On Tuesday, May 10, when the mayor’s office published the mayor’s decision to terminate Pensacola Fire Chief Matt Schmitt and Deputy Fire Chief Joe Glover, the city posted the investigative reported prepared by Beggs & Lane Russell Van Sickle and all his accompanying exhibits. Our analysis was based on the report and the exhibits to which Van Sickle referred in it.
Since Thursday, more documents have popped up on the city website, about 54 additional files. They weren’t listed in Van Sickles’s report. The section has a new sentence: “Additional investigative materials that are not exhibits to the report were uploaded here on May 13, 2016.”
Whoever created the PDF of Matt Schmitt’s training as a date issue on his computer. The file data says the file was created May 16, 2016 at 4:34:55 PM. Other files also have May 16 as the creation date, but all are after 4 pm. Somebody has been putting in some long hours to sneak these documents in late on a Friday afternoon.
Apparently transparency is fluid at City Hall, and the citizens’ comments about the terminations have gotten them scrambling.
Mayor Hayward needs to hold a press conference to explain his decision, Van Sickle’s report and why these additional files were added three days after his initial release.