Update – 6:45 a.m.: State Rep. Alex Andrade is also on board. He actually called Tallahassee yesterday.
UPDATE – 6:20 a.m.: Mayor D.C. Reeves texted from Dublin that he supports this effort. He will call the appointment office.
The dust from the August 20 primary has settled. Republicans in Escambia County’s District 4 have chosen Ashlee Hofberger as their nominee. Gov. Ron DeSantis needs to appoint her to serve on the Escambia Board of County Commissioners today.
| Total | |
| Ashlee Hofberger | 3,153 |
| Buck Mitchell | 2,483 |
| Walker Wilson | 2,735 |
The District 4 seat has been vacate since January. Over the coming weeks, the BCC will hold hearings and vote on the 2024-25 budget. District 4 should be represented.
Background: In January, longtime Supervisor of Elections David Stafford resigned to take a job with Homeland Security. On January 26, Gov. DeSantis appointed Commissioner Robert Bender to complete his term.
Several names were mentioned as appointees to represent District 4 on the BCC through 2026: Jim Reeve, Jared Moore, Charles Bare, Cris Dosev, Walker Wilson, Tommi Lyter, Greg Litton, Buck Mitchell, and Jonathon Wiggins.
Ultimately, 10 people applied for the post, but none won the favor of DeSantis. The other names that popped up included Boyce White, Stan “Quick Draw” McDaniels, Mei Davis, Brian Wyer, Greg Hodges, Chase Anderson “Andy” Romagnano, and Ashlee Hofberger.
In the postal newspaper, Councilman Jared Moore said it wasn’t in the city’s best interest to leave the seat open, which probably eliminated any chances of Gov. DeSantis appointing him.
What to do: County Clerk Pam Childers attacked Bender, DeSantis’s appointee for election supervisor, which lost her any juice in the governor’s office, but locals can still have some say.
Last night, I began making calls to Mayor D.C. Reeves, Collier Merrill, and others to ask that they support Ashlee’s appointment with the Escambia County Commission.
You can email the governor’s appointment office and request DeSantis to appoint her: appointments@eog.myflorida.com.
District 4 is in the Rep. Alex Andrade’s and Sen. Doug Broxson’s districts. Email them, too.
I hope the Greater Pensacola Chamber and the Pensacola City Council will also pass resolutions to support Ashlee’s appointment.
#AppointAshlee
The rule of law is the governor appoints someone to fill the vacant commissioner seat. It can be whomever he wants as long as the person meets the requirements to hold the post. The appointee only serves until late November when the new candidates that win the November election are sworn in.
By this logic, why even hold General Elections anymore. Let’s just let the Republicans choose all the leaders! I mean seems to me this candidate has no more right to be appointed than the other candidate for the office. Let the rule of law stand. The Republicans chose not to appoint anyone to the seat. Live with your choices.
At this time, I do not think it would be appropriate for Governor DeSantis to appointee Ashlee Hofbarger to the vacancy. Simply because she is Republican nominee does not mean she has an automatic entitlement to fill the remainder of a term she was not elected to.
The Governor, in the ECUA District 3 vacancy in 2019, specifically appointed a candidate who was not seeking re-election, and who was a registered Democrat, who also held a position in Grover Robinson IV’s Administration at the time.
Ashlee has not yet been elected by the voters. In theory, she has won a nomination but there are problems thus far with the unofficial returns reported. They are in fact, unofficial returns, nothing has been confirmed. When it is an unofficial return it is not yet the official document of the state, no certificates of election have been issued, we only know unofficial returns, we do know in ECUA District 3 the returns look suspicious and that all votes were not counted or reported, we don’t know the accurate totals in ECUA District 3, it would be inappropriate for the Governor to appoint Hofbarger as a candidate at this time, because she has not been elected by the voters, she may have won nomination in a 103.091 party, we do not know yet, because was was reported were unofficial returns, these are numbers that were simply thrown out to the press and several candidates conceded way too early when nothing has been certified yet, my position is, anyone who seeks an audit should seek an audit of the full election, it would be best for the Governor, to appoint someone if he is to fill the vacancy, not seeking election in the November general election in District 4, this is what is most fair to the people of District 4.
This makes so much sense, Rick–thank you. I was so excited for her candidacy when she first declared, but grew some hesitation about her readiness over the course of her campaign. Whether those doubts had any grounds is now moot, and whether such an appointment is technically fair to Ron Helms, are pretty beside the point when placed against the right to representation for the constituents of D4 that DeSantis has exhibited such little concern for. Kohler has now had his experiment in just how badly he can blow things up the first couple of years as commissioner, and the results of his assay are of course that it’s pretty easy to destroy stuff if one goes about it with a single mindedness of purpose. What he hasn’t shown any ability in so far is bringing things for his constituents. Perhaps Ashee’s presence will inspire him to start working with his peers rather than against them to address material problems for the West Side, which are many and grave. The honeymoon period won’t last long between him and Stroberger, and as caustic as Kohler has been up to this point, my gut tells me even he is going to want to insert a lot of daylight between himself and what Stroberger will be bringing to the dais and to the Fourth Floor, which will be an attempt at a toxic retribution tour on County staff for no other reason than their working well with Bergosh. If Ashlee can bring some level headedness and positivity to work with Jeff and the other commissioners in what will otherwise be a pretty bumpy couple of transition months leading up to the general, that would be amazing.
Joel, my prediction is that after 6 months to a year, the voters of Beulah and the Key will see just how grave an error they made in not cutting Jeff some slack and focusing on all of the good things he brought, and the fact that he had vowed to stick to the Master Plan on OLF8. We’ll see. Although his loss was of course very painful for our household on a personal note, the important thing from where we sit is that some sense of normalcy return at the County with the Board working together again in a unified fashion. We had that briefly when Doug was a lame duck and skipping out on a lot of meetings and most of his responsibilities. It would be fantastic if my own commissioner pass off the mantle of being Mr. 1-4 to his former aide. His D2 constituents really need him to start fulfilling some further leadership functions, and Stroberger’s coming attempt at his long-awaited chance to flip the dominance script on him will provide Kohler with the perfect foil to start focusing on his constituents rather than raising cain against the rest of his board.