Archive for the ‘Diane Mack’ Category
Pensacola City Councilwoman Diane Mack had some strong words last night for circulators of a petition opposing the stadium component of the Community Maritime Park.
Referencing a recent memorandum by City Attorney Rusty Wells, Councilwoman Mack said that the petition, even if successful, cannot stop the stadium, but that it could drive desperately needed private investment out of Pensacola. “Don’t let yourselves become pawns for the Donovan-Nobles no-growth duo,” she said…
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Mayoral candidate (and City Councilwoman) Diane Mack has posted contributions totalling $7,068.07 for the F1 reporting period, which covers April 1 through July 16.
That amount brings Councilwoman Mack’s total take this cycle to $13,334.57.
She also reported $7,290.18 in expenditures during the F1 reporting period.
The total included three $500 donations…
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Below is is video of Pensacola City Council members dressing down “BP Barbie” Liz Castro, who appeared before the Council Monday with no answers to questions about BP’s new Bayou Chico operations. For more on that meeting, see our story, “‘BP Barbie’ clueless before Council.”
WEAR reported last night that Ms. Castro “has been relieved of her duties as BP’s spokesperson for the Pensacola area.”
Check back for more video…
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Mayoral candidate Diane Mack has released her anticipated “vision statement,” outlining her plans to move the City forward should she be elected mayor.
Councilwoman Mack opens the statement by highlighting some of the City’s strengths, quoting former Mayor Vince Whibbs in calling Pensacola “a city where tens of thousands live the way millions wish they could.” Then, separating her planned initiatives into several categories, she outlines specific proposals for each…
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Mayoral candidates Ashton Hayward and Diane Mack have both collected enough petitions to qualify for the ballot, joining Mike Wiggins, who met the requirement earlier this month. The deadline for petition submissions was this past Monday at noon. Candidates Charles Bare and John Fogg did not meet the requirement and now must pay a filing fee of more than $3,000 if they wish to appear on the ballot.
On the City Council side, District 1 candidate Steve Fulford and District 2 candidate…
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A few items we wanted to highlight:
Touart supporter Clabaugh arrested. Mark Clabaugh, an occasional commenter on this site and pnj.com and a political supporter of George Touart, was arrested on burglary charges after allegedly breaking into the Star Lake home of Karen Sindel. Mr. Touart and Ms. Sindel are both candidates for the District 2 seat on the Escambia County Commission. Rick’s Blog was first to report on this; they’ve since filed followups with the mugshot and the arrest report.
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Mayoral candidate Diane Mack has appointed Catherine Fletcher as her campaign manager. Ms. Fletcher will lead Ms. Mack’s “Vision 2014″ team.
According to a press release issued by the Mack campaign, Ms. Fletcher is a business analyst, information technology management expert, and realtor. See the press release below for more information…
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Progressive Pensacola wishes Pensacola City Councilwoman and mayoral candidate Diane Mack a belated happy birthday, which she celebrated this past Saturday.
Councilwoman Mack was elected in 2008, ousting long-term incumbent Jack Nobles in the process. Always principled, she has occasionally rubbed some the wrong way, but that’s just who she is. What she lacks in schmooze, she makes up for in passion and attention to detail. In particular, her advocacy for neighbourhoods…
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Mayoral candidate Diane Mack raised just over $6,200 in the first quarter of 2010, according to her latest financial report, filed over the weekend.
$500 donations came from several family members, as well as seashell magnate Allan Davis and attorney Matt Dannheisser. Other large donations include $300 from Mike Bass’ University Mall Investments Company, $250 from downtown businesswoman Deborah Dunlap, and $250 from Robert Switzer of Lamar Advertising. With 11 donations under $100…
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The Pensacola City Council yesterday continued its debate over setting the salary for the executive mayor under the new Mayor-Council government. The Council had previously settled on $100,000 but opted to reconsider after certain elements in the community expressed their dissatisfaction with that number.
However, despite the additional debate, the Council ended up in the same place. After a motion to set the salary at $115,000 failed by a 3-6 vote, a motion to set it at $100,000 passed 5-4…
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Pensacola City Councilwoman Diane Mack filed today to run for Mayor of Pensacola. If elected, Mrs. Mack would be both the City’s first female mayor and the City’s first mayor under the new Mayor-Council form of government approved last November.
