This week in 2013, Mayor Ashton Hayward appointed Amy Miller as the director of the Port of Pensacola, the first female to hold that position and the the only female Port Director in the state of Florida and in the U.S. Gulf Coast region at the time.
“Amy’s 11-year dedication to the Port of Pensacola makes her eminently qualified for this position,†said Mayor Hayward, in the press release. “I am thrilled to announce Ms. Miller as the new Port Director and I look forward to her leadership and our Port’s growing future.â€
Miller was hired in 2002 as the Port of Pensacola’s Manager of Business & Trade Development. In 2006, her duties were expanded to include oversight of the port’s budgeting, finance and human resources activities.
In 2013, she replaced Clyde Mathis, who had served as the port director for seven years. Mathis is now the Senior Director of Operations at Port Canaveral.
When Miller became port director, Mayor Hayward moved his economic sustainability director, Clark Merritt, to the port with the job title “Economic Development Manager.”
In Mathis’ last year on the job, the total actual revenue for wharfage, storage, dockage and property rental was $2.2 million. For the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2017, the revenue for the port’s main revenue streams was only $1.1 million.
Neither Miller or Merritt have had a job performance evaluation since they were promoted, according to city records.
This doesn’t appear to unusual. The heads of finance, planning and HR have also not been evaluated.
It would be interesting to revisit why Clyde Mathis was fired in 2013 and why Amy Miller was appointed in his place. Mathis told me in 2014 what he had told my wife in 2013, that he was never told why he was being fired but given the option to resign or be terminated. There must at least be an e-mail paper trail. However, as I recall, the Port’s chief problem at the time was in the area of Business & Trade Development, Miller’s portfolio. In a properly working government, Mathis would have fired Miller. However, Miller seemed to enjoy a special relationship with Hayward to include always being eager to say – “Yes, Mayor!” – whenever a rubberstamp answer was needed. During the City Council’s 2016 budget workshop I heard Miller say that “she” had decided not to have done the City Council-directed study to consider alternate uses of the port’s land. Miller said that she didn’t want to do the study until there was good news to report. In fact, for so long as she is running the Port there is not going to be good news to report. I think I recall that her background is in journalism. Her exact words will be on the video. Councilwoman Sherri Myers next put money in the Fiscal Year 2018 budget to get the study done. When I asked Myers about the study a few months ago, she said she did not know if it had ever been done. Was the study done? That seems a good project for the Council Executive to investigate and report to the City Council. Lastly, I believe that Miller recently gave herself and Clark Merritt a pay raise, I.e. you screw-up and get paid for money for it. On the upside, whomever is elected Mayor in November 2018 gets to put in place a wholly new leadership team and might (should) get rid of both of both Miller and Merritt.
What about the the fact that FRANK WHITE has a net worth of $2.4 million, most of which is in realestate and stocks….yet, gave his ATTORNEY GENERAL RACE $1.5 MILLION? How is that possible or legal?
But Rick.
She’s a WOMAN…
The only peep we get from her is her quarterly guest view in the PNJ about women’s empowerment, nothing about the progress of the port.
She’s MIA like the Mayor!