Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward does not want the Escambia Board of County Commissioners to discuss with the Pensacola City Council any possible resolution regarding local option gas at their joint meeting next week.
Pay close attention to how the dispute and appeal have played out:
City Attorney Lysia Bowling filed the appeal over the city’s allocation of the tax five months ago.
The County Commissioners asked for a joint meeting in August to try and resolve the allocation issue, since Mayor Hayward and CFO Dick Barker refused to give the council the interlocal agreements that the commissioners passed in July.
Before the joint meeting could be scheduled, Mayor Hayward announced it would be held in January 2017. Then he hired an outside law firm to handle the appeal.
Since then, the governor’s office has been in no hurry to hear the appeal and has shown no appetite for getting involved in a dispute between Hayward and the BCC. Eventually it may be handed off to an administrative law judge.
Meanwhile, all gas tax funds are placed in escrow, and Mayor Hayward has borrowed $15 million to pave city streets.
While the council and county have tried to hammer out the joint meeting’s agenda, City Administrator Eric Olson  intervened last night and told County Administrator that the local option gas tax will not be discussed on the advice of counsel.
Stay tuned.
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Email trail:
From: Don Kraher [mailto:DKraher@cityofpensacola.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2017 12:11 PM
To: Angela D. Crawley; Jack R. Brown
Subject: Joint Meeting
Jack (Angela)
Would you like to get together to finalize the agenda for Posting. Not sure if you had a particular order of items or if you wanted that left up to me.
I was planning on adjusting the order slightly in the event that the meeting began to run and both bodies decided they wanted to stop and reconvene in a couple weeks to complete the list.
As a cursory matter, and I will be checking with our City Attorney, do you envision the County Attorney advising the Commissioners to refrain from a discussion of the Local Option Gas Tax?
Thank you in advance,
Don
Don Kraher
Council Executive
Office of City Council
City of Pensacola
From: Angela D. Crawley [mailto:adcrawle@co.escambia.fl.us]
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2017 2:35 PM
To: Don Kraher <DKraher@cityofpensacola.com>
Subject: RE: Joint Meeting
Don,
Jack is currently at an Incident Command meeting for IP’s explosion. Once he returns, I will ask him what order our Board would like the agenda to be.
We will be in touch!
Angela
From: Don Kraher [mailto:DKraher@cityofpensacola.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2017 10:06 AM
To: Angela D. Crawley; Jack R. Brown
Subject: RE: Joint Meeting
Jack & Angela
I have NO DOUBT that you all are busy right now. I have attached a ordering for the Joint Meeting for your consideration. Trying to get some of the more pressing issues at the beginning, just in case they need to stop and reconvene at a later date to complete the remainder.
Thank you for your consideration.
Don
Don Kraher
Council Executive
From: Jack R. Brown [mailto:jrbrown@co.escambia.fl.us]
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2017 11:11 AM
To: Don Kraher <DKraher@cityofpensacola.com>; Angela D. Crawley <adcrawle@co.escambia.fl.us>; Eric Olson <EOlson@cityofpensacola.com>
Subject: RE: Joint Meeting Agenda
Don,
I hope you are well. Our Board would very much appreciate if you would move up the following items to ensure there is an opportunity to discuss.
1. Pensacola Energy’s use of in-house plumbers & impact on local plumbing business, city-county one-stop shop for business permits & doing business jointly.
2. Local Option Gas Tax
3. Crime in City / County parks potential use and establishment of park rangers.
4. RESTORE/TRIUMPH
Thanks, Jack
Jack R. Brown
County Administrator
Escambia County
From: Eric Olson <eolson@cityofpensacola.com>
Date: January 25, 2017 at 5:38:10 PM CST
To: “Jack R. Brown” <jrbrown@co.escambia.fl.us>
Cc: “Angela D. Crawley” <adcrawle@co.escambia.fl.us>, Don Kraher <DKraher@cityofpensacola.com>
Subject: RE: Joint Meeting Agenda
Jack,
I just spoke with Don about the agenda and wanted to give you a heads up that on the advice of counsel the LOGT and Pensacola Energy items will not be on the agenda.
Please give me a call if you have questions.
r/ Eric