday afternoon attack.

The boy’s name was not made public, but he is reported in good condition at the University of South Alabama Children’s & Women’s Hospital, according to a hospital spokesman.

Family’s big bulldog attacks Baldwin toddler

The suspects are

• 42-year-old Terry Hall of Atmore, loitering
• 62-year-old Randy Laney of Orange Beach faces loitering and indecent exposure charges, loitering
• 43-year-old Darryl Neal of Grand Bay faces charges of loitering and public intoxication
• 35-year-old Adrian Tannler of Magnolia Springs, loitering
• 57-year-old Richard Terry of Chickasaw, loitering
• 79-year-old Sherard Pierre of Mobile, loitering
• 49-year-old Stanley Smith of Pensacola was arrested at the Perdido Bay Recreation Park in Lillian

All six suspects were caught last week near the Pitcher Plant Bog’s parking area.

Officials say the undercover male officers were approached by each of the individuals for sexual intercourse. While managers of the park say they’ve had this problem in the past, they hope the sting will deter others from sexual activity in a place it doesn’t belong.

Terry Hall

Randy Laney

Darryl Neal

Adrian Tannler

Richard Terry

Sherard Pierre

Stanley Smith

Encouraged by record crop prices in Alabama’s farm forecast, growers must find the money to start planting while at the same time avoid being hit with rocketing costs for fuel, fertilizer, seeds and equipment.

The drought also lingers as a threat to the state’s multimillion-dollar farm economy and a late-season freeze would be a setback. A late, hard freeze last Easter weekend reduced wheat and corn yields in some parts of the state.

In Foley, farm equipment dealer Larry Blackmon said growers in Mobile and Baldwin counties are good managers and crop prices this year represent a “great opportunity,” despite higher expenses.

With 1,000 acres in wheat, Doug Lipscomb, president of James Lipscomb and Sons, Inc. in Magnolia Springs, said, “We’ll be able to make a profit. It’s not like cost has outrun return.”

Ala. Farmers Face High Prices, Expenses

Investigators say seven men were arrested this past Friday, February 29, as part of an undercover sting operation conducted by the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Department.

Deputies say the men were arrested at the Weeks Bay Pitcher Plant Bog in Magnolia Springs and the Perdido Bay Recreation Park in Lillian. Officials say the men approached undercover officers for the purpose of deviate sexual intercourse. The seven men have been charged with loitering.

If convicted, each of the men could be sentenced to up to thirty days in jail and or receive a fine of up to $200.

The men ranged in age from 35 to 79, according to department reports.

Baldwin County officials carry out park sting

Seven men charged in park sex sting

Mugshots, anyone?

Incoming council members will receive the town’s first salaries when they start the first full terms in office, following a split vote by current officials Tuesday night.

After a measure to pay the mayor and council $50 a month failed to pass on a 3-3 vote, the council voted 5-1 to approve an ordinance for salaries of $100 a month.

Councilwoman Reva Hinson cast the only vote against the ordinance that passed.

Magnolia Springs approves first salaries

Little Nicole Pickard, or Nikki, had just turned two on Tuesday.

“She was just up at my store last night. It was her birthday,” said neighbor Dawna Sheetz.

But Wednesday her life was over. Before dawn, Pickard and her parents, Chad Horton and Jessica Pickard, were all sleeping when their mobile home went up in flames.

Toddler Dies in Mobile Home Fire

Painting contractors at two other county schools used sandblasting — the technique that dislodged lead-based paint at Spanish Fort Elementary — over the summer, but those campuses experienced no contamination, according to Baldwin school officials.

Contractors sandblasted outdoors at Magnolia Elementary and Fairhope Intermediate schools over the summer, said Baldwin County Assistant Superintendent Terry Knight.

Magnolia Elementary was built in the 1990s, so it does not have any lead-based paint, but Fairhope Intermediate was built before Congress banned lead in paint and gasoline in 1978.

Two other sandblasted schools are checked

Baldwin Report readers askedabout other schools that might be contaminated weeks ago.

A mechanical failure this morning left about 8,000 south Baldwin County homes and businesses without electricity for more than two hours as temperatures dipped below freezing, according to utility officials.

The outage affected Riviera Utilities customers in Foley, Summerdale, Bon Secour, Magnolia Springs and Elberta

Thousands lose power this morning in Baldwin County

Investigators think Christmas decorations may have sparked a fire that left a Baldwin County family homeless.The fire started early this morning in Magnolia Springs.

Little is left inside the mobile home that sits near the end of Sunray Court in Magnolia Springs. Phillip and Diane Klienpeter had been making a home there for themselves, her son and his girlfriend.

Magnolia Springs Mobile Home Fire

A new town gas tax will increase prices at the pump 2 cents in the municipality following action by the Town Council.

Council members voted unanimously Monday night to establish a 2-cent gasoline tax as part of the budget for the 2008 fiscal year. Gasoline stations outside the town’s limits but in its police jurisdiction will pay a 1-cent municipal tax on fuel, under the ordinance.

The tax ordinance takes effect Saturday, but state officials have a month to notify affected merchants so the additional rate will be charged beginning at the start of January, said Town Clerk Karen Biel.

Councilwoman Reva Hinson said that while the town needs money, a 2-cent tax would put the rate for Magnolia Springs above that of most neighboring municipalities. “That’s going to give us the highest gas tax in the area,” she said.

Magnolia Springs approves gas tax