Other than a three-sentence email to the Pensacola City Council, Mayor Ashton Hayward has been noticeably absent from the debate over how to fix the process by which the City and the Community Maritime Park Associates Board lease park property.
Hayward’s email gives no solutions, just: “I encourage the Council to take whatever action is necessary to reaffirm your prior decision on the YMCA lease and move the project forward without delay.” Hardly what those who fought for the new strong-mayor city government expected from its mayor. Frankly it’s less leadership than the city got from Hayward’s predecessors: Mike Wiggins, John Fogg, Jerry Maygarden and Vince Whibbs, Sr.
Hayward’s voice is also missing from the daily newspaper’s analysis of the issue. The article would have been the perfect opportunity for him to offer recommendations. Nothing.
In the void, Councilman Andy Terhaar has stepped in, doing what the mayor and his staff should be doing. He is working on recommendations for a lease template and firming up the process by which future leases are handled.
I don’t know if the mayor will attend Monday’s Committee of the Whole. Maybe he is working on a plan that he will deliver to the council.
Maybe.