Lewis on the Charter Review process

If you watch Pensacola City Council meetings alternate Thursdays at 7 pm on Channel 4 you’ve recently seen former Pensacola Charter Review Commission (CRC) Chairwoman Crystal Spencer lecture the council, “The people want change!” She’s right in a sense. People always want change for the better. But they usually don’t want it just for the sake of doing something different.

When you strip the CRC recommendations down to the bone, the key decision is do we keep, modify or replace our 78 year old Council-Manager form of government? Everything else is secondary. Consolidated government is an interesting and important side issue but one the Escambia County Consolidation Study Commission is now studying at the direction of the state legislature.

Dr. William Haraway, the University of West Florida’s independent consultant to the CRC, thought that Crystal Spencer was from the very start guiding the CRC towards the Strong Mayor recommendation. Dr. Haraway told me this was one reason he ultimately resigned in protest. Dr. Haraway recently tried to explain to the council what went wrong. Councilman Sam Hall immediately rushed to the defense of his close friend Crystal Spencer, accusing Dr. Haraway of “character assassination.” Dr. Haraway’s testimony was stopped mid-stream.

I and many others contend the CRC never seriously considered modifying our current Council-Manager form of government. The opinions of those in the minority who tried to raise this option like Natalie Prim, Sam Horton and Floyd Armstrong were too readily dismissed. But our present form of government can, of course, first be improved before being discarded.

I’ve made repeated recommendations to the council over the past year, such as making the Finance Director, CRA Director and City Clerk “direct reports” to the council, all of which fell upon deaf ears. Many of the CRC’s original recommendations such as reducing the size of the council and imposing city residency requirements on persons appointed by the mayor and council to serve on city boards, authorities and commissions would also have improved our government.

Unfortunately, there’s troubling “slam dunk” evidence that many of the CRC members were always focused on setting the conditions for later dissolving the present City of Pensacola to form a county-wide consolidated government. On June 18, 2008 Mayor John Fogg even instructed the CRC that doing so was far outside of their charge from the council. He said they were not to even consider the topic of consolidated government — “at all.” But the majority wasn’t listening and whoever wrote the final draft of that meeting’s minutes purposefully failed to record Mayor Fogg’s stern warning.

On November 5, 2008 the CRC engaged in only 20 minutes of very confusing deliberation, without any opportunity for public comment, before deciding to recommend changing our form of government to a Strong Mayor. The vote was 7-3. Moments before DeeDee Ritchie had laid down this marker, “I think it’s important that we make bold moves that set the stage for consolidation.” Dr. Ed Ranelli, Dean of the University of West Florida’s College of Business, also emphasized that whatever the CRC recommended, it should be “consistent with consolidation.”

We don’t know the rationale or justification for any of the CRC’s recommendations because they never wrote their mandated Final Report. Both Dr. Haraway and former City Manager Tom Bonfield assure me a final report was to have been written. Mr. Bonfield told me in writing, “At no time did I ever tell Ms. Spencer a new proposed charter could be substituted for a report.” Very oddly, when secondary CRC consultant Mr. Robert Freedman read the council’s charge to the CRC on November 5 he hesitated and intentionally skipped over the words “in a final report.”

When Mayor Fogg testified he spoke for 70 minutes. He was followed by now Deputy Mayor Jewell Cannada-Wynn. Neither thought the public was clamoring to change the city’s “form” of government. Mayor Fogg instead proposed adding a full-time “Leadership Mayor” to our present Council-Manager government. His very coherent presentation, found at pensacolacharter.com, should be watched by every citizen with access to a computer.

Mayor Fogg said that being a full-time Leadership Mayor would have solved some of the problems that frustrated his 14 year tenure as an appointed and then elected mayor. His Leadership Mayor remarks were then watered down and I think ambiguously distorted in the meeting minutes – “Feels that the City of Pensacola needs and deserves a full-time political leader.” There’s no mention anywhere in the CRC’s written record of Mayor Fogg’s proposed full-time Leadership Mayor in a Council-Manager form of government.

That fact that our particular government doesn’t work well with our present elected officials doesn’t mean it needs to be thrown out. Making modifications to fix what’s broken would be the logical first step. But correctly diagnosing those problems would have required a comprehensive review of the present form of government and its operations. There’s absolutely no evidence the CRC ever fulfilled this aspect of its charge from the council.

C. J. Lewis is a City resident, Secretary of the Escambia County Consolidation Study Commission, and a guest contributor to Progressive Pensacola. Progressive Pensacola does not necessarily endorse or share the opinions expressed in guest postings.