Twenty months after promising to use a federal housing grant to help up to 50 low-to-moderate income homeowners repair Hurricane Sally damage, the City of Pensacola has not taken a single application, repaired a single home, or even submitted the required implementation plan to begin the program.
Now, Mayor D.C. Reeves wanted to move $2.3 million of that $5.8 million in federal disaster relief funding to port infrastructure repairs instead—sparking an emotional debate at last Thursday’s city council meeting over broken promises, administrative failures, and what council members called a “bait and switch.”
“It’s About Time We Got This Money”
In May 2024, the council unanimously approved accepting the Florida Commerce Community Development Block Grant award specifically designated for housing rehabilitation after Hurricane Sally. Mayor D.C. Reeves called it at the time a “huge, huge win” to help people “in our most vulnerable state.”
- Councilman Charles Bare, reflecting on his own comments from that meeting, noted: “I said, ‘It’s about time we got this money. Government works slowly. This has been a need throughout our city and county. This is something we definitely need. The faster we get rolled out, the better. I know there are people who are still suffering from Sally.’ That was a little premature, I think.”
Then-interim housing director Meredith Reeves told council that applications would likely begin in late August or September 2024. She encouraged people to call the department to get on the waiting list.
- Twenty months later: nothing.
What Went Wrong
Deputy Administrator Amy Miller laid out the cascade of failures during Thursday’s meeting.
“Unfortunately, we had some significant staff turnover in our housing department during that period of time, and the subject matter expert that we had who was familiar with this program and familiar with implementing these kinds of funds left the city of Pensacola before that plan was ever submitted and ever approved by CDBG and ever approved by HUD,” Miller explained. “So we realistically never got off first base.”
According to the grant contract, within 30 days of execution, the city needed to provide both a project budget and activity work plan with a timeline for implementation. This was never done.
“We started to try to regroup,” Miller continued. “We started to look at, do we have other subject matter expertise in our housing department that can handle this program? Do we have the capacity? Do we have enough staff in our housing department to handle this program? And in the process of kind of trying to regroup, refigure out how we could deliver this program to the community, our housing director took a job out of state and left.”
- At that point, Miller said, “We realistically did not have the staff expertise or the staff capacity to move this program forward.”
Plan B: Florida Commerce and HUD eventually contacted the city expressing “serious doubts” about meeting the timeline. The recent revelation that no extensions would be granted compounded the problem, leading to the city’s decision to either return the money to the federal government or reallocate it to other approved Hurricane Sally disaster recovery projects.
“A Huge Failure on Our Part”
Councilman Bare didn’t mince words about the failure.
- “After making no attempt to do so, we are now using these funds for another purpose,” Bare said. “While it is legal, it isn’t what’s best for our citizens. I will not be supporting this bait and switch. Yet again, I’m embarrassed to be a council member who voted to help the citizens of our city only to see the city fail to follow through on its commitment and reroute these funds to another location.”
He continued, “It’s actions like these that make people question our spending decisions and need for their valuable tax dollars. While these weren’t property tax dollars, they were revenue provided to the city for a specific purpose, and our failure to use them for that purpose has encouraged our constituents to doubt our ability to expend resources on their behalf.”
- Unnecessary Delays? Bare noted that the city was aware of the contract long before it came to council in May 2024—the attorney’s final review was completed in January 2024. “In other words, a significant amount of time passed before it ever came to council, when the city had the ability to review, comprehend, and plan for the rollout of this program.”
He also questioned why, when staff turnover created problems, the city didn’t hire a consultant. “I think the time to hire a consultant would have been when we were going through all the problems. When we were having these issues and we looked like we couldn’t do it, why would we not hire a consultant then?”
“We Don’t Know Anything”
Councilwoman Jennifer Brahier expressed deep frustration with being kept in the dark.
“We had a conversation this week, never before, never before,” Brahier said. “We were on the bandwagon with a project that we thought was happening, and so it’s not fair, honestly, to come forward at this point and say, ‘It’s done. We’ve sent in the paperwork. We’ve said it’s done, and we’re just going to move on to other infrastructure and give us a line of why we should be okay with that.’ And I’m just not okay with this.”
- She didn’t hide her frustration. “Everyone comes up and talks about how council doesn’t follow through. Council doesn’t follow through. Well, how can we when we don’t even know? They think we know something. We don’t know anything.”
