On a Friday afternoon in late April 2025, Betsy Wooten from the Clerk of Courts office typed out a message to Allyson Parden at the Office of Management & Budget. The subject line read “VP Magic Torch” — a request for documentation regarding a $4,000 monthly payment to a company called Magic Torch that had been working with Visit Pensacola for over a year.
“Please have VP send the deliverables for the $4,000.00 monthly fee for Magic Torch,” Betsy wrote. “Currently, we are just receiving an invoice, but no backup documentation for the monthly fee. I will need for each month starting October 2023.”
- WHY THIS MATTERS: The subsequent email string reveals a bureaucratic standoff between Escambia County Clerk Pam Childers and Visit Pensacola, the county’s tourism promotion organization, with the county’s budget office as the mediator, while over a million dollars is owed to vendors, putting the county’s vital tourism industry at risk.
MAGIC TORCH RUNAROUND
When Allyson forwarded the request to Wondwossen Samuel at Visit Pensacola, Samuel responded with a hint of frustration. “We’ve been including the backups each month with the invoices,” he wrote, attaching links to Adobe documents covering October 2024 through February 2025.
The back-and-forth continued, with Betsy asking for specific page numbers within the documentation packages. Then came an unexpected new request: “I do not see where Magic Torch is registered with Florida to do business in Florida (sunbiz),” Betsy wrote. “Please have VP send where Magic Torch is registered.”
- The response the next morning revealed the core issue: Magic Torch wasn’t an American company at all, but a British firm registered with Companies House in the UK. She provided a link to their registration information. Note: There is no Florida requirement that tourism dollars can only be spent with companies registered with the State of Florida.
Two days later, Betsy delivered the verdict: “The vendor must be registered with the State of Florida (Sunbiz). Please have Magic Torch register with the state as a foreign business.”
- Wondwossen forwarded the requirement to his boss, Darien Schaefer: “Now they’re requiring Magic Torch to register with the State of FL as a foreign business. It’s one thing after another.”
Darien Schaefer, the head of Visit Pensacola, responded to Stephan Hall, the county’s budget director, with a lengthy email.
- “So this is new,” he began. “Why do the vendors we work with have to be registered in the State of Florida? And since when has this been a requirement?”
ASKING FOR A RETURN TO STABILITY
His email revealed a deeper issue: Visit Pensacola has been waiting on reimbursements dating back to September 2024 — more than seven months earlier. The organization was “in danger of not being able to pay our vendors.”
- “We seem to be getting direction/requirements from the Comptroller’s office that change monthly,” he wrote. “Is there any documentation or guidance from the Comptroller’s Office we can follow so that we can return to a stable reimbursement process?”
Stephan Hall at the Office of Management & Budget sympathized. “I completely understand your question and concerns, and I don’t disagree,” he wrote, offering to share Schaefer’s concerns with the Clerk’s office.
The best that Visit Pensacola can hope for is for Childers to grant him an audience and explain her office’s ever-changing parameters for payment.
- We have received a spreadsheet listing over $1.13 million in unpaid amounts, including annual dues to the Northwest Florida Tourism Council and several local vendors.
DEJA VU
Sacred Heart Foundation
This isn’t the first time Childers has refused to pay bills approved by the Tourist Development Council and the Board of County Commissioners.
The Sacred Heart Foundation requested $250,000 to promote its Wine on the Water fundraiser (Agenda Item). On Dec. 17, 2024, the Tourist Development Council (TDC) approved the funding allocation for the new event, which aims to increase tourism in Escambia County. In early February, the Board of County Commissioners also unanimously approved it.
Childers then picked apart the Miscellaneous Appropriations Agreement and mischaracterized the event. Rather than get into a political fight with the county clerk, the Sacred Heart Foundation withdrew its request.
At its February meeting, the TDC complained about Childers not supplying any guidelines for Visit Pensacola, Foo Foo Fest and other programs. Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger said her office was working on it with the Clerk.
2024 Foo Foo Fest
Last September, Childers refused to cut checks to the nonprofits and cultural organizations trying to book performers and other events for Foo Foo Fest. Local organizers worried that they would be forced to Several cancel their events if Childers didn’t relent.
Foo Foo Fest cofounder David Bear talked about the cash flow issue on my radio show. The organization had an appropriation agreement with the TDC and the county. .
“They’ve got an advertising agency doing the creative and placement of the advertising, and they can’t get the money from the county to pay those bills, to get the grant recipients the funds they need to secure their programs, ” he said. “And many of them are starting to get worried that they may not get it in time to secure what they committed and have to cancel their performances, their programs. And so it’s a real challenge that’s going on right now.”
He continued, “I’ve talked with Stephan Hall at the county office management budget office, and they are trying to get us the funds. They’re working with the clerk’s office, but there seems to just be a roadblock.:
After my interview with David Bear, the Clerk’s Office notified the county budget office that she would cut a check for them – not the entire budget allocation but a partial payment.
Next Step
Inweekly has requested all outstanding invoices concerning Tourism funds as of May 9, 2025.
Stay tuned; the dollar amount may stun you.
Tish Patel, a bed tax generator on the TDC, was the only one who voted against the Wine in the Water fundraiser because it was a fundraiser & not a tourism-oriented function. If an event planner wants to use Tourism Dollars along with a survey company to monitor ROI on that event investment. Hoteliers organized to create a statewide tourism advertisement fund through a TDC or similar that each county collects & then funds their DMOs or ad firms to promote their markets. I for one is glad Pam is making sure that our hard-earned dollars are finally being properly spent. Escambia Co is going through a transitional period from when any goes & it was free money to do as they pleased to now everything needs to be vetted & by the book. I’m glad the County’s money ATM is restricted. We hoteliers want to spend our hard-earned dollars on a brand new $100+ million Pensacola Bay Arena, but not possible with the current political climate. I wonder how 41 years old Destin, FL became so successful & St. Augustine, FL?? Pensacola is the 1st United States settlement with the 1st United States Naval Air Station with the biggest Naval Aviation Museum in the world with World world-class beaches but yet Pensacola never took off…let’s talk about the past that is still keeping us in the past. Pam Childers is forcing the future to accept change & positive progress.