From John Peacock, Downtown Improvement Board member and former DIB chairman:
This November will mark the ninth anniversary of the successful vote to change our city charter. Our community overwhelmingly voted 55-45 percent to change the charter in 2009. The new charter allows us to effect change with our vote. We get to elect a mayor to lead our city over the next four years or more and have that individual be accountable to the citizens.
In order for the new system to be effective we must demand more from our elected officials. The days of electing someone based on name recognition, how long they served on a particular governmental body, or how much we like them should be over.
This isn’t an election for student body president. This is an election for the leader of our city. There is a clear distinction between leadership and management and our system requires strong, effective leadership.
Leaders craft futures, imagine possibilities outside of existing boxes, cause things to happen, however unlikely, and fight for them. Managers perform actions and have metrics to fulfill those future possibilities.
Our mayoral candidates should develop a platform, run on that platform, and if elected, implement that platform. The voters will then decide every four years if the mayor accomplished their objectives. Leadership is about accountability. It is impossible to hold an elected official accountable if they have never indicated what they intended to accomplish.
An objective of “working with city council and the citizens†should be a given. That is NOT a component of a well thought out platform. We wouldn’t elect a President or a Governor if they didn’t articulate their platform but instead prioritized simply working with the legislative branch!
We should expect more than from our government than basic services such as trash pickup, sidewalks, police and fire protection. Those are important but standard government tasks. While the mayor is ultimately accountable for those tasks, in reality city management and city staff take care of those daily functions.
If we are going to continue to progress as a city it will take a mayor with real leadership and vision, not just one with the ability to manage tasks. While it is true that all ideas don’t need to be generated from city hall, it seems unreasonable to elect a mayor without a specific platform of ideas.
Our community has plenty of real issues to tackle. We are one of the poorest counties in Florida. I submit it is because of a lack of planning/visioning from our elected officials. As a community we should have a clear vision of what we want the City of Pensacola/Escambia County to look like in five,10, 15 years.
The decisions we make now, whether it is dealing with beach traffic, the port, downtown parking, early childhood education, the fish hatchery, and Triumph/Restore funding, should all be done congruent to a long range vision plan. Our next Mayor should be able to clearly outline the city’s portion of that plan and work with the Board of County Commissioners to craft an overall community plan.
For that reason I wholeheartedly endorse Brian Spencer for Mayor of Pensacola. He is the only candidate with a deep level of both public and private experience, a real vision for the future of Pensacola, and the leadership skills to continue the momentum that Pensacola has recently experienced. His energy, integrity, and ability to get things done are incomparable to anyone else in the race.
I have met few individuals with the passion that Brian Spencer has to continue building Pensacola from the town with a lot of potential to the city where everyone wants to and can live, work and play. He will do more than just show up. He will lead the way. Now is the time for Brian Spencer to be Mayor of Pensacola.