On Friday, April 29 at 5 p.m., the City of Pensacola issued a statement that Mayor Ashton Hayward had received the Beggs & Lane report on the two Pensacola fire chiefs that have been on paid administrative leave since Feb. 2. However, the report was not made available to the media, Pensacola City Council, Interim Fire Chief Matt Schmitt or Deputy Fire Chief Joe Glover.
The statement said, “The public shall have access to the report after a course of action is decided upon and the affected employees, if any, are notified in writing pursuant to Florida Statutes 119.071 (2)(k).”
Glover told Inweekly on Saturday morning that he had received no communications from the mayor’s office or Beggs & Lane last week. He learned of the investigation’s completion and the final report from accounts published in the media.
Hayward’s lack of transparency regarding the two top leaders of the highly regarded Pensacola Fire Department has been a hallmark of the three-month investigation. The public has been told several conflicting stories by the mayor, City Administrator Eric Olson and Assistant City Administrator Keith Wilkins as to why Schmitt and Glover were being investigated. Any attempts to find the truth have been blocked by the city’s public records department.
The public doesn’t even know who in the mayor’s office was in charge of the investigation.
In February, City Administrator Eric Olson spoke with News Radio 1620 about the investigation of the Pensacola fire chiefs. He said he had removed myself and Chief Human Resources Officer Ed Sisson from the investigation, and Assistant City Administrator Keith Wilkins was running it.
Andrew McKay, 1620: Do we have a time frame where we expect the resolution of this investigation?
Eric Olson: I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I’ve kind of removed myself from this. Obviously, the assistant administrator Keith Wilkens is the person who’s receiving the reports from the investigator, so I don’t have an answer.
McKay: Now is that in part because you and Ed Sisson were named in the EEOC filing? Is that why Keith Wilkens is running it?
Olson: Exactly. To preserve, as I continue to point out … It’s in the best interest of all of us that we pull away from the situation.
The City has a link to this February 8 interview on its “Transparency” page. This was the interview in which Olson gave his elaborate tale that the investigation involved EEOC complaints and an attorney recommended by the insurance carrier had told the city to put the chiefs on paid administrative leave.
For the general public, Olson’s tale is the official explanation and it has been on the “Transparency page” for nearly three months:
Andrew McKay from News Radio 1620 sat down with City Administrator, Eric Olson on February 8, 2016 to address some of the concerns and questions raised in regards to the Interim Fire Chief and Deputy Fire Chief. The complete unedited interview is available here.
Mayor Hayward retracted the statement last week, but his disclaimer has not been placed on the “Transparency” page. The mayor had no explanation as to why Olson would say the investigation and paid leaves involved the federal EEOC complaints.
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On March 23, Wilkins appeared on the same station. He said he expected the investigative report within two weeks, but he also said, “I don’t know a lot of the detail myself.†The assistant administrator gave PNJ reporter Will Isern the same timetable, which Olson later confirmed on 1620 AM.
The City also has a link to this radio interview on its “Transparency” page. The deadline was missed by three weeks, according to Friday’s statement to the media.
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Then on April 27, Mayor Hayward said on 1620 AM that he had been “completely away†from the investigation.
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So who was overseeing the investigation? It wasn’t Eric Olson, Ed Sisson, Keith Wilkins or Mayor Hayward. It appears to truly be a headless investigation that lasted three months with no one from the mayor’s office supervising the costs.
What happens next could become a defining moment for Mayor Hayward and his administration. We look forward to the press conference this week.