Tammy Greer, Escambia Children’s Trust executive director, submitted her resignation after 5 p.m. yesterday. The resignation will be effective in 60 days.
In a text to me last night, Greer wrote:
I swear all I was trying to do was show them examples of what could be done. I’m not a villain. I was a poor kid who came home to try to make things better for kids like me. I give up.
Backstory
Email Flurry:
The resignation came after a series of emails between Greer and Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves.
As I posted yesterday, Greer had sent an email on Monday afternoon that declared her support for a Children’s Resource Center proposed by Mayor Reeves in partnership with Community Health Northwest Florida and the Lakeview Center but also appeared to undermine the proposal.
- The Trust Board last week had been told by staff that it was illegal for ECT to give funds to the City to purchase a building for a Children’s Resource Center (CRC). The board voted to seek a legal opinion from the Attorney General. Read more.
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Mayor Reeves fired off a reply minutes before holding his weekly press conference after lunch on Tuesday.
He said the ECT grant process “has been the most confusing staff-level experience to a board/council I’ve had professionally.”
The mayor didn’t place blame on the ECT board but on Greer:
“The unfortunate thing is the confusion in how you have handled and managed our request and communication dating back almost nine months has only done harm to our proposal and gives the unfair perception we are unprepared, unwilling to present something that works within the ECT’s rules or guidelines or that we are defying staff suggestions to present something rigid or exact.
We’ve merely presented based on spotty and sometimes missing information what we thought was best. We continue to do so.”
Reeves said he was still committed to the project because it would help the “close to 2,000 children in a predominantly underserved community within close reach of this building.”
He added, “I support this project led by ANY reputable partner fully. We just would like to learn the rules and count on real guidance from you and staff, not learn about your opinion in meetings. I don’t think that is an unfair ask.”
Read mayor’s email.
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The ECT executive responded within 90 minutes with an apology, some deflection, and a reboot request.
Apology
I owe you and your team a sincere apology. I am so sorry that I was not better at communicating previously. You deserve clarity, and I failed to provide it. I acknowledge that I could have handled the process much, much better.
Deflection
Everything new that we do at the Trust is a process. We are a start-up governmental organization. My Board and I are learning and figuring things out as we go. Perhaps we’re moving too fast in our attempt to get funding out the door.
I do want to learn from – and correct – my mistakes and hope that you will forgive me. I will be asking my Board for clarity around my role and their direction regarding how much input/vetting they want from the executive director moving forward.
Reboot Request
I do believe our community needs a resource center. We just have to work through this excruciating process. Again, I am sorry for not communicating better and sooner – and more consistently.
Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to make this right. At this point, I believe we are in limbo until the Attorney General opines regarding whether we can give the funding to the City or not.
In the meantime, please tell me if there’s anything you need. I will work with the Program Committee of my board and do the best I can to be more communicative and helpful.
Read email.
- Greer submitted her resignation three hours later.
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Resignation Letter
The resignation letter echoes her first annual report, decrying local politics and the media.
Politics
“I hate that there is constant chaos when powerful people in the community don’t like the way things go.”
Media
“I’m sorry that the media latched on to the confusion that is inherent in starting a new organization rather than the great work that the Trust is doing.”
She also mentions growing up homeless and in foster care.
“I took this job because I wanted to help the children of the county where I grew up. I was that poor kid – the one who was homeless, in foster care, needed to see a dentist, needed mental health assistance, etc. – like the kids the Trust was established to serve.”
Greer asserts that she spent too much time in the community – time maybe that should have spent in her office. She apologizes sort of.
I did what I thought the Board wanted. I told people about the Trust and what we can do … giving examples of what other CSCs/Trusts have done.
I see now that I should have spent the last 18 months in my office, not in the community. For that and all the drama I have caused, I apologize.
And she closed:
Hopefully, I’ve at least put together a wonderful, talented team who will continue to do great work and make you all proud.
I also hope that the next executive director makes you proud. Clearly, I have not.
