Posts from — May 2008

Joe Buehler filed this morning to join the race for the District 8 (At-Large) seat on the Pensacola City Council. The seat is currently held by Jack Nobles, who has occupied the seat since 1995. Local business owner and City budget watchdog Diane Mack entered the race earlier this month.

In the coming weeks and months, as races begin to shape up, I will be breaking down each and every race and referendum that will appear on ballots this fall.

While this is admittedly a “progressive” outlet written by an admitted member of the Democratic Party, I will endeavour to be as nonpartisan and objective as possible in these analyses.

I won’t offer a thorough recap, because Rick Outzen & Co. did a fine job of that as usual, but I will offer commentary.

The meeting was uneventful aside from the revisitation of Council’s decision at its last meeting to throw procedure, openness, and public trust to the wind in a hasty decision to hire Rusty “Doupledipper” Wells as the City’s new attorney.

For those who may be unfamiliar, a brief recap: The Pensacola City Council has the direct authority to hire the city attorney. The present attorney, John Fleming, is retiring. The City advertised the position and narrowed a candidate list to nine names, one of whom was Rusty Wells, whom I am sure is a capable attorney, but whom has some… “ethical concerns”, in my opinion. Council then develloped a system to review the various applicants. However, at Council’s last meeting, at about 10:30 at night (after most of the audience had cleared out), Councilman DeSorbo made a motion to toss the procedure in the trash and vote in the guy he wanted. The vote passed 6-3, with Hall, Donovan and Cannada-Wynn dissenting. Jerralds was absent.

Fast-forward to last night. Jerralds, in what I will term an honorable move, brought the issue back up for consideration. Jerralds said he was (rightly) concerned about the breach of the public trust in circumventing the established process. Jerralds’ motion kicked off a lengthy string of statements from Wells’ supporters on Council. Wiggins stated that cost-cutting (as Wells has promised not to hire a deputy) was his “#1 factor” in his vote. Whatever. Nobles railed on for a while. DeSorbo whined on about the media coverage, and claimed he hadn’t gotten any phone calls or emails about it. Amusingly enough, one of DeSorbo’s constituents spoke, and asked him why he hadn’t responded to her emails about it. He claimed that he’d just never got them, tried to shift the blame to the city clerk, etc. I will call that out very simply as bullshit. He just doesn’t answer some emails. It’s as simple as that.

After all of the hullaballoo, the Wells hiring was reconsidered, and was upheld by a 6-2 vote, Jerralds and Hall opposing. Donovan was absent from the meeting, and Cannada-Wynn expressed her desire to move forward, stating basically that the other candidate are probably too disenfranchised for interviews to take place.

Despite the failure of his efforts, I appreciate what Jerralds was doing. He certainly earned a couple of brownie points in my book.

J. D. Smith, former District 2 Councilman, has filed for the At-Large District 9 seat which Mike Wiggins will vacate to seek the mayoralty.

Smith is a clown who thought it was completely okay to represent District 2 while living in District 7. He was on Council for too many years the first time. We’ve got to resist the quest of the do-nothing, anti-progress seatwarmers to hold on to power. We’re finally making progress.

Also, Wiggins now has a challenger for mayor – an Eric Schmitz.  If I recall correctly, he’s a Ron Paul Republican.  Best of luck.

A lot of Democrats in Florida are irritated, to say the least, that the Democratic Party doesn’t want to count the results of Florida’s Democratic presidential primary, held this past January. Some are even planning a trip to Washington, D. C., to air their grievances.

Well, I don’t think our votes should count.

And I feel that way not because I am an Obama supporter, though I am. I say that because the contest was illegitimate. We broke the rules, very simply, by voting that early. The DNC was very clear about the consequences of doing so, but we did it anyway. And because we did that, the DNC made candidates sign pledges not to campaign or run ads in Florida. None of the candidates got the chance to speak to voters, to shake any hands, hold any rallies, etc. The Florida Democratic presidential primary was essentially a name recognition contest.

