Library Governance:
Library Board of Governance Problem Won’t Go Away
County Administrator Wes Moreno has called the board an advisory committee since last year. The county’s own 2022 amendment says otherwise. Why hasn’t county staff shown it to the public?
- Since he named Christal Bell-Rivera the West Florida Public Libraries’ interim director in August 2025, County Administrator Wes Moreno has misled the public and the county commissioners into believing the Library Board of Governance (BOG) is merely an advisory committee, despite the board’s name.
The Advisory Claim
Moreno first tried to convince the BOG members. Three months after naming Bell-Rivera, the county administrator met with the BOG on Oct. 27, 2025. He said, “My understanding is that the Board of Governors is an advisory committee to the county, to the Board of County Commissioners.”
- Board member Lori NeSmith pushed back, asking him to read the resolution, interlocal agreement and bylaws.
At that meeting, Moreno backed off his position. He said, “I’m not looking to be combative. We can be collaborative. I think we can all win here. That’s the goal. I’m not coming in here saying it’s my way or the county’s way or no way, but at the same time, I need to look from you guys from the board to have that same perspective and let’s come together and let’s work together, not like this, not like this. And I think we can all be successful.”
His spirit of collaboration lasted four days.
- NeSmith removed. On Oct. 31, Moreno called Mayor D.C. Reeves and asked that he remove NeSmith from the board. The mayor did so based solely on Moreno’s request, without contacting NeSmith.
Listen to the meeting:
The Advisory Narrative Returns
In February, the BOG interviewed the finalists for library director and recommended two candidates, not Bell-Rivera. Moreno still chose Bell-Rivera. He and his staff, with the help of Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger and her former aide, began a smear campaign against the BOG’s top recommendation.
- Public records have since debunked their allegations. See records.
That’s when Moreno resurrected the notion that the Library Board of Governance was merely an advisory committee and that he controlled the library system.
- He refused to bring the five people who had applied for the county’s two BOG vacancies to the commissioners.
- He canceled the BOG meetings from May to September.
On May 7, he called the BOG an “outside advisory board.”
- Two weeks later, the commissioners gave him a two-year extension of his contract, making him the highest-paid county administrator through Dec. 31, 2027.
During the second budget hearing last month, Commissioners Steve Stroberger and Steven Barry incorrectly said the BOG was an advisory board.
The 2022 Amendment
But new documents have surfaced that show the advisory narrative is false.
- The minutes of the Board of County Commissioners’ meeting on June 16, 2022, show that Barry made a motion to approve an Amendment to the Interlocal Agreement between Escambia County and the City of Pensacola, relating to the West Florida Public Library System. The motion passed unanimously. See 20220616 Amendment Vote.
What is in the Amendment?
It cleared up concerns Commissioner Barry had about the allocation of library funds:
- The county keeps up to 5%. Section 4.1 says all library funding is allocated annually in an amount equal to what the countywide MSTU assessment for library services collects. The county may retain up to 5% of that funding as reimbursement for administrative costs.
- The city gets 10% of its own MSTU collections, starting in 2023. Under Section 4.7, beginning Jan. 1, 2023, the county remits to the city each year 10% of the total MSTU collected inside the city limits for library services.
- The city may spend that money only on capital improvements and major upgrades to the library facilities within the city that the agreement lists.
- Unspent funds go back to the county at the end of each fiscal year (Oct. 1 to Sept. 30).
- The one exception is when the county administrator and the city administrator mutually agree that planned capital work requires saving the money for the next fiscal year.
BOG Power
The amendment stated that the county could add more branches at its discretion. However, “any discontinuance in the operation and funding of any of the library system’s facilities or consolidation of library system assets into the remaining library system facilities must be approved by the West Florida Public Library Board of Governance.” Read end of Section 3 of 2022 Amendment to Interlocal WFPL copy
The county administrator isn’t mentioned, and clearly the BOG is more than advisory. Otherwise, power over the operation and funding would have been given to the county administrator or the commission. The BOG represents the City and County’s interest in having a strong library system.