So please accept this email as my official 60 days’ notice pursuant to my contract, with my last day being October 15, 2023.
I will continue to work hard and do my best, which is all I can do. I am looking for a new job and hope that I find a better fit and that my departure allows the Board to find an executive director whom you trust to run the agency.
Read her resignation.
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Several boards have disputed Greer’s statement that ECT had no policies in place until she arrived in March 2022.
Since last week’s ECT board meetings, there had been a lot of back-biting among staff – who would survive on staff was in question.
I heard rumors that board members were being polled – not by any elected official – to fire Greer. Several familiar community names were mentioned as possible replacements.
Will the board allow Greer to stay at her post until Oct. 15 or cut her a severance check?
Who will be asked to stay on ECT staff?
Will a job search be conducted or will the executive directorship be handed to an interim that will gradually see “interim” title removed?
Stay tuned.
In November 2020, Escambia County voters passed a referendum to create the Children’s Trust that would be funded by an increase in ad valorem taxes of up to a maximum of 0.5 mil.
The Escambia Children’s Trust’s mission is to provide early childhood education, safety, developmental, preventative, health, and well-being services, including after-school and summer enrichment programs.
Joanne, totally hear you on the contrived chaos. I just don’t think that Ms. Greer was at the helm of the special interest decisions, but carried along and buffeted by powerful agents (and their water carriers) you have to be able to stand up to in a role like that. Then when the inevitable pushback and outcries came, she would respond with every trick you mention and a bunch else. I *wish* she were the sole problem, but there are others in the mix who would be more than happy to keep the money running around the same privileged circles and just enough cherry-picked agencies focusing on minority and poor population to satisfy optics.
Per wealth transfer, resources are a zero sum game–global, national, state, local–and when you’ve got an ever increasing majority of the wealth concentrated in an every shrinking tiny percentage of the population, it isn’t happening by magic. Or hard work, for that matter.
Did you see the agenda order for the emergency meeting here?
https://ricksblog.biz/breaking-escambia-childrens-trust-chair-calls-emergency-board-meeting/
Note that the public input appears to come after the decision will be made. Of course I don’t know what the bizarre “Board Comment” following public input means. What I do know is that it should rather be “Board Action” after the taxpayers footing the bill for this hot mess have had a chance to speak.
Well said Melissa. This is not Ms Greer’s first rodeo with a Children’s trust; she’s experienced. I find her to be a master at contrived chaos, and that this current crisis is a sample of just that with the misinformation and disinformation. Could the plan be she moves out so the annointed can be moved in…? I cannot believe that the moral compass behind this charade will not allow so many children to have a chance for something more. It is hard to fathom such utter indifference. But, I hear a lot about hard earned tax dollars and transfer of wealth. Do you suppose this is an example of it?
Whether the Children’s Trust succeeds or fails in its mission depends on the Board’s actions at the point. And it will basically come down to whether the majority of the Board acts ethically with the goal of assisting the underprivileged children it should be serving, or whether another special interest log rolling has already commenced in the background to backstop Ms. Greer’s departure and keep powerful politicos at the helm in the background.
They need to hold an emergency meeting to stop the bleeding, put a halt to spending, and put the strategic plan on hold until a new executive is hired. Any board members who argues to try to keep things moving forward, or who has the bright idea of another staff member to sit interim (or both) will at least do everyone the favor of outing themselves as the root source of the problem all along.
Unlike some other past administrative heads who were incapable of the role, Ms. Greer isn’t a malevolent person. She’ll find a more comfortable place to bring her passion in a role she’ll be happier in. Again, this failure doesn’t rest on her head, but the board members who promoted her for this position.
Hopefully they won’t be given the reins again by the rest of the Trust for a reboot. It’s time to get serious with the taxpayer money now. The public is well aware that their money is being siphoned off and squandered, while the children of this community go without the basic building blocks necessary to helping them grow towards a healthy and meaningful life.