The Escambia Children’s Trust has received a legal opinion from the Florida Attorney General’s office stating that the Trust cannot give the City of Pensacola the funds to buy Lakeview Center’s Morris Eaddy Activity Center. The Trust also cannot buy and donate the building to the City. Read AG Opinion.
The opinion is a setback for Mayor D.C. Reeves who announced in June that he wanted the Trust to help the City buy the property and create a chidlren’s resource center that would house Parks & Rec, Trust staff, Community Health Northwest Florida’s pedatrics and mental health service provided by Lakeview.
Seconding Joanne’s thanks for your continued emphasis on this chaos Rick. It’s a shame that Mayor Reeves had that okay’d by staff to begin with, only to be bait and switched by their confusion. Meredith Bush is about the best thing the Trust has going for it, if they would only utilize her properly and vet things to begin with. It was maddening watching the same Board members who are constantly pushing to throw money around in the most reckless fashion suddenly get to wondering about whether the City purchasing the building was on the up and up–and also some of the same members that were pushing for brick and mortar to private entities previously, until Commissioner May managed to put the firm stop to that particular turn of nonsense.
Thankfully Ms. Bush recognized the need for an AG opinion on it–clearing through at least some of the special interest and backdooring among a number of those Board members–and Commissioner May asked that the inquiry include the specific language about a government entity purchasing a building when making the motion. As a reminder, the previous executive director’s dubious advice was the typical scrambling out of both side of her mouth: the City’s not a sole source, pity because we love us some sole source, the “County” could though, and probably Century. It made no sense at all.
The AG’s ruling was something of a coin toss, however, as so often with sloppy Florida statute, so Ms. Bush nailed it with her concern about the ambiguity. It is inexplicable to me why some entities and government-tied agencies are being defined sole source while others aren’t, with much of the argument on who is and who isn’t being left to politics. And wouldn’t the powers that be who are driving this train wreck behind the scenes just LOVE to cherry pick the sole source that gets a building, or squander another 14M in taxpayer money directly under the auspices of the Trust for it. Just think how much exercise equipment and square footage Trust staff could grab up for their office space. Whatever the case, watch for it–somebody’s going to show up soon with a clever idea for a building off that ruling, if the new executive director doesn’t already have her marching orders on it from the people who walked the halls for her. Commissioner May ought to just ask for an AG opinion on every shady thing some of his peers get up to from here on out. That would be one way to slow down the river of resources getting channeled to monied interest.
Thank you for your continued reporting on the ECT Rick. I think the AG’s ruling is very important regarding the Trust. I hope the State’s Attorney is paying attention. I am very concerned with the newly appointed executive director’s demand for more money to accept the position. If I remember correctly, if the ECT doesn’t approve the E.D.’s demand, it is a “deal breaker”. I hope this scenario was not designed to be a bait and switch…