Posts from — June 2008

The Pensacola City Council Players, a troupe of comedians and jesters, will put on a special performance tomorrow afternoon at 3 PM at Pensacola City Hall. The troupe is well-known for its regular biweekly spectacles, which are rousing, fun-filled, and full of knee-slapping routines.

On a more serious note, they’ll be naming an interim City Manager, and discussing a process and timeline for appointing a permanent one.  Hopefully.  Who knows, maybe Nobles and DeSorbo will want to hold off until Bonfield’s plane actually takes off before discussing his replacement.

The PNJ ran a story today, on, I kid you not, a squabble between a quasi-governmental agency and a City department over plaques on lampposts. The squabble has (again, I kid you not) devolved to the point where one agency has filed police reports concerning the other’s actions.

In short, the Downtown Improvement Board (a quasi-governmental agency formed in 1972 by the Florida Legislature) started selling $100 commemorative plaques that people could buy, dedicate to a love one, and have placed on a downtown lamppost. They went forward with this with the blessing of the Community Redevelopment Agency (an agency commissioned and operated by the City of Pensacola) and began installing these plaques on downtown lampposts.

Director Al Garza of the City’s Public Works department didn’t get the memo, though, and had his boys take the plaques down. Public Works returned the plaques to the DIB, who promptly filed a police report with City police. That’s right — we have different governmental entities filing police reports against one another.

Only in Pensacola.

The DIB put the signs back up, Public Works took them down again, returned them again, and another police report was filed by the DIB.  Garza contends that “it boils down to DIB not cooperating with the city” and that neither the DIB nor the CRA has the authority to put plaques on city lampposts.  And he’s probably right.  It’s probably something that should have been approved by Council.  But this is the way our governmental entities are conducting themselves?

The utter lack of interagency communication and coordination is flooring.  The utter gaping void of leadership is flooring.

Only in Pensacola.

The Obama campaign has enlisted local supporters across the country to host “Unite for Change” events in their homes or other gathering places. The goal is to get friends involved and foster a sense of ownership of the campaign.

There’s a bunch of these events going on this Saturday. If you are an Obama supporter, or better yet, someone who’s undecided, attend one. Be a part of this.

• 2:00 PM — 300 Bayou Blvd./Ida Nissen
• 4:00 PM — 235 SE Baublits Dr./Deborah Breen
• 4:00 PM — 1925 Brenda Ave./Melissa Oliver
• 6:00 PM — TeamObama/Juanita Scott (RSVP req’d)
• 7:00 PM — 11585 Lou St./Pam Walker
  
• 7:00 PM — UWF, Building 82/Ayla Green
  

The Escambia County Citizens Coalition hosted a forum this evening on BLAB-TV featuring candidates for Escambia County Commission, District 5.  My first thoughts:

• Watching BLAB-TV is like watching amateur hour.
• Packy Mitchell should buy a shirt and tie.  Surely Roads, Inc. can spring for one.
• Chris Washler is smart and business-oriented but too Republican.
• Kevin White, though he’s garnered respect from me lately, was very arrogant in this forum.
• John Hartman is smart, can back up his arguments, and to-the-point.
• Jim Barnett is well-meaning and optimistic — but is a little unrealistic.

As Rick Outzen reported, the ECHL has terminated the league membership of our Pensacola Ice Pilots.

Team President Greg Schuh:

I am certainly disappointed in the decision handed down by the league this morning. If we have any further news or updates on the situation of hockey in Pensacola, we will notify our fans.

The ECHL’s statement:

The termination of the Membership comes as a result of the Pensacola ownership group notifying the ECHL that it did not intend to play in 2008-09 or any season thereafter. Failure to ice a team for play is grounds for automatic termination under the ECHL Bylaws.

From what I gather, the team is not dead, as Rick seems to suggest, but rather the owner, Forgione, is going to try to get the Pilots into another, probably lesser league. Either way, it looks bad, and just furthers my opinion that the current Pilots ownership, well, stinks.

County qualifying is over!

The following candidates have been elected by default:

• Ernie Lee Magaha
  Escambia County Clerk of Circuit Court
• Chris Jones
  Escambia County Property Appraiser
• Janet Holley
  Escambia County Tax Collector
• David Stafford
  Escambia County Supervisor of Elections
• Patty Hightower
  Escambia County School Board District 4
• Anne Bennett
  Escambia Soil & Water Conservation District Group 1
• Richard Pope
  Escambia Soil & Water Conservation District Group 2
• Richard Freisinger
  Escambia Soil & Water Conservation District Group 3
• Thomas Campanella
  Santa Rosa Island Authority

Big surprise to me: Gerald McKenzie has withdrawn from the District 3 race for Escambia County Commission.

McKenzie had a nice little base of support and in my opinion would have finished second to Marie Young in the Democratic primary. To be honest, I don’t think McKenzie had a real chance to win, but his withdrawal almost certainly assures Marie’s reelection.

Very curious to find out more about this.

Pensacola City Councilman John Jerralds has filed for reelection, and in doing so, each every Council member is running for reelection, with the exception of Wiggins, who is running for the mayoralty.

At the moment Jerralds is unopposed; his is, in fact, the only Council race that is uncontested.

For those of you who didn’t know, candidate qualifying for County offices is taking place this week and ends this Friday, June 20th.  After the deadline, we’ll have a recap of all the washouts as well as the finalised matchups for the fall.

My home was burgled on Monday, and among other things nabbed was my not-two-month-old laptop.  Bad week for yours truly.  I live in Eastside, which is admittedly not the best neighbourhood in the City, but it is on the upswing, I think.  In any case, nothing like this has ever happened before.

My thanks to the City of Pensacola Police, whom have been more responsive and thorough than I would have expected.

The Northwest Florida Young Democrats and UWF College Democrats will be hosting a movie and pizza night on Wednesday, 18 June at 6:00 PM, at the UWF Commons Conference Center Lounge (second floor).

They’ll be screening the political thriller Lions for Lambs and will host a panel discussion following the movie.

Free pizza and drinks will be provided.

District 4 Councilman Marty Donovan has finally filed for reelection, meaning nine of ten Pensacola City Council races are contested this fall.  It’s great to see this level of civic participation in City politics despite the impediments of the system.

Also, Richard Pope has filed for the Escambia Soil and Water Conservation Board seat that has been vacated by Greg Fink.  He is currently unopposed.  If anyone wants to run, it’s $25.