Can’t Deny He Didn’t Know: Moreno was the county administrator in June 2022, and the minutes list him as attending the meeting. The document is signed by Commission Chair Jeff Bergosh and Assistant City Attorney Heather Lindsay on behalf of Mayor Grover Robinson. County Clerk Pam Childers attested the document, and it was stamped with the county seal.
Bylaws Updated
At the commissioners’ Oct. 1 board meeting, the BOG bylaws were brought up. Moreno mischaracterized what the bylaws say about hiring the library director. At an earlier meeting, he claimed no knowledge of the BOG bylaws, saying he was working in the road department when the 2013 resolution was passed. However, the bylaws were rewritten while he was county administrator.
- The BOG rewrote its bylaws and approved them on March 21, 2024. Assistant County Attorney Christopher R. Shaffer approved them as to form and legal sufficiency on April 1, 2024. The bylaws don’t require approval of the county administrator or the commissioners, only that they “delivered to the County Administrator or designee via the Library Director/Library Administrator within 30 days of adoption by the BOG.
The county administrator never asked the BOG or the County Attorney for the latest version of the bylaws before he started his “hiring process.”
On Oct. 1, 2026, Moreno said, “When the vacancy came up, I was a little surprised to hear from the controversy that began about who was going to be selected as library director, because I’m used to putting the job description together, putting it out, holding the interviews and hiring directors or hiring deputy directors the way we do it throughout all the rest of Escambia County.”
- Had he read the amended bylaws or done any research on the BOG, he wouldn’t have been surprised.
What the bylaws actually say:
- Meetings: “The BOG shall meet monthly.” Moreno didn’t have the authority to prohibit the BOG from meeting.
- Job description: “The BOG shall adopt a position description for the Library Director/Library Administrator.” Not the county administrator.
- Hiring: “The WFPL BOG shall recommend to the County Administrator or designee a Library Director to serve as the single administrative head of the library. The Library Director shall have completed a library education program accredited by the American Library Association and shall have had at least two years of full-time paid professional experience, after completing the library education program, in a public library that is open to the public for a minimum of 40 hours per week. The selection shall be made upon the basis of the candidate’s training and proficiency in the science of library operations.”
Bell-Rivera did not meet these requirements, but Moreno changed the job description so she would appear qualified.
From the very beginning, the hiring of the new library director has been a tainted process. Sadly, three commissioners—Barry, Hofberger, and Stroberger—are willing to look the other way and cover up Moreno’s mismanagement.
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Yesterday, a city hall official told me the Library MSTU raked in $20 million. I think its much less. On September 24th the BOCC adopted an annual FY26/27 budget providing for a Library Fund with $11.8 Million, far up from $6.8 Million in FY22/23. Of the $11.8 Million, what percentage is paid by city property owners? On March 23rd Library Board Chairman Dr. Wall asked Library Director Bell-Rivera but she didn’t know. Also, if the BOCC is not allowing the Library Board to meet, and the “buck” stops with the BOCC in general and Chairwoman Hofberger in specific, then why is the special tax being imposed? Who has standing to see the BOCC? Perhaps the county should fund the Library using General Fund revenues. Abolish the Library MSTU property tax. The October 1st meeting was a joke. Commissioners made “ridiculous” comments to include Commissioner Stoberger saying of Library Board appointments made by the BOCC, “Do we appoint them?” Duh. I don’t recall hearing any commissioner directly ask Moreno to cite “his” alleged authority for interfering in the operation of the Library. I also don’t understand why any commissioner would think the Library Board cannot meet with three of five members, as it did in March and again in April. That said, I made two points about board membership. First, I pointed out that Florida Attorney General Opinion 2010-51 appears to make the case that Liza Campbell and John Bullock remain members of the Library Board. Their terms of office ended at the end of February but the BOCC has failed to appoint their replacements. As I spoke, County Attorney Rogers’ head was nodding up and down so she knows. Second, I also pointed out that the county’s policy manual requires that external appointments to boards created by the BOCC, such as the Library Board, must be confirmed by the BOCC. Again, Rogers’ head was bobbing up and down on this point as I spoke. The BOCC confirmed prior city appointees to the Library Board. I cannot find any evidence that the BOCC has ever confirmed Mayor Reeves appointment of Rachel Hendrix to the Library Board. So, if Hendrix is “not yet” a member of the Library Board, then the Library Budget was “not” approved on March 23rd. Legally, I think the current Library Board membership is Blaine Wall, Joyce Hopkins, Liza Campbell and John Bullock.
