By Jeremy Morrison
A week after the first meeting, mayor-elect D.C. Reeves’ mayoral transition team members are beginning to dig into their individual focus areas. So far, public meetings are on the books for three different areas of focus.
According to Christian Wagley, who is assessing environmental matters as they pertain to the city, these individual meetings represent team members’ chance to gather public input. He’s intent on hosting more than a few.
“My own preference is to do a lot of public meetings and public input,” Wagley said, stressing that his research would go beyond one-on-ones with city staff. “I don’t have any intent in going off in isolation and just having private meetings.”
A meeting for the environmental focus area has been scheduled for Thursday, a day following the larger transition team’s second meeting. In addition to allowing for public participation, the meeting will also be the first opportunity for Wagley to speak with his teammate, Kelly Hagen; under Florida’s Sunshine Law, team members may not discuss business outside of a public meeting.
“It’s going to be the first chance Kelly and I get to sit down,” Wagley said, explaining that the two will be able to map out their course forward in the process.
These smaller, focus areas meetings, Wagley said, are necessary to provide a forum to get into the specifics of a particular topic, as opposed to the larger group meetings where varied issues will be discussed.
“We can’t that in those meetings with 25 people, impossible,” he said. “It just can’t happen, just do the math.”
Wagley also served on Mayor Grover Robinson’s transition team four years ago and said he’s familiar with some of the territory that will be covered and has some initial thoughts. For instance, a renewable energy goal — 30 percent by 2030 — Robinson enacted may need to be reassessed and revised.
“It may be time to look to accelerate that.”
In addition to the environmental public input session —at Pensacola City Hall at 1 p.m. on Sept. 29 — two other transition team focus area meetings are also scheduled. The focus area team assessing measurable achievement will host a public input session on Sept. 28 at 1 p.m. at city hall. Then on Oct. 6, the focus area of public safety is hosting a session at 5:30 p.m. at the Studer Community Institute.
— for more about mayor-elect D.C. Reeves transition team, check out the next issue of Inweekly