On Monday afternoon, Escambia Children’s Trust executive director Tammy Greer sent a double-edged follow-up email recarding proposed Children’s Resource Center.
At the meeting, the City of Pensacola, Lakeview Center, and Community Health Northwest Florida were told it was illegal for the ECT to give funds to the City to purchase a building for a Children’s Resource Center (CRC). Read more.
- The board voted unanimously to request a legal opinion from Attorney General Ashley Moody.
Since the meeting, Mayor D.C. Reeves has publicly said that the felt the ECT staff, which includes Greer, had misled him and all those who have worked on the CRC proposal. Read more.
Takeaways from Greer email
1. The AG opinion will take several months.
- Greer wrote, “I will keep you updated as the AG opinion request progresses.”
2. Greer believes a “great proposal was submitted, and she supports the “idea of a resource family center, particularly when implemented with fidelity to the model.” Note: You judge whether the email’s words actually support her claim here.
3. Greers wrote that her concerns are of “no consequence as all funding decisions are up to the Board.”
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4. However, she asked the City of Pensacola, Lakeview Center, and Community Health Northwest Florida to address four concerns she would like any “future proposal iteration” to address:
a) Services in a facility funded by ECT must be for Escambia County children only.
b) The building would serve children and families in perpetuity and would not sell it for a profit in a few years.
c) She wants to know the new and additional services that would be offered.
5. Greer attacks the proposal on two fronts, all of which should have been brought up early in the discussion process that began in late December 2022
a) Does the CRC proposal meet the definition of sole source? Should do a Request for Proposals?
b) The original campaign promised no funds to buy buildings, and this purchase would spend “roughly a third of our annual revenue.” Note: Greer ignores the Trust had a $8.2 million carryover from its first fiscal year.
6. And she throws out this question:
“Just out of curiosity, would the providers be open to having the Trust buy and own the building if we can’t fund the City to buy it?”
The email:
Good afternoon everyone,
I’m sure you are all aware of the outcome of the ECT Board meeting on August 8th at which there was still confusion as to whether or not our agency is legally allowed to give money to another entity to purchase a building. The Board directed our legal counsel, Meredith Bush, Esq., to solicit an Attorney General opinion on the matter because there is so much disagreement on the legality of it. Please note that it could take several months to receive an opinion. I will keep you posted along the way.
As I stated previously, I believe you submitted a great proposal. I support the idea of a family resource center, particularly when implemented with fidelity to the model. My concerns – which are of no consequence as all funding decisions are up to the Board – are as follows, in case you wish to address them in a future proposal iteration:
*Services in a facility funded by ECT must be for Escambia County children only.
*I do not know if we could hold the City accountable for any programming outcomes or impact as we would be funding a building, not the services rendered.
*The ECT would not have any control over the mix of services on an ongoing basis. Per our legal counsel, the contract would need assurances to ensure the building continued to serve children and families in perpetuity and that the City would not sell it for a profit in a few years.
*I was initially under the impression this would be a joint effort among the City, the County, and the Trust. I don’t know if it meets the definition of sole source anymore with it under only the City. Technically, any other city or municipality could propose to buy a building for a center, so we may need an RFI and/or an ITB if the Attorney General opines that we are allowed to award funding for a building that the Trust would not own. This was noticed only after discussions around our sole-source policy and the application of the definition of ‘sole source.’
*When we initially talked at the first and second meetings, I had not seen a proposal and assumed this would be new/additional services to more children. It now appears this represents the same services being served in a different, yet central, location. The services are being moved but not necessarily expanded. Please let me know if I am misunderstanding that. The purpose of the ECT is to expand, not supplant, services, so the comparison would be helpful.
*With the entire ask coming to the Trust and no part to the County or City, it represents roughly a third of our annual revenue. It’s not my money, and I have no skin in the game. I just want to be very clear that we’d be spending nearly $3M on a building as opposed to services. As Jim Little from PNJ found, the original campaign promised that no funds would be used to purchase buildings.
*Just out of curiosity, would the providers be open to having the Trust buy and own the building if we can’t fund the City to buy it?
Again, I sincerely appreciate the time and effort you put into the proposal and apologize that this has been such an arduous process. Please bear with us as we work through this. I do believe a central resource center for families is a terrific project, if done with fidelity to the evidence-based model. I will keep you updated as the AG opinion request progresses. Meanwhile, have a safe, cool, peaceful week. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. Thank you.