From the item’s “Background Summary” provided on the agenda:
“An lnterlocal Agreement was approved by the Board on July 11, 2013 (signed July 19, 2013), to establish the conditions, extent, and mechanism by which the services would be provided in the service areas of the West Florida Public Library System.”
The interlocal, and not the resolution, is the thing. This is of utmost importance for the exact reason the County Attorney intentionally distracted people with the resolution: to pretend the resolution is the document that gives birth to the WFPLBG vests more control within the County than it actually has–more than the County even *wanted* to assume back then.
To quote Commissioner Wilson Robertson, “I’m trying to get us out of this,” and the context he was referring to was how much responsibility the EBCC was going to hold at the end of the day in terms of policy and day-to-day functionality. George Touart assured the commissioners that the *policy* wouldn’t be theirs at all to set, and that as far as administration went, he was going to take a back seat entirely to his expectation that the Library Director would manifest the wishes of the Library Board of Governance, unless he felt he had to jump in on something “crazy.”
I guess in the Kafka kangaroo carnival of administration and the attorney’s office handling of this, that something “crazy” was hiring a library director who actually met the qualifications set by the Governance Board.
The recent debacles aside, the whole idea–out of the gate, as the County and the City envisioned it, as Touart articulated it, and as the EBCC and Council ratified it–was to create a Library Board of Governance whose provenance was *both* the City and the County, and whose very purpose was to sit *apart* from political nonsense, set policy, and oversee the library system from an objective view of highest standards and best practices.
A correction and apology: I shouldn’t have assumed that Commissioner Barry did in fact vote for the interlocal in July 2013, after viewing his positive remarks during the resolution discussion that had taken place in January of that year. He did in fact vote against it (4-1), and was clear it was because of a 1.4 M funding “discrepancy” that, according to Chairman Valentino, was indeed a valid concern.
But one that, as Valentino stated, the EBCC as a whole was going to set aside in order to move the library forward in a “unified” fashion–between the City and the County. Those two legislative bodies *together* enshrined into interlocal law the excellent, and moreover crucial, principles that have been guiding the library system into more and more amazing results, year after year. To emphasize, those two legislative bodies created a third, distinct legislative body–the West Florida Public Libraries Board of Governance–that was *autonomous*, and did not answer to either of the bodies that created it. As Mr. Touart underlined in his remarks, that arrangement was the very best way to keep our libraries as free as possible from politics, from heavy-handed power brokering, and from bitter social discord.
Sadly, we are experiencing the great misfortune right now of seeing just how right he was, watching our library system being attacked in the service of power mongering and culture wars, with an apparent end goal of destroying the Board that has overseen the greatest growth and impact Escambia and Pensacola public libraries have ever experienced. If that happens, the loss of the Library Board of Governance will certainly herald one of the most dangerous turns in our local culture wars yet.
And if that “solution” comes to pass, no one should be surprised that, without the Governance Board’s oversight and protection, antagonists will be emboldened and encouraged to wage a war of attrition against our public libraries, their employees, their holdings, and their learners. The far-reaching consequences of such a reckless and ill-considered onslaught on knowledge, education, freedom of speech, and public trust would be devastating–to both our County and our City–for generations to come.