Library Governance

No Plan, No Timeline and No Names

The county administrator offers commissioners a discussion item but no recommendation, no search schedule for a library director and no list of applicants for the two vacant seats.

Escambia County Administrator Wes Moreno has placed on Thursday’s Board of County Commissioners meeting a discussion of the West Florida Public Libraries Board of Governance. He has included no recommendation on how he wants to move forward with the BOG, no timeline for hiring a new library director, and no list of names of those who have applied for the county’s two vacancies on the BOG.

• In other words, he’s acting like a petulant child upset that citizens called him out at last week’s county commission meeting. Read

The Applicants Who Met the January Deadline

The file has five applicants for the two vacancies. Bullock is the only incumbent.

John Bullock (incumbent, seeking a second term). Bullock, 80, has served on the board since 2024 and was Vice Chair in 2025. He is a retired corporate attorney (Yale BA, 1972; Yale JD, 1976) who spent 1976 to 2012 in the metals industry, including as general counsel for a 100-employee company. He served in the Air Force from 1967 to 1971 and moved to Pensacola from Connecticut in 2015. His local volunteer work includes Guardian ad Litem (2018 to 2024), poll worker (2022 to present), Take Stock in Children mentor and United Way reading volunteer. He served on a murder trial jury in 2025.

Lauren Meadors. Meadors has been Director of Development at United Way of West Florida since December 2025 and was its VP of Philanthropy and Communications from November 2024. Earlier jobs were PR specialist at Gulf Winds Credit Union, executive director of Family Promise of Escambia County (August 2022 to February 2023), and development coordinator and manager at Council on Aging of West Florida (2018 to 2022), where she says she raised more than $2 million. She lists a UWF communication degree (2017), a master’s in strategic communication, a 2024 Inweekly “Rising Star” recognition, and Chamber Ambassador of the Year in 2020 and 2021.

Randall Richardson. Richardson is a staff attorney at Legal Services of North Florida (since July 2025) handling eviction defense, bankruptcy and veterans’ benefits. His resume also lists a current senior attorney post with Regional Conflict Counsel in Pensacola (since April 2017), handling capital cases across the 1st DCA. Before that he was a public defender in Tallahassee and South Georgia. He is a member of the Florida and Georgia bars and taught school in Georgia from 2004 to 2008. His degrees are a JD from Florida Coastal, an MBA and BS from Georgia Southern, and a UWF master’s in cybersecurity (2025). His community involvement is mostly bar associations and Rotary.

Pueschel Schneier. Schneier was born in Pensacola and has run Great Change Cleaning Service since 2007. Schneier also holds a real estate license (inactive) and is part owner of Studway LLC. The civic record is long: Secretary of the Escambia County Republican Executive Committee since December 2018, the former Panhandle Tiger Bay Club board (president in 2019), ECUA Citizens Advisory Committee (2017 to 2021), Escambia County PTA second vice president (2015 to 2019), and AK Suter Elementary PTA president. Schneier attended Pensacola Junior College.

Jennifer Trawick. Trawick is an instructor/librarian at Pensacola State College (since 2023) and a former West Florida Public Library employee. She was a library clerk from 2016 to 2019 and a library assistant from 2020 to 2021, working on circulation, children’s programming, Talking Books and a pandemic Feeding the Gulf Coast partnership. She holds an MLIS from Florida State (summa cum laude, 2022) and a UWF English degree (summa cum laude, 2020), and belongs to the American Library Association and Florida Library Association. She serves on several Pensacola State committees.

Citizens Answer the Call

Last week I put out a call for other Escambia citizens to volunteer. I received these applications:

Kelly Dye sent commissioners a letter that lays out the failures in detail:

“This is not a matter of administrative delay. This is a pattern of silence that has left one of our most vital public institutions without leadership, without a functioning board, and without a clear path forward.”

Her letter reads in full:

Dear Commissioners,

I am writing as a concerned Escambia County resident and taxpayer to demand accountability regarding the ongoing neglect of our West Florida Public Libraries system.

The facts are difficult to ignore. The Library Board of Governance has not met since April 20. Two BOG seats have sat vacant since applications closed in January, with no nominations brought forward to you, the body that holds appointment authority. The library system has been without a director since August 10. Repeated written requests from BOG Chair Dr. Blaine Wall to County Administrator Wes Moreno, sent in May, June, twice in August, and again this month, have gone entirely unanswered. The September 28 BOG meeting has now been canceled with no explanation beyond that the county is “continuing to evaluate vacancies.”

This is not a matter of administrative delay. This is a pattern of silence that has left one of our most vital public institutions without leadership, without a functioning board, and without a clear path forward.

Our public libraries are far more than buildings that lend books. They are community anchors that provide access to digital resources, educational programming, early childhood literacy, workforce development, and essential services for residents who have nowhere else to turn. When the leadership structure of this institution is allowed to collapse through inaction, it is our most vulnerable neighbors who suffer most.

I would gladly volunteer to serve on the Library Board of Governance, and I believe I bring meaningful qualifications to that role. Over a 15-year career in marketing and communications, I have developed experience in strategic planning, budget management, and building programs that drive both community awareness and revenue. I have the background to support fundraising initiatives, community partnerships, and the kind of long-range planning that a library system of this importance deserves. I am ready to put that experience to work for this community, and I know I am not alone. There are qualified, willing residents who applied in good faith during the open application period and have heard nothing. John Bullock, who was eligible to serve another term, was reportedly told not to bother reapplying. That is unacceptable.

I am asking you, as the body with the authority to make these appointments, to act now. Do not wait for the County Administrator to bring nominations forward. Use your authority. Reopen the application process if necessary. Fill these seats. Initiate a transparent search for a permanent library director. And demand that the BOG be allowed to meet and function as the bylaws and Resolution R2013-17 require.

The residents of Escambia County deserve answers, and our libraries deserve leadership.

Respectfully,
Kelly Dye

Joanna Hayes is a licensed mental health counselor who works for the Escambia County School District. She wrote that she is considering adding her name for one of the vacant seats and offered to send a resume if applications are being taken.

Jonathan Garrett Green, J.D. also volunteered. He wrote that he welcomes the opportunity to serve on the BOG for Escambia County libraries and wants to offer his skills and expertise to his community.