Local Government
Two weeks ago, the Pensacola News Journal published Escambia Clerk Pam Childers’ filing that the court reject the lawsuit filed by two nonprofits, Greater Pensacola Junior Golf Association Inc. (First Tee Gulf Coast) and Warrington Emergency Aid Center (WEAC), over her refusing to cut community grant checks, totaling $7,000, the Escambia County commissioners approved.
- The PNJ didn’t publish the reply that attorney Alex Andrade, who represents the nonprofits, filed with the courts on July 29. Read 253528078 Reply.
Childers’ Arguments
- The nonprofits misrepresented that their funding applications were actually voted on by the commission as submitted. She claims the applications were modified after board approval, including edits made by Commissioner Kohler’s aide to WEAC’s application.
- The county’s own resolution caps discretionary grants at $500, making these larger awards unauthorized.
- She positions her clerk role as an “independent watchdog” over spending, not a “ministerial” rubber-stamp function.
- She denied the payments because she determined neither event served a countywide public purpose. Childers claimed First Tee’s was a fundraiser party; WEAC’s food drive only served one area rather than the whole county.
Andrade’s Replies
A contract did exist. Andrade argues the Community Support Funding (CSF) application itself constituted a binding contract because the nonprofits promised things of value (nondiscriminatory service, site visits, audits, documentation) in exchange for the county’s funding commitment.
- He notes the policy the Commission approved explicitly states “a funding application is not required,” undercutting Childers’ emphasis on paperwork timing.
- He also argues both nonprofits met the legal elements of reliance. They spent money based on the Commission’s promise of reimbursement and then fulfilled every documentation requirement asked of them.
Childers obstructed the process, not the nonprofits. He details a timeline showing Childers herself demanded new paperwork after already denying requests, issued “blanket denials,” and, per an email from a commissioner’s aide, actively discouraged commissioners from even submitting further funding recommendations.
- He argues this behavior would amount to tortious interference in any other context.
The ordinance argument is misapplied. He contends Ordinance 46-281 (with its $500 cap) governs a different type of “recognition” award, not payments made under the Community Support Funding Program, so it doesn’t restrict these grants.
Childers has been inconsistent and has shifted her rationale. He cites over a year of Childers’ emails to county officials, the state CFO, and the Attorney General in which she admitted the payments might not be illegal but called them merely “wasteful,” and asked officials to help her stop the program entirely.
- He contrasts this with her approval of a similar payment to American Legion Post 33, arguing there’s no legal distinction between that grant and the ones she denied to Plaintiffs, making her decision arbitrary and discriminatory.
Childers exceeded her legal authority. He argues Florida Statute § 125.74 assigns contract administration to the county administrator, not the clerk, so Childers has no legal standing to unilaterally judge contract compliance or “public purpose.”
- He cites case law (Linscott, Speer, Burton, City of Boca Raton v. Gidman) establishing that commissions have broad authority to define public purpose, and that a clerk’s pre-audit role is narrowly limited to blocking only expenditures with “no legal or practical relation to a valid county purpose.”
No Punches Pulled
In nearly 200 years of the Florida clerk position’s existence, Andrade can’t find another case where a clerk has argued so forcefully that she was incompetent and derelict in her own past duties—since Childers made “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in similar payments since 2016 without objection until 2025.
He characterizes her legal theories as a pretext to seize power she was never granted, essentially trying to act as a “sixth commissioner” by vetoing appropriations she personally disagrees with.
A couple of quote constituting “rather important news events” from the filing’s conclusion:
“By virtue of her arguments in 2025 and in this case, Childers is requesting the Court find her prior decade of service in her role as the Escambia Clerk and Comptroller was derelict to the point of malpractice.” (16)
“Childers cannot claim illegality today without explaining how her decade long practice of issuing up to $1,000,000 in identical payments should not result in her
immediate removal from office for malfeasance.” (18)
THANK YOU to Alex Andrade for finally bringing the Clerk’s asinine “reasoning” to its logical fruition, which *should* have happened immediately upon Judge Stone’s ruling that the 401a was illegal for commissioners to participate in. Instead, the County Attorney’s office face-planted after that suit, and this thing was allowed to get even more out of control.
I didn’t agree with Stone’s ruling in that 401a case, which was primary based on his own subjective feelings that it was “unfair” and would be a drain on the FRS system. If I’m remembering correctly, there was some reference to the flimsy legal arguments about why commissioners couldn’t participate while upper management could–which means that a slew of County staff are now executing the drain on FRS that the judge was so worried about, which is smart of them, given how poorly the DeSantis administration has executed everything under its purview. I sure as hell wouldn’t want this clown car in charge of my retirement fund. And it disgusted me to watch Ed Fleming lead the judge by the nose with his flim-flam orchestrations effectively rendering what was supposed to be an evidentiary hearing into the whole kit and caboodle.
All that aside, because the judge did rule the 401a illegal for commissioners, the County should have immediately moved against the Clerk’s bond–this isn’t coming from her personal pocket, unless she foolishly didn’t set the bond high enough–for all of her past payments on it. When that didn’t happen, all hell broke loose on her never-ending thirst for power and retribution. Mr. Andrade, First Tee, and WEAC–this community owes you an enormous debt of gratitude. It shouldn’t have had to come to this.
Dave,
No comparison between the nonprofits’ lawsuit, which tackles the dispute over who defines public purpose and the legality of community grants, to the dismissal of an ethics complaint against a former county employee who last worked for the county in 2022.
The dismissal didn’t slip past me. I didn’t see it as “a rather important news event.” We haven’t mentioned the aide to former Commissioner Doug Underhill in over a year—the last time being when Jesse Casey passed, and I reported Owens came in third in the D1 Commission race behind Bergosh and Casey in 2020.
The PNJ reported on July 24 that the ethics complaint against Jonathan Owens, filed by your pal Jeff Bergosh, had been dismissed by the Florida Commission on Ethics. Funny how that rather important news event managed to slip past you.