Escambia County Government

The Case for the Moreno Extension

The Escambia County Commission is poised to extend County Administrator Wes Moreno’s contract through December 2027—a deliberate, orderly handoff that has eluded this county for nearly two decades.

When the Escambia County Commission votes to extend County Administrator Wes Moreno‘s employment through December 31, 2027, at the May 21 board meeting, it will mark something  unusual in local government history: a planned, deliberate succession process—one where a replacement is recruited nationwide, selected and allowed to acclimate before Moreno walks out the door.

• To understand why the Moreno extension matters, you have to understand what came before it.

George Touart: The Resignation That Started the Cycle (2007)

On September 6, 2007, George Touart submitted his resignation before the commission could formally vote on his termination—ending a tenure defined, in its final weeks, by an avalanche of disclosed conflicts of interest.

The unraveling began with the county’s planned purchase of 271 acres on Bauer Road for a southwest sports complex. The Pensacola News Journal reported that Touart had failed to disclose business ties to nearly everyone connected to the deal: seller family member Neal Nash, planning board chair Ronald Swaine, and associated development interests. He co-owned a Panama City condo with Nash and Swaine, had interests in lots in the Nature Trail subdivision being developed by Swaine’s firm, and co-owned a 30-foot Grady White boat with Nash. Follow-up reporting connected his employee leasing company to R.W. Beck, a major county contractor that had received more than $28 million in county work since 2001.

The commission had tried to manage the fallout—reprimanding Touart at its August 22 meeting without terminating him—but public anger only intensified. By September, removal was clearly on the table. Touart moved first.

His resignation set off a post-meeting fight over severance and retirement vesting. On a 3–2 vote, the board rescinded the more generous arrangement, and Touart acknowledged he had underestimated the power of public perception.

The county conducted a national search that winnowed 38 applications to six finalists. It was the closest thing to an orderly process that followed—until now.

Bob McLaughlin: The One Legitimate Non-Renewal (2008–2010)

The commission hired internal candidate Bob McLaughlin permanently on February 7, 2008, at $145,000 annually. He had served as interim since Touart’s departure and brought a career built on public works and 23 years with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He was, by most accounts, a calm, technocratic presence after Touart’s highly political style.

• What happened next is actually the model the commission should study—not for how it ended, but for how it was handled. When commissioners grew dissatisfied with McLaughlin’s performance by late 2009, they didn’t manufacture a crisis or orchestrate a mid-contract firing. On December 17, 2009, they voted 4–1 not to renew his contract, allowing it to expire on its terms on February 6, 2010. Commissioner Grover Robinson made the motion; Commissioner Marie Young was the lone dissent.

McLaughlin issued a statement, pledged to do his job through his final day, and left without drama. It was, in the full context of what has surrounded the administrator’s office, the county’s most professional separation of the modern era. Messy in outcome, clean in process.

Randy Oliver: Fired to Make Room for Touart’s Return (2010–2012)

Commissioners hired Randy Oliver as an outsider reform candidate in 2010—someone with engineering and accounting credentials who, as I wrote at the time, was a “professional administrator, not a fishing, hunting or golfing buddy of the developers and county vendors.” He was well-suited to the county’s post-BP oil disaster, post-recession belt-tightening, and was exactly what the board said it wanted.

He lasted two years. On October 18, 2012, with roughly a year still left on his contract, the commission voted 3–2 to fire him. Commissioners Gene Valentino, Wilson Robertson, and Kevin White voted yes; Robinson and Marie Young voted no.

The reason wasn’t performance in any conventional sense. Valentino and Robertson wanted Touart back. Within weeks of Oliver’s firing, the commission installed Touart as interim administrator again—confirming that Oliver had been pushed out not because of what he’d done wrong, but because of who the majority wanted instead.

Oliver’s removal was a political decision dressed up as a performance review. The county’s institutional credibility paid the price.

George Touart, Act II: Return, Resistance, and Death (2012–2014)

Touart returned as interim county administrator on December 1, 2012, riding the support of Valentino and Robertson. He immediately became the center of another political fight—whether he should be allowed to compete for the permanent job again.

• During his second stint, he shepherded the transition of the Escambia County Jail from the Sheriff to county control, moved the West Florida Public Library System under county management, pushed through a four-cent local option gas tax for public transportation, and secured a three-percent across-the-board employee pay raise. Supporters pointed to those as proof the comeback had been worthwhile.

But newer commissioners Steven Barry and Lumon May, elected in 2012 on a mandate for change, were done with the Touart era. On December 5, 2013, the commission voted 3–2 to remove him from the candidate pool for the permanent position and restrict his authority as interim.

Behind all of it, Touart had been battling cancer. He went on sick leave December 26, 2013, announced his retirement effective February 3, 2014, and died at home on January 24, 2014, at age 65, before he could see that date. It was a complicated legacy—genuine administrative skill and post-Ivan competence shadowed throughout by ethics controversies and bare-knuckle politics.

Jack Brown: The Stable Interlude That Ended Too Soon (2014–2019)

The commission finally broke the cycle—temporarily—when it hired Jack Brown in June 2014. Brown came from Taylor County, had a military background, and brought none of Escambia’s factional baggage. By early 2017, he was entering his fourth year, making him the longest-serving administrator since Touart’s original run.

Brown was methodical and planning-oriented. He briefed the county and commission on hundreds of millions in infrastructure needs, navigated BP recovery funds, and managed the organization without a single triggering scandal.

Then, in October 2018, he told commissioners he needed to retire to care for his wife, who was dealing with serious health issues. His last day was February 4, 2019. It wasn’t a firing, but the effect was the same: sudden vacancy, interim leadership, national search, reset.

The county tapped Amy Lovoy, then Matt Coughlin, as successive interims while it searched for a replacement. Both later left for positions with the City of Pensacola.

Janice Gilley: Reform, Friction, and Firing (2019–2021)

In spring 2019, the commission hired Janice Gilley—a Pensacola-area insider with Tallahassee connections, a background in the Jeb Bush administration, and experience working for state legislators. She was the first woman to hold the administrator’s job, and she came in with an explicit mandate to modernize operations.

Hurricane Sally, COVID-19, jail issues, and transit problems crowded her tenure. By spring 2021, the Amalgamated Transit Union had issued a formal vote of no confidence, citing deteriorating ECAT service and a wage freeze since 2018. On June 17, 2021—about two years into a three-year contract—the commission voted 4–1 to terminate her immediately. Commissioners Barry, Bergosh, Bender, and May voted yes. On a second 4–1 vote, the commission named Roads and Bridges director and deputy administrator Wes Moreno as acting administrator.

Gilley never put togerther an annual budget to the county commission. She came on board when the FY2020 was essentially completed. Clerk Pam Childers’ staff did the FY 2021 budget. When Gilley left in June 2021, she left the county without a  FY 2022 budget, forcing the commissioners and staff to scramble.

Wes Moreno and the Chance to Finally Do This Right

The extension the commission is about to approve is, in the context of everything above, a genuinely significant departure from pattern.