The City of Pensacola has added information to the city website about proposed amendments to the City Charter, in an effort to help voters stay informed when considering the proposed amendments on the Nov. 8 ballot.
Voters who live within city limits will be asked to consider these proposed amendments to the City Charter during the Nov. 8, 2022 General Election.
In accordance with the Charter, a Charter Commission was formed which met and developed a list of proposed amendments. City Council then reviewed those proposals and developed five questions that will be on the ballot for voter consideration.
State law prohibits the City of Pensacola from taking a position in favor of or against the approval of the ballot questions. In order for voters to have appropriate and factual information through which to make informed decisions, the ballot questions have been added to the city website, along with the sections of the Charter which are proposed to be amended by each numbered question. Language proposed to be removed is indicated by strike through, and language proposed to be added is indicated by underline.
Nobody listened to poor CJ 13 years ago :( :( :(
So please commit senseless acts of electoral annihilation TODAY!!!
City of Pensacola voters, if you won’t do it for CJ, don’t you really owe it to yourselves?
If you can’t find it in your hearts to blow stuff up in the dark because a guy who couldn’t get anywhere in 2009 is still crying into his bellybutton–well, why not Just Vote NO On Everything Because You’re Really Really Mad??
THAT’LL teach em.
A totally inadequate response to a serious omission. Pray that all five amendments fail. In 2009, as this and all prior City Councils know because I told them, the 2009 City Council knew that the Charter Review Commission (CRC) led by Chairwoman Crystal Spencer
(operating in cahoots with John Peacock the same person working hand-in-glove with District 4 Commission candidate Myra Van Hoose to create a Strong Mayor-Weak Commission form of charter government) did “not” review the existing city charter that had worked well since 1931, did “not” review the operations of the city government to identify what was broken that needed fixing, did “not” conduct an independent legal review of its final proposal, did “not” draft a mandatory final report to explain its recommendations and did “not” hold a mandatory public meeting that had to be conducted after the CRC finalized its recommendations but before it submitted them to the City Council. The City Council knew everything done bad by Spencer and her gang because I told them. But no one on the City Council lifted a finger in defense of the people. They were all moral cowards. I was able to have one legal error corrected in 2014. Another remains uncorrected because only two members (Myers, Brahier) would vote in support of asking for an Attorney General Opinion to verify the truth. Fast forward to 2022 and the recent CRC process was a farce. The CRC submitted a so-called final report that did not explain any of its recommendations or describe what it considered but did not recommend and why. Putting aside all of the flaws with the recent CRC, the City Council should have held the vote on the amendments on a separate date so it could be conducted by mail using the vote-by-mail method. November 9 would have been fine. The City Council should also have sent to every city voter a mailer explaining in ENGLISH what was being recommended and why. The text should have been prepared by the CRC to minimize the political spin. As it is, I’m pretty sure that most City Council members do not fully understand the gravity of some of the proposed amendments such as making the City Attorney (normally a non-city resident) and the City Clerk (a non-city resident) like mini-mayors able to hire and fire people loyal only to them. I checked the links above. It links to the amended text. Few people “read” constitutional legalese and will know what is being proposed. Some stuff is just wrong. As example, the City Council that gave itself a massive pay raise in 2016 (after abolishing the citizens’ board that had long set its salary) now wants another $10,000. The City Council wants to use a formula that assumes that each of seven members represents the entire city just as state law expressly provides that all school board members represent the entire county. (Yes, it’s a law.) Obviously, each City Council member only represents one-seventh of the people called the “ideal district size” but it wants to be paid as if it represents the entire city like the mayor. Shame.
Thank you so much for posting this, Rick. Hopefully it’s not too little too late. CJ Lewis’s garbage rant the other day on the Charter commission really bothered me. One of those times I couldn’t tell whether he is misinformed, out of touch, grinding an axe, just pot stirring because he’s bored–or all four at once.
I’m also confused as to why Councilwoman Meyers is making a “just vote no” statement, as nearly all of the things that made their way to the ballot the way they did is off her recommendations for changes.
It’s an outright lie that the Charter committee brought nothing of any worth. Despite the committee getting stacked with Grover’s folks, and the constrained timeline–gee, wonder who effected that?–they brought forward MANY important initiatives.
Was it short of throwing out the strong mayor? Yes.
Did Council fail to reign in the strong mayor with the many important provisions that were brought? Absolutely, through a combination of the Strong Mayor shill/s that sit that dais along with council people who at times just seem to be taking the mayor’s manipulation and disinformation as truth.
The absolute *worst* lack of result, to my mind, is the Council people who–to what should be their everlasting shame (unless it gets rectified somehow)–voted against the provision to allow City staff terminated by the mayor’s office to have some recourse. Just because Mr. Lewis has been duped, or is politicking the devil’s advocate out of ennui, or is actively sewing disinformation, doesn’t mean all of us have lost our memory, common sense, and integrity. When Council defeated that initiative–led by the seeming strong mayor knob polishers making perverse votes against their own body’ efficacy–it was to the severe detriment of Council’s functionality; staff objectivity and effectiveness (not to mention morale); Council’s own public service; and thus the daily lives of the public they serve.
**To anyone who recognizes that the Pensacola Police Department is underfunded–guess what. David Alexander told members of the Charter Committee that the strong mayor having the Police Chief’s tenure at his disposal was one of the number one reasons the person in that position can’t effectively advocate for better resources.
When Council members argued against simply moving the raise structure onto the state model–again, that contributed largely to the cluster eff.
And on it goes down the line. Sitting over all of this is the (not really) mystifying votes of the Council members who defeated the ability to have their own darn attorney to consult, rather than being fed legal by the mayor’s office, with the optics of baby birds gaping at worms. Don Crahier has enough on his hands to try to offset the worst repercussions of this horrible charter model, let alone hammer out concise ballot language with the mayor’s legal. COUNCIL NEEDS THEIR OWN ATTORNEY–unless Council members want an easier go of it shilling for the strong mayor against Council’s best interests, and the best interest of their constituents, that is.
Why is this the business of a County resident in the unincorporated area? Because the dysfunction of the City under this authoritarian mayor model aided and abetted by lackeys on Council has really been spilling dysfunction out into County business during Grover’s tenure. Not to mention the horrible and futile war the Downtown/DIB powers who tend to lord it over the “strong” mayor have waged in their never ending political thirst for a consolidated charter, which would guarantee them even more special interest influence.
As confusing as some of the ballot is, County residents really hope that City residents will use this resource to take the time to understand what each question is really asking, and vote according to their common sense and experience. Rather than giving in to this populist and radical urging to just throw hands up in the air and vote no on everything, which is the sort of impulse that is dragging and dumbing down political discourse in this country on the daily.