Councilwoman Mack is the first candidate to file in the mayor’s race. Current mayor Mike Wiggins has expressed interest in the race, and a host of other names have been mentioned as possible candidates, including former mayor John Fogg…
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The City of Pensacola may follow the Escambia County Commission’s lead on consolidation, if City Councilwoman Diane Mack gets her way.
Councilwoman Mack plans to move at Monday’s Committee of the Whole meeting that the City withdraw its support for a 2010 vote on City-County consolidation. The Escambia County Commission made a similar move last night.
Here’s the wording of the motion Councilwoman Mack intends to make…
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Yesterday’s Council committee meetings featured an expansive presentation on a new vision for the Port of Pensacola, courtesy of CRA Director Thaddeus Cohen and Port staffers Clyde Mathis and Amy Miller.
The presentation painted the Port of Pensacola as a “boutique” or “specialty” port, which rather than being “all things to all people” intends to concentrate on serving niche markets like energy and offshore operations. The presentation also included concepts for converting…
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Pensacola City Council members Sam Hall and Diane Mack have both posted about their trip earlier this week to St. Louis. The two were part of a delegation of local government and business officials who travelled to St. Louis to meet with McCormack Baron Salazar, a nationally-acclaiming housing redevelopment firm. Local leaders have bee trying to lure the firm to Pensacola to create a mixed-income housing development.
Councilman Hall: What did I take away from the trip? I should manage my expectations…
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Pensacola City Councilwoman Diane Mack has revealed that both she and her husband voted “Yes” in the City’s charter referendum.
Previously, Councilwoman Mack had remained publicly neutral, but announced her vote in a post on her website today. She says that while both sides of the charter issue had “engaged in a fairly equal share of exaggeration in their arguments” but accused anti-charter activists of outright dishonesty…
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We’ve been meaning to put this up for a while, but have gotten sidetracked. It’s a highlight from last month’s debate about the City’s tree ordinance.
In it, Judy Gund of accounting firm Saltmarsh, Cleaveland & Gund comes before the City Council to stand up for big business and big development, and to call out Council members Diane Mack and Larry B. Johnson for putting forth the crazy idea that big business and big development should follow the same rules as everyone else…
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At last night’s City Council meeting, the revised tree ordinance, with the special exemptions for Sacred Heart and Baptist, was passed on the first reading.
This is something we would have expected and accepted without question from the previous Council. So many of us, though, have come to expect that the days of “business as usual” were behind us. So many of us have come to expect better from the new members of Council. To say we are disappointed wouldn’t begin to sum it up.
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Pensacola City Councilwoman Diane Mack has made some comments on her website about this past Monday’s extended debate on the tree ordinance and the eventual concessions granted to Sacred Heart and Baptist hospitals.
Councilwoman Mack sums up Sacred Heart’s stance well. Its parent company, Ascension Health, posted $16 billion in revenue in 2008. They can afford the increased mitigation costs. The idea that Sacred Heart would abandon its $200 million worth of construction projects over $500,000…
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A few items I wanted to highlight today:
County Attorney proposes technology rules. County Attorney Allison Rogers has proposed that the County Commission adopt a policy banning the use of cellphones, Blackberries, PDAs, or laptops by commissioners during meetings. The policy would also prohibit commissioners from blogging or using social networking sites like Facebook in relation to County business. Jamie Page of the News Journal is reporting that Commissioners Wilson Robertson, Marie Young, and Kevin White have already…
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Pensacola City Councilwoman Diane Mack will speak at tomorrow’s Pensacola Bay Area Advertising Federation luncheon. The luncheon will be held in the Grand Hall at McGuire’s Irish Pub, located at 600 East Gregory Street. Networking begins at 11:30 followed by the presentation at noon.
Councilwoman Mack will be speaking on the importance of economic development and its significance for the regional advertising industry. Apart from serving on the City Council, she is well known in the business community…
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A few items I wanted to highlight today:
North Hill residents don’t like AT&T utility cabinets. Well, nobody does, I guess. They’re big and ugly. AT&T was especially careless, though, in its placement of a large cabinet in the right-of-way at the edge of Alabama Square, which is a beautiful little neighbourhood park. There certainly exist alternative locations for the cabinet, but AT&T seems set on taking the easiest road rather than the wisest. The cabinets, called VRADs, have earned AT&T criticism across the country…
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Pensacola City Councilwoman Diane Mack’s unfortunate charge for a costly pension study was stopped cold yesterday, as the measure failed on a 4-6 vote. Council members Mack, Jerralds, Cannada-Wynn, and Townsend were those who voted in favour of the $37,000 study.
