Back Story: Text messages obtained by Inweekly reveal Escambia County Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger and her aide, Melanie Luna, mocked the West Florida Public Library Board of Governance’s top choice for library director while coordinating with County Administrator Wes Moreno to install their preferred candidate.
- In one exchange, Luna relayed that Vinson “took OFF her shoes during the interview” and “bombed it completely.” Hofberger replied, “Shoeless librarian….I can see the memes.”
The Board of County Commissioners voted 4–1 in March to uphold Bell-Rivera’s appointment. Human Resources Director Nikki Powell also reportedly disparaged Vinson, telling Luna that she had “ZERO managerial experience.”
Follow-up
Inweekly also discovered that the text messages did not include a lengthy exchange with Councilmember Jennifer Brahier, which violates Florida’s public records law unless the county can provide a written explanation of the exemption.
- I requested the records or the written explanation by 5 p.m. Tuesday, April 28.
This is how it unfolded.
The Email Chain
On Apr 28, 2026, at 12:01 p.m., Elizabeth Kissel, the county’s Governmental Liaison, wrote:
Rick,
You were correct! When Commissioners Hofberger texts got sent to us they would not load so they ended up inadvertently being missed. Attached are her text messages as requested.
I apologize for the oversite!
Thank you,
Liz
Elizabeth Kissel
Governmental Liaison
Escambia County
To Support Her Statement, Kissel Shared:
To Support Her Statement, Pardue Shared:
To: Misty L. Pardue
Subject: PRR Personal Texts HOFBERGER
Note: Attached were images of the texts I received on April 27 and posted yesterday. Also attached were 15 files that didn’t open.
Timeline Mysteries
Mystery 1: Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger’s aide, Melanie Luna, sent the text messages to Pardue on March 16 —eight days before I made my record request.
Mystery 2: The records I received on April 27 (42 days after Luna sent them to Pardue) were the files that Pardue opened on March 16. Why wasn’t I given at least those records on March 24 when I made my request?
Mystery 3: Pardue states Luna “was going to work on it on her end.” If I hadn’t known records were missing and wrote about them, would Luna and Hofberger have ever followed up?
Mystery 4: Are Hofberger and Luna hiding other records? The county below says the District 4 Office is committed to transparency in government.
Brahier Text Exchange
The records that I finally received on Tuesday afternoon agree with what I reported. The files were jumbled in the PDF but I got them in the correct order (click on to enlarge):
Further Clarification from Escambia County
From: Kaycee M. Lagarde
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL]Re: PRR 2026-793 and PRR 2026-74
Date: April 28, 2026 at 4:04:55 PM CDT
To: Elizabeth Kissel, Rick Outzen
Cc: Alison A. Rogers
Rick,
I wanted to provide some additional clarification about your public records request.
All responsive records were provided to staff by the District 4 Commissioner’s Office as requested, including the text messages between Commissioner Hofberger and Councilwoman Brahier.
At some point in the process, staff inadvertently omitted some of the text messages in error. As soon as this error was brought to our attention, the records were promptly provided to you.
The District 4 Office is committed to transparency in government, as is all of Escambia County. Again, I’d like to emphasize that all responsive records were readily provided to staff by the District 4 Commissioner’s Office, in compliance with Florida’s Public Records Act, Chapter 119.
Please let me know if I can further assist.
Thank you,
Kaycee Lagarde
Director of Communications and Public Information
Escambia County Board of County Commissioners
Hey Rick, we’ve squabble before, but if you are following up any more on the issue of PRR’s in Escambia County, I have a related nugget you may or may not care to look into.
For many months prior to the interviews I and others had been hearing that Christal Bell-Rivera was telling lots of people that no matter what the Library Board recommended she was going to be appointed (by Wes Moreno). The Library Board’s initial discussion about Bell-Rivera’s application (with her present in the room) was pretty bad. I recall one board member saying something like, “Not what we’re looking for.” For her part, HR Director Nikki Powell never explained why “she” had found Bell-Rivera to be “Qualified And Recommended” notwithstanding that Bell-Rivera met none of the minimum requirements described in the job notice. I bet the internal HR records would be very interesting. Powell did describe being at odds with her staff that I assume had done the actual assessments of the 21 candidates. I suspect the staff played it straight but were overridden by Powell acting on behalf of Moreno working to give the job to Bell-Rivera. After the Zoom interviews, the Library Board voted to interview in-person the two top candidates but County Administrator Moreno (not present) then directed that the top four be interviewed keeping Bell-Rivera (rated #4 of 4) in the game. Later, I was one of only four or five “citizens” present for all four of the in-person interviews. Knowing that the process had very obviously corrupted, before the in-person interviews were held I had written “Chairwoman” Hofberger alerting her and advising that she should have someone she trusted present for all four interviews. I made that case that if Moreno overrode the Library Board there would be lots of blowback. She’s the BCC Chair so the “buck” stops with her on this issue. (At the time of my e-mail to Hofberger, I did yet not know that Hofberger and Luna were actively working “for” Bell-Rivera. I also did not know of the many close personal ties between Luna and the Rivera’s. I also had not yet been told that Luna has discussed running for the District 3 seat in 2028 with Ronnie Rivera possibly running her campaign.) I was then very surprised that Luna only showed up for Bell-Rivera’s interview. I payed close attention for all four in-person interviews, took very detailed often near-verbatim notes and ranked the candidates in the in-person interview the same as the Library Board had done in the prior Zoom interviews with Bradley Vinson far and away #1 with no one close and Bell-Rivera very clearly #4. Bell-Rivera’s answers to questions (that she was given in advance) were read from a long-winded prepared scripted and included big words she struggled to pronounce. (The county did create an audio recording of the in-person interview sessions.) When the Library Board later met to discuss the in-person interviews, with Bell-Rivera having to be asked to leave, one board member began by saying that she was very disappointing “in-person.” It was very obvious that Bell-Rivera was far, far out of her depth. One board member emphasized that being the Library Director was not a starter position. Vinson was cool, calm, collected and masterfully displayed a total command of the issues. It wasn’t even a close call. Importantly, Vinson did the best job responding to some very serious concerns about the current state of the library system raised by Assistant County Administrator Wes Hall. Vinson and Hall (who would oversee Vinson on a day-to-day basis) seemed very in-sync. Given the power to speak freely, I believe Mr. Hall would have ranked Vinson #1 of 4.