The Optics Problem
Brahier also raised concerns about public perception. She said, “I don’t know how you get away from the optics that the port is about now American Magic and a millionaires’ club.”
Port officials clarified that the infrastructure project—road and rail repairs damaged by Hurricane Sally—has nothing to do with American Magic. The project focuses on areas serving businesses like CMEX, Bayou Concrete, and Ready Mix USA in low-to-moderate income qualifying areas.
- “This has nothing to do with American Magic,” said Shep Thomas, Port Commercial Development Manager. “This is zero thing for American Magic.”
Port Project Compliance Manager Kevin Boyer added: “The American Magic was not a factoring element in this project and is not being focused at all in the project. It is all about the community aspect and the infrastructure for the working class.”
- But Brahier wasn’t backing down on the perception issue: “I’m talking about optics. And that is the thing that we can’t blame the citizens and put it off on them that they’ve got it wrong. They’re the ones who don’t understand when we continually are less than clear with optics.”
The Pragmatist’s View
Councilman Jared Moore expressed disappointment but took a more pragmatic stance.
- “I certainly agree. I think it’s a sticky wicket. It’s disappointing. I don’t think anybody would disagree. There certainly could be a lot of housing uses there. It would have been very, very helpful,” Moore said. “Having been there and when we had that staffing turnover, I get also that’s a real hardship and it was sudden in my experience.”
Moore said he didn’t believe there was “malicious intent” to reroute the dollars strategically, calling it “a very difficult situation.”
- “There was something said here about these dollars are to be used for the citizens for the benefit of the people that live here and certainly it’s of no benefit if we just return it to sender,” he said. “I would have a real hard time just sending $5.8 million back and not finding some way to use them here in the community.”
What Could Have Been
According to the original contract, eligible activities included:
– Single family housing rehabilitation and repair
– Manufactured housing repair and replacement
– Housing construction
– Hazard mitigation and elevation
– Demolition and clearance
– Temporary relocation
– Title clearance services to help residents achieve clear title—”an ongoing issue in the city of Pensacola,” according to Bare
“That’s a lot of possibilities for our residents, and definitely some opportunities not offered by other funding mechanisms,” Bare said. “I can guarantee you that the money we put out there for housing for CRA does not address all of those issues. This is a unique fund.”
Councilman Delarian Wiggins agreed: “This is a lot of money that could have been used, especially in my district. I know I have a couple of houses that could have benefited from roof repair or whatever the money could be used for. And so it’s disheartening that we got to this point.”
The Mayor’s Defense
Mayor Reeves pushed back on suggestions that the administration was “flippantly” making changes or preferred infrastructure over housing.
- “The idea that we are flippantly making this change, and again, I know we’ve discussed this, but that we have flippantly made a change just on our own course, on our own time, it’s certainly not the case,” Reeves said. “This is an indication from Florida Commerce with the activity and the nature of trying to get these dollars deployed in other hurricane disaster relief around the state and the change of the deadline.”
Reeves emphasized that the city has successfully managed other disaster recovery projects, including Hollis T. Williams and Fricker Center improvements.
He also noted that the city approved $56 million in total HUD CDBG disaster recovery money with “different disaster recovery opportunities and options.”
- “I just want to defend our staff and the fact that we would not be bringing this forward to you as if we didn’t ask or under the presumption that has been surmised here, that we quickly want to change into something else,” Reeves said. “That’s absolutely not the case.”
Council President Allison Patton expressed deep disappointment but took a nuanced position.
- “I, too, am extremely disappointed finding ourselves sort of at the 11th hour, finding out that this funding, which we all thought was being worked on and was going to be used for the rehabilitation of lower moderate-income families and folks to repair their Hurricane Sally damage,” Patton said.
She said she hoped for periodic reports on grant progress in the future and felt the city should have partnered with the county when it became clear the city lacked capacity.
However, Patton said she’d looked into the possibility of still using some funds for housing and found it would be “very difficult now.” The county has its own pressing deadlines, including an ECAS station that must be built by the deadline. An environmental study of the city would take four to five months.
- “I still don’t think we’re going to spend $5.8 million, even with maximum effort,” Patton said. “I’d rather maybe start by reallocating some of the funds to a project that is an eligible project and then see what we can do about the rest of it.”
No Go
In a close vote, the council voted 4-3 not to approve the transfer of the home repair grant funds to the port project. Council members Charles Bare, Jennifer Brahier, Allison Patton and Delarian Wiggins were on the winning side.