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.