Will Isern of the Pensacola News Journal reports today that City Administrator Eric Olson said at last week’s budget workshops that the City Council was to drop ‘Deepflex’ from its vocabulary. The promised 200 jobs at the Port of Pensacola aren’t coming.
While Inweekly and others have speculated that project wasn’t going to materialize due to the drop in crude oil prices, city officials have been silent about the future of the project that Mayor Ashton Hayward announced in June 2014. In fact, as of this morning, the City still listed the Offshore Inland/DeepFlex Production Facility on its website with a completion date of May 2016.
According to City Administrator’s updates on the city website, the last time Olson gave the Pensacola City Council a full update on DeepFlex was December 2015. The only other report to the council was in mid-August, and they were told the metal building had been enclosed by Port staff.
The public has the right to full disclosure on what has happened to this $52-million project. Citizens and media shouldn’t have to hear about its demise via an off-the-cuff remark at budget workshop. In the city manager-council form of government, the City Manager would have given a full report to city council and public. Olson or Mayor Hayward should have done the same.
The City’s ‘Transparent Pensacola’ was specifically designed to disseminate such information. The page was created in July 2015 with this mission:
Public trust is a critical dynamic of a world-class city. From day one of his administration, Mayor Hayward has made a firm commitment to making city government more open, accountable, and accessible to the residents of our great city. This page is designed to accomplish two critical elements:
transparency — access to information about what is really happening; and
accountability — ways to hold decision-makers and partners accountable for the decisions we make.
‘Transparent Pensacola’ currently gives details on Mayor Hayward’s position against a demolition moratorium; Doggy Dining; his legal battles over demolition ECUA wells, Pitt Slip lease appeal, and Local Option Gas Tax appeal; Top 8 City Salaries; Hawkshaw Redevelopment; VT-MAE status, and the mayor’s support for Gov. Rick Scott’s enterprise fund. In the past, the city has used to explain the mayor’s rejection of lease for UWF Center for Entrepreneurship at Maritime Park and his fight to keep the Bayview Park Cross.
The failure of ‘DeepFlex’ deserves more explanation, and we should be told the costs associated with its loss. It’s part of being “open, accountable, and accessible.”
The public cannot do as Mayor Hayward asks them to do– “hold decision-makers and partners accountable for the decisions we make”–without access to information.