Unfortunately, Councilwoman Megan Pratt’s suggestions for immediate action on the pension issues also failed on a 5-5 vote.
Inconsistency has been the story of Diane Mack’s tenure thus far on City Council…
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The City Council-commissioned audit of the airport hotel deal is in. You can read it for yourself on the City’s website.
The audit puts on paper what everybody already knew. The process was imperfect, and an open, competitive RFP process would have preferred. We have again paid tens of thousands of dollars for a “report” which serves little purpose other than to formalise the obvious and allow Council members to say they “investigated.”
Were there problems with the process? Yes…
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The presentation yesterday of Escambia County Commissioner Gene Valentino’s long-awaited economic development plan appeared to fall flat, with few elected officials or audience members voicing enthusiasm for Commissioner Valentino’s proposed “Pensacola Economic Development Authority.”
The presentation, made before a joint meeting of the Escambia County Commission and the Pensacola City Council, outlined Commissioner Valentino’s proposed structure for such an authority, as well as a proposed increase in utility franchise fees…
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At last night’s meeting of the Pensacola City Council, Councilwoman Diane Mack again tried unsuccessfully to block the expansion of the Dense Business Area to accommodate the relocation of a Pensacola bar.
The Dense Business Area, which loosens distance and parking requirements on bars, presently only includes the south side of Heinberg Street. The Roundup, a longtime bar previously located at 706 East Gregory Street, desires to relocate to an unused warehouse on the north side of Heinberg Street but could not due to requirements that bars…
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At today’s Pensacola City Council committee meetings, Councilwoman Diane Mack rejected City staff’s proposal to commission a $25,000 “bargain” study of employee compensation. Councilwoman Mack believes that the scope of the study is not wide enough and pushed for a more expansive (and expensive) study. Check out our previous commentary, “Diane Mack wants to waste your money.”
Unfortunately, Councilwoman Mack was able to garner support, and after an extensive discussion, Council agreed to send the issue back to staff…
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Pensacola Councilwoman Diane Mack has said she’ll reiterate her call for a professional study — which the City Manager estimates could cost $200,000 or more — of the City’s pension situation and the long-term impact of any changes.
Commissioning studies has been the bad habit of choice for past Councils, and we’re disappointed to see Councilwoman Mack so heartily embracing the concept. Studies allow Council members to delay action while they figure out how they’re going to act and how their actions will impact them politically. Most disappointing, perhaps, is the fact that in just four short months Councilwoman Mack…
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Is the Pensacola City Council getting a little better on meeting length? The committee meetings on Monday only lasted about six hours instead of the seven or eight that has become the norm recently.
Jabberin’ Jerralds
After the last committee meetings, Councilwoman Diane Mack took it upon herself to have a volunteer review video of the meeting to determine which member of Council racked up the most talk time. Jamie Page of the Pensacola News Journal recounts the results for those of us who couldn’t make it down to City Hall…
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Pensacola City Councilwoman Diane Mack is continuing her unfortunate defense of the Automatic Aid Agreement — and continuing to dismiss the concerns of her constituents.
In an update to her website, Councilwoman Mack called concerned citizens a “drop in the bucket”:
“If Council members received an average of 20 to 30 communications and all were in opposition as they reported, that’s 200 to 300 citizens. There are 53,000 City of Pensacola residents and about 35,000 registered voters; any way you do the math, the opposition was a drop in the bucket.”
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Pensacola City Councilwoman Diane Mack pushed hard for the Automatic Aid Agreement at yesterday’s joint City/County meeting, attempting several times to dismiss and marginalise the opinions of dissenting citizens. No action was taken at the meeting, however, and the issue will be carried over to a Council Committee of the Whole meeting.
