Commissioner Jeff Bergosh and Commissioner Mike Kohler got into a heated exchange filled with barbs and accusations at the Board of County Commissioners meeting on Monday.
The board was discussing Katherine Kenney’s request for payment of the attorney’s $5,000 fees incurred during a disciplinary proceeding initiated by the Florida Department of Health (Case No.: 2019-17844) relating to events occurring while Kenney was employed as a paramedic with Escambia County.
Kohler accused his fellow commissioners of never holding themselves or personnel responsible “The only people getting hurt here are the citizens of Escambia County.”
Bergosh, who has defended Kenney and other EMS staff, injected, “Incorrect.”
Kohler corrected Bergosh, “Hey, I’m talking, you just told me.”
Chairman Steven Barry intervened, “It’s Mike. Mike has the floor. Mike has the floor.”
Kohler said, “Thank you. I appreciate the respect. Only people getting hurt in this county, behind this, are the taxpayers.”
Referring to Bergosh, he continued, “You’re going to pay millions and millions and millions of dollars because this man’s vindictive behavior against people (and it’s enough, enough, we can’t afford it.”
Bergosh fired back, “Alright? I’m not vindictive when I stand up for first responders. There were six of them that had the finger pointed at them. You talk about vindictive reasons you weren’t here. You don’t know you’re ignorant; you’re glib. I’ll tell you what happened.”
He said one of the six was held accountable because “he was a poor record keeper.”
Kohler then said he would write the governor. “Alright, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. We never wrote to the Department of Health on this board and ask them why their investigation process was so screwed up, and we’re so right. So, I’ll do that letter and ask the governor why his department was so wrong, and this board is so right that they find us and no one on our board is held accountable. Nobody.”
He added, “I’m sorry. That’s just the facts. And so, no one here had the courage to say the investigation process was wrong. Nobody.”
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Then they went into the gutter. The two commissioners sit next to each other.
Bergosh went first: “When you write that letter to the governor, maybe you ought to self-report yourself. When you got on this board, you got drunk one night and called each of us, and I had to save you from a sunshine law violation. Have him investigate that. You called each member of this board. Yeah. So when you put your letter to the governor, maybe send one to the state attorney and have him investigate you for trying to commit a Sunshine violation when you got drunk one night, and you called me. We’ll look it up.”
Kohler: “Hey Jeff…
Bergosh: “And I told you I saved you from yourself.”
Kohler: “…if you want to get down in the gutter, we’ll go ahead and do that. When you threaten me—”
Bergosh: “No, no, I’m telling the truth—”
Kohler: “…drinking beer because I wouldn’t vote for your… And you told me you had the votes. Remember that?”
Bergosh: “ That’s a lie. That never happened.”
Kohler: “ Mine’s a lie. He’s right. But that’s actually what happened.”
Bergosh: “I have a record.”
Kohler: “Oh, you had your phone on while you were at Seville while you were telling me because I didn’t vote for your …”
Bergosh: “A phone record. You calling me.”
Kohler: “You have a phone record of being at the vote corridor where you said I have the votes…”
Bergosh: “That didn’t happen.”
Kohler: “Oh, come on, man. See, that’s the problem. Your fork tongue gets you in trouble. Just say it. Can you make up an allegation? Do whatever report you want on me.”
Bergosh: “You’re the one writing letters. Go send ‘em.”
Chairman Barry called the room to order. The item passed 3-1 with Kohler voting against it.
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Featured Photo Licensed under the Unsplash+ License
Sorry I need to correct a bad and confusing typo, Rick.
The Board *can* (not can’t) ask for investigations and accountability from their administrator and attorney. They can’t go around their authority and dictate them from their respective staffs.
Ellie’s comment wasn’t up when I posted mine. Like Underhill, Kohler has fawning groupies who think that just because he is retired Navy, he is both honest and honorable. While his *service* is honorable, and deserves our gratitude and respect, his *character* is not honorable, nor is he honest. Far from it, in fact.
While Commissioner Bergosh certainly could have expressed the contents of his message far more calmly, from where I sit it’s imperative that this Board not make the same mistake they did with Underhill and not correct his fabrications and hypocrisies out of some idea of taking the high road.
As Barry told Doug once he really started careening out of control, Doug was entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts. It’s far better that the Board start countering publicly, from the dais, the garbage that Kohler is continually emanating through his own forked tongue and his social media minions.
Also like Doug, Kohler can’t seem to get it through his thick head that the leadership structure of the County is not a chain of command with him at the top of it. He is a *policy* official who nonetheless runs around illegally interfering with staff on the daily, usurping the authority of the administrator, who is the chief executive and the *only* person under whom accountability falls. The Board has 2 direct reports only they can demand accountability from–the County Administrator and the County Attorney. It is *illegal* for them to get involved directly with hiring and firing, or demand anything by way of investigations. They can’t ask. They can’t dictate.
In addition, Kohler’s complete ignorance on what came before his first day on that dais is at the heart of his statement that the Board did nothing to clean things up or hold people accountable. They fired the administrator under whom this entire mess was born, and they put somebody in place who systematically got rid of the worst actors in it, as he has the legal right to do. It’s not clear whether Kohler’s insistence that nobody was held accountable comes from that prideful ignorance or the fact that he is quite apparently a lifelong, hardened liar, or both. One of the four people arrested pled to numerous charges. He either doesn’t know that, or he is pretending he doesn’t for his gutter politics. At any rate, although I can’t stand DeSantis, the man is no dumby, and I highly doubt that he’d have much to do with a tar baby like Kohler just because they were at Gitmo together.
So yes, hopefully in the future Commissioner Bergosh won’t get down into the gutter where Mike is trying to drag them all, and not let him press his buzzers. But hopefully he *does* continue to correct Kohler’s lies, just as he did with Kohler’s nonsense about Bergosh carrying Kohler’s “point paper” around with him in DC.
I would imagine that every person who is aware that Kohler called all 4 of the other commissioners drunk and belligerent, claiming that they were corrupt and that he was going to get them charged for every manner of bogus claim–and there are *many* people who are aware of it, and we have seen him enact these bogus claims just as he threatened to do–are just as relieved as I am that some measure of that man’s hypocrisy has finally come public. Once people wake up to the truth that Kohler is just another version of Doug–as I stated repeatedly while he was still on the campaign trail–they’ll understand what’s happening on that dais in a heartbeat.
The only decent and honest person on the current county commissioner board is Mike Kohler. He stays out of the good old boy bs club and actually cares about his fellow tax payers and those citizens he represents. Mr. Kohler is a Veteran and a Bergosh is a former frat boy… who deserves respect and trust? I vote for the Veteran… Plus, Mr. Kohler respects women… I am disgusted by the other commissioners comments towards Pam Childers. Escambia County is 51% female. A woman needs to be in at least one of those chairs if not two.