We need a strong mayor now

Note: The City of Pensacola’s Charter Review Commission will vote on its proposed charter revisions at a special meeting tonight at 6:00 PM in the Hagler/Mason Conference Room, second floor, City Hall.

Some of you may have read an article in this morning’s News Journal about how a reunion of USS Lexington veterans will be held in Mobile rather than here in Pensacola, where the aircraft carrier was based for 29 years.

Why? According to the reunion organiser, Mobile actively recruited the event, while Pensacola tourism officials couldn’t even muster the effort to send the organiser a package of information.

Here’s how Pensacola treated the reunion organiser:

DiMonte, 66, the reunion’s organizer, says he dropped the idea of having it in Pensacola after a Pensacola Bay Area Chamber of Commerce staffer failed to follow through on two promises to send him a package of convention, hotel and tourist information, and then suggested that DiMonte come pick up the package himself.

And now, Mobile:

When the Mobile tourism agency somehow found out about the reunion, DiMonte received a package in the mail with information about the Port City’s hotels, restaurants, attractions and other amenities. The package included a letter from Mobile Mayor Sam Jones, who offered the city’s hospitality and even his personal phone number.

People like to be asked. Whether it’s for their vote or their business, people like to be asked. Not only did Pensacola tourism officials not ask the Lexington reunion to bring their 200 veterans and family members to Pensacola, and to spend their money in Pensacola’s hotels, restaurants, and businesses — they couldn’t even send a package when asked! Meanwhile, Mobile — which was not even approached about the event — proactively sought the organisers out, and sold them on their city!

Now, the Lexington event in and of itself isn’t the big deal, here. This instance merely illustrates a chronic failure of the City of Pensacola and other Pensacola-area bodies to step up to the plate. With little coordination between entities, little or no focused efforts, and no public face and leader of the City, how do we ever expect to compete?

How long are we going to watch Mobile swipe business after business and event after event from our grasp merely because the officials there know how to seek them out and ASK? Will we continue to watch our City diminish in population and importance as Mayor Sam Jones of Mobile grows his city through aggressive annexation and proactive recruitment of commerce and industry?

The City of Pensacola’s biggest burden is not its pension obligations or its budget woes. It’s the City’s insufferable lack of leadership. The buck stops nowhere — it just gets batted back and forth between City Council, City staff, and other organisations like the DIB or Chamber of Commerce. We don’t blame Pensacola Mayor Mike Wiggins. He’s excellent in the current position, but he or anyone else in the current weak, ceremonial mayor’s chair simply doesn’t have the authority to get things done.

We need a strong mayor now.

That’s why it’s critically important that the Charter Review Commission approve its proposed charter this evening, and that City Council do the same later this month.

We’re literally losing opportunity every day we wait.

Links

• Pensacola News Journal: “Pride of Pensacola, but reunion in Mobile?”