Councilwoman Mack, speaking in favour of moving forward with the agreement, emphasised that this was only a pilot program. Councilwoman Megan Pratt agreed, noting that the “scientist in her” wanted to do an experiment to gather the data…
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Here’s are a few items I want to highlight today:
Report from TPO meeting
“Pensacola City Councilwoman Diane Mack has kindly updated her website with some of the goings-on at yesterday’s meeting of the TPO…”
Independent News: “Invest in Pensacola”
“Rick Outzen encourages the City of Pensacola to invest pension funds in local projects…”
Miami Herald:
“Democrat named to Florida Supreme Court”
“Right wingers aren’t very happy with Florida Governor Charlie Crist…”
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Pensacola Beach Blog: “Evidence of Bad Intent”
The Pensacola Beach Blog has an excellent post up recapping former Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom’s ongoing troubles…
Diane Mack updates
South Palafox Street is now two-way, but one thing I’ve bemoaned is the mandated right turn at Garden. Councilwoman Mack indicates that it may only be temporary…
Greg Evers gets cute
State Rep. Greg Evers injected a little political incorrectness into a meeting this morning…
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Lacey Collier, the chair of the CMPA, has issued a slightly insulting response to Councilwoman Diane Mack’s letter sent earlier this week:
“I was somewhat dismayed that you found it necessary to rely upon news reports of our meeting, which are not always complete or accurate, in deciding that the progress of negotiations with MPDP are more tenuous than you had previously understood. As I have offered before, I stand ready to discuss with you at any time any and all matters pertaining to the Maritime Park.
Had we done so in this instance, you would have learned that I, and the entire CMPA Board…”
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In the face of continued negotiations between the CMPA, the City, and Maritime Park Development Partners (MPDP), Pensacola City Councilwoman Diane Mack wants the CMPA to tell MPDP to — basically — put up or shut up. In a letter to CMPA chair Lacey Collier, Councilwoman Mack asks that the CMPA set a firm deadline for MPDP to agree to terms, and if there’s not a deal done at that date, that the CMPA look for another developer:
“Dear Lacey,
The progress of negotiations with Maritime Park Development Partners (MPDP), as detailed in today’s News Journal…”
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Pensacola City Councilwoman Diane Mack has revamped her campaign website to “provide an easily-accessed source of current information about the issues that may come before the Pensacola City Council.”
The site includes information and Councilwoman Mack’s thoughts on various issues, a “progress report”, as well a calendar of meetings and Councilwoman Mack’s other appearances at events and in the media.
Hopefully Councilwoman Mack’s site will be updated often and become another tool citizens can use to become active and engaged.
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From Rick’s Blog:
“One of the most surprising discoveries last year … was that the Pensacola City Council were included in the city’s retirement plan and the taxpayers were fitting the bill.
At the time, we were told by several council members that they had to do it and they had no choice because they were paid for their services.
Well, Council member Maren DeWeese pressed the issue and found out that she could opt out of the Florida Retirement System and the citizens will not be paying for any retirement contributions…”
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What follows is the statement Jack Nobles released upon conceding the City Council District 8 At-Large race to Diane Mack: After a great deal of prayerful introspection and with the advice and support of my family, I have withdrawn as a candidate for re-election to our City Council. I wish my successor, Diane Mack, the [...]
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As Rick Outzen has just reported (I was too busy picking my jaw up off the floor to post), Pensacola City Councilman Jack Nobles has issued a press release, conceding the race to Diane Mack. I can’t figure out why. Either he’s gotten wind of the forces which were about to come down upon him, [...]
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Unfortunately, voters only retired one City Council incumbent on Tuesday — but it was a good one. Congratulations to Maren DeWeese for ousting 20-year incumbent Mike DeSorbo. I can’t tell you how satisfied I am that our City government is rid of him. Congratulations also to Megan Benson Pratt for her sound victory in the [...]
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Dr. Martin Luther King said in 1967: We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. His words, as they so often do, ring so clear and so true forty years later. I feel that fierce urgency. We can’t wait two or [...]
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Progressive Pensacola endorses Diane Mack for Pensacola City Council, District 8 (At-Large). In a year with the unprecedented possibility of change in City government, Diane Mack is perhaps the single most important one to elect. Mack, 61, is a small business owner who in recent years has taken an interest in the City budget, forming [...]
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Heading up to the general election on November 4, we’ll be featuring a brief look at the various races. Some races we’ll cover more extensively than others, because some races are more important or more competitive than others. Today, we’ll look at the race for Pensacola City Council, District 8 (At-Large). The Office Races for [...]
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I just saw my first campaign signs for J. D. Smith, the former City Councilman who once represented north Pensacola’s District 2 from downtown’s Port Royal condos, and whom is running again for Council, this time in an at-large race. Smith faces an uphill battle against Megan Benson Pratt and Wendell Rich, who both have [...]
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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.
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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 [...]
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