We were advised of the consequences in advance. Those who are upset are basically saying, “Yeah, we know you told us what would happen if we did this, and we did it anyway, but we don’t want to accept the consequences of our actions.”

Other than the Pensacola mayoralty hullaballo, I wanted to mention the following:

Democrat Lawrence Powell, who is retired from the Army and currently serves as the vice chair of the Escambia County DEC, filed yesterday to run for Escambia County School Board District 3 in 2010.  This is the seat Claudia Brown-Curry would vacate if she is successful in her bid to become Superintendent of Schools.  Escambia County School Board races are non-partisan, but District 3 is heavily Democratic.  At present Powell has one opponent, Ellison Bennett.

Georgette Harris, Democratic candidate for the District 5 Escambia County Commission seat, has withdrawn her candidacy.  Candidate petitions for Escambia County races were due at noon today, and County qualifying is June 20, which means any candidates who failed to qualify by petition have until then to raise a filing fee.

Important day in City politics.  This morning, Pensacola mayor John Fogg announced he will not seek re-election, and a few hours later, At-Large councilman Mike Wiggins filed for the office.

Pensacola has a weak mayor system, and the mayor is essentially merely a third at-large council member.  However, there’s about a $9300 salary bump and the title, even in an absence of power, is the symbolic leader of Pensacola.  Fogg has been a lackluster mayor at best, and Wiggins would surely be as bad or worse.

At the current time Wiggins is unopposed.

In filing to run for the mayoralty, Wiggins has left his Christopher J. Lewis as the only candidate for his current At-Large council seat.

I try to give credit where it is due, so I’ll applaud the Pensacola News Journal for taking a minute to report on a story of substance for the first time in a while. Jamie Page has filed a story about Escambia County Commission Chairman Mike Whitehead’s unseemly (to say the least) relationship with Cody Rawson and Roads, Inc.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Rawson’s company Roads, Inc. is currently suing Escambia County after the County revoked their permit to dig a big giant dangerous open pit in the ground. There’s also a lot of general hullaballoo about the way they do business with the county. Rick Outzen has done a great job covering it all.

Despite all of this, and despite the fact that County Attorney Allison Rogers advised commissioners “avoid meeting with any Roads, Inc. representatives or discussing any County business with them unless arranged through the attorneys”, Whitehead remains cozy with Rawson. Earlier this week, Rawson held a fundraiser for Whitehead’s re-election at his East Hill home. I, and I would hope most conscious, sane people, see a conflict of interest there. Whitehead doesn’t:

“This meeting with the attorney was scheduled a few days ago; the fundraiser was scheduled some time ago,” Whitehead said. “I am not ashamed of the fact that I take money from anybody and everybody, and a campaign contribution does not translate into a favorable decision for them. Giving $500 doesn’t buy anything, and Cody knows that.”

Well guess we’ll just have to take him at his word, then.

Right now, in a packed arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, John Edwards is endorsing Barack Obama.

If you had any doubt that the nomination race was over – it’s over.

Excellent speech given by Senator Barack Obama yesterday on veterans’ affairs.

Jack Nobles and Mike Wiggins, the Pensacola City Council’s two at-large members, and perhaps its two most do-nothing and anti-progress members, now have challengers in this fall’s elections.

Both candidates have been on the City Council since 1995.  The last serious challenge to either was in 2004, when Ray Russenberger failed in his bid to unseat Nobles.

This year, Nobles will face Diane Mack, a small business owner who has shown a persistent and appreciated interest in City budget issues.  Last month, Mack formed the Pensacola Budget Study Group.  Wiggins will face Christopher J. Lewis.

Lumon May, area business owner and son of the late Theophalis May, filed today to challenge Clay Ford for the Florida House District 3 seat.

May is a smart man and a terrific candidate.

Check out his recent viewpoint in the Independent News.