Candidate sites: Peter Saccomanno

Following up on my recent post on City candidate websites, I’m going to run a short series of posts commenting on various candidate sites, where I deem comments appropriate.

First up is Peter Saccomanno’s site, prosperityforpensacola.com. Saccomanno, who is challenging incumbent District 2 Councilman Sam Hall, has taken the unusual step of picking a domain name that doesn’t have his name in it at all. It’s not a big deal, though, because the site is the top result at Google for a “Peter Saccomanno” search, and that’s probably how most people would look for it.

The site itself looks pretty good. It was done by local outfit Geeks Web Design, which has also done sites for Saccomanno’s father-in-law, “Papa” Don Schroeder’s radio and calling card ventures. Friends of the family, I guess.

The first funny thing that caught my eye was the “Links” section on the right hand side of the page. Saccomanno lists out entities which seem to be out of place: WPNN, IGP, the Levin Papantonio law firm, and the Pensacola Interstate Fair, or rather, Don Schroeder, Fred Levin, and the Frenkel family. It’s weird for a campaign site, but you’ve got to appreciate how open he is about his big-money backers.

Secondly, I’m not sure Saccomanno is familiar with the district in which he’s running. There’s a fancy Flash graphic at the top of the page with rotating images of Pensacola landmarks, but they’re all either not in his district (Civic Centre, Saenger Theatre) or not even in the City of Pensacola (Portofino Resort, Fairgrounds). In the case of the latter, maybe this is another shoutout to his big money backers, as it was a Levin who developed Portofino, and the Frenkel family who owns the fair. As the very last frame, there’s a split image of Cordova Mall and Sacred Heart Hospital, almost as if thrown in as an afterthought. “Oh yeah, we should probably put in a picture of something that’s actually in my district.”

I could do a whole post on his platform (and maybe I will) but the big standouts are:

“We need to work to make Pensacola a premier destination for family cruises.”

Sorry, it’s just not going to happen. It’s been pursued before, thoroughly, and it’s just not in the cards. I don’t like the port either, but pretending we are going to turn it into some sort of major cruise terminal when there are already two in the region (Mobile and New Orleans) is unrealistic and a waste of our time.

“I will propose that when the Waste Treatment plant moves, we lease the land to a company that will build a family water park.”

Seriously? Where did that idea come from? I’m all for new jobs, new industry, etc., but does Saccomanno want Pensacola to be Orlando, just one big theme park? Secondly, where are all these water park visitors going to park? And if I were looking to build a water park, would I want to put it on a big polluted piece of land on the shore of a big polluted body of water? Nope.

The City of Pensacola is in really bad shape. We need real leadership, with real ideas and real solutions, not empty proposals and pipe dreams.