Warm regards,
Tammy
The fact that Ms. Greer employs the flourish of “Esq” after Ms. Bush’s name in order to signal her awareness of titles tells you all you need to know about how out of her depth she really is.
Before we ever attended a Trust meeting, we had heard from the four corners that the executive director couldn’t handle the job, and that she wasn’t even calling the shots, but instead letting a well-connected member of her staff lead her down the primrose path to special interest.
We went in with a completely open mind, however, and the first things we saw on the face of it were (1) whatever the case with the admin, the policy was a disaster; (2) all of those ridiculous committees were piled in to create maximum room for chicanery apart from the Board; and (3) Ms. Greer was totally floundering in the milieu of local politics.
After the horrible meeting with the ECSD applications on the agenda, I reached out in an earnest attempt to find out what kind of help she might need, in the spirit of trying to assist in righting a train wreck in some small way. We had a very pleasant conversation, in which I told her that I sensed the School Board was exacting some strategy of blowing the Trust up as punishment for people bringing it in the first place, and also that a member of her staff was playing her to the benefit a benefactor.
During that conversation, she told me in no uncertain terms that the Sheriff’s Department had gone off the reservation…that she and Kim Krupa had approached the Sheriff’s Department and advised they put in for the Blazer Academy and maybe After School, but that the rest of it was completely unsolicited; at that point, she didn’t know how to handle it, because she had heard the Sheriff was a very powerful person and she didn’t want to anger the department. I remember asking, “How did that work out for you?”
Now of course we know that was not true, as she stated at the last meeting. Just like we heard a bunch of other walk-backs, reversals, and sideways shuck and jives.
At bottom, the Executive Director of a special district entrusted with delivering taxpayer dollars towards material results FOR CHILDREN has now alienated the chair of the BCC, the sheriff, and the mayor. Where, exactly, do the people on the Board supporting her remaining in that role see this going? Can anyone still say with a straight face this gets better from here?
Ms. Greer’s hiring isn’t her fault; it’s the fault of the policy Board, who clearly needs some assistance in assessing the right talent for particular roles. Perhaps the ones who advocated the hardest for her selection don’t want to admit they messed up? Or are they still hoping to squeeze whatever special interest juice they can out of the situation before enough explodes that they can then throw her under the bus?
Sadly, Ms. Greer is not coachable or improvable in this scenario because her defense mechanism when she feels pressured–which is a lot–is to jump to falsehoods. While I feel empathetic that she was placed in a role beyond her experience and capability, and understand why she resorts to all of the clumsy doubletalk, neon gaslighting, and whiplashing reversals on reversals, that part of the scenario won’t fix. Those habits are clearly ingrained.
We arrived at the Brownsville “Town Hall” (big quotes there) just before 6. We were met by two perfectly pleasant ID group people. The gentleman said “Welcome to our…” and then turned to his counterpart and jokingly asked, “What are we calling this?” (I wish I were kidding.) I said, “Well, you’re calling it a town hall, which it clearly isn’t.” We then had a back and forth over whether I had eyes in my head, and apparently there is a new movement among consultants to pretend a workshop with break-out sessions–complete with the countdown timers everyone has come to recognize as the harbinger of how much longer you’ll be miserable at a particular table–is a Town Hall. I was informed I was mistaken, what I was thinking of was a “Forum.” At that point, we didn’t see any point of continuing the charade.
There is no way that anyone can try to make the claim those poorly advertised, barely attended meetings satisfy the public input on the Trust strategy. (Also: at some point will staff try to argue those suffice to check the boxes for the necessary public meetings before property acquisition?)
The Board needs to take up a discussion of the executive director position and staff performance under her before one other thing comes on the agenda. The ID Group will wait; so will the strategy. This running ahead by some of the Board to try to game things for best advantage on strategy while the house is burning down will only contributed to continued public outcry over the horrendous waste of tax dollars up to this point.
Here’s a strategy for you: PUT THE MONEY TOWARDS KIDS IN POOR NEIGHBORHOODS, STOP GROWING THE STAFF, HIRE A NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BLOW AWAY THE COMMITTEES, AND HAMMER DOWN SOME REASONABLE POLICY AS A FULL BOARD.
Can I please have 230K now?