by Jeremy Morrison
Pensacola Mayor Grover Robinson made clear Monday that he was upset about an issue brought forward last week during a Pensacola City Council meeting concerning needed restoration work along Carpenters Creek—calling it a “personal matter†during his regular weekly press conference.
Last week, Councilwoman Sherri Myers brought forth an add-on item during the council meeting, requesting that the city inquire about the Florida Department of Transportation’s plan to conduct restoration work on a stretch of Carpenters Creek near Davis Highway.
Mayor Robinson elaborated Monday on a position he staked out via a memo last week during that council meeting, railing against what he said amounts to Myers potentially derailing plans to have the Florida Department of Environmental Protection handle the restoration work instead of FDOT.
“This to me is particularly disturbing,†the mayor said.
Essentially, Mayor Robinson is upset that Councilwoman Myers is looking to engage FDOT about Creekside erosion near a department project site located near Waterford at Creekside. She is also interested in how the tree canopy will be replenished following the removal of trees and how a filtration system installed by the city is contributing to erosion.
Robinson stressed Monday that the city is working with Escambia County Commissioner Robert Bender to have the needed restoration work performed by the FDEP, the state agency that handles environmental concern. The mayor noted that FDEP has the needed funds, probably around $15 million, to perform the work, whereas FDOT does not.
“We went and met with DEP; there’s money from NRDA that doesn’t need any match from the local city,†Robinson said, referencing National Resource Damage Assessment funds, which stem from and environmental fines associated with the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
In his May 11 memo, Mayor Robinson attributed Myers’ request to contact FDOT about the restoration work to the councilwoman’s “ambition to rant.†On Monday, he chalked it up to her “looking for political gain.â€
Robinson said he intended to have consultants working with Escambia County on a slate of environmental projects associated with Carpenters Creek make a presentation to city council members in June to provide them information on restoration plans.
Though he criticized Councilwoman Myers for not approaching him directly instead of submitting her concerns about restoration work in an agenda add-on item, Mayor Robinson said he hadn’t contacted the councilwoman before unloading during his weekly presser.
“If she wants to come talk about it, I’ll do it,†Robinson said, describing his approach as engaging and Myers’ as less so: “From my standpoint, I will always openly invite. She is not openly inviting to people, and this creates friction and things that are not needed for us to move the community forward if we’re going to have real solutions.â€
Technically, Fields
Mayor Robinson said the city will be approaching the Pensacola Economic Development Commission about using an empty parcel of land downtown that has long been marketed as a potential tech park to no avail. The city is looking to use the space for additional soccer fields in the face of swelling numbers of participants in its youth sports program.
“Our youth sports are growing at an explosive rate and they need more fields,†the mayor said.
The so-called tech park is approximately 10 acres. If PDEC grants the city’s request, Robinson said the city would expect to take over maintaining the “fallow asset.†Nets would also likely be installed to prevent ball from being kicked into nearby W.D. Childers Plaza.
In discussing this item, Robinson spoke a bit about the city’s evolving needs when it comes to sporting fields: “It use to be we were an incredible baseball town. I mean, you don’t go to a park and not see a baseball diamond in the park. And kids use to come out and they’d play baseball, they’re not doing that now. Not to say baseball’s bad, baseball has it’s place, baseball is there, but what we’re seeing is an explosion in people who want to play soccer and some of these other sport — we have nothing at lacrosse at this point.â€
Navy Base Blues
Naval Air Station Pensacola has been closed to the public since a 2019 terrorist attack on the base. Now, state and local officials are requesting that it be reopened.
“So people can go to the museum and the other things that are there,†Robinson said Monday, prior to reading a city proclamation officially requesting that NAS be reopened.
Robinson said that he felt that NAS could maintain security integrity while also again allowing visitors on base. In the city’s proclamation, the base’s local impact is referenced, noting “the loss of more than $10 million in labor income and nearly 350 jobs due to the enhanced security measures …†The mayor also made a cultural connection to between the local public and the military base.
“It’s certainly a treasure that we have out there that belongs to the people, and the people need to be able to get to it,†the mayor said.
A perfect illustration of the recklessness with which the Downtown special interest squad is pushing on DC to open NAS to civilians–apparently at any and all costs (are these brokers unconcerned about BRAC, or are the developers in their midst actually trying to *instigate* base closure?)–occurred during yesterday morning’s BOCC meeting.
Anyone wanting a primer on how a backdooring commissioner can pressure staff to do his dirty agenda work for him against the rest of his Board, check out the meeting video through the below link: at what seemed to be the close of the proceedings yesterday, Commissioner Bender thanked the rest of the commission for their unanimous vote on supporting his letter to Washington pushing several agencies for reopening, AND NOBODY ON THE BOARD HAD ANY IDEA WHAT HE WAS TALKING ABOUT.
https://escambiacofl.civicclerk.com/Web/Player.aspx?id=515 (1:41:20 time mark)
The deadline for adding things to the BOCC agenda proper is ridiculous enough as it is, with a rather greyish area of 2-5 pm the Wednesday before the Thursday meeting as the cut-off for items to be integrated into the actual menu. After that, it is supposed to require a vocalized add-on.
Anyone viewing the video can observe that as Robert drones on about the work he has been doing to destabilize our community’s relationship with the military since last September, Chairman Bergosh is trying to figure out what the heck he is talking about.
Why? Because Robert had a staff member of either the County or the Clerk’s office slip his item right into the Consent Agenda THAT MORNING, and as a result the Board voted through his item unbeknownst to them.
I always wait to print out the pdf version of the agenda to follow along with as we watch the meeting at the last possible minute, keeping the online version open on my computer so I can click through to backup when necessary. We try to do an A to B comparison to see what landed online that didn’t make the paper agenda, but I didn’t get the paper version printed out yesterday morning until during Public Forum, so it flew right by me that the item landed buried at the end of one of the consent agendas, of all places–and per a topic that Commissioner Bender *knew* there was going to be opposition to.
Don’t miss his reaction when the Chair asks him, “Was that added? When was it added?” and he has to admit “this morning.” Then he has the audacity to say “I saw it on the agenda.” Please.
Even better, this meant that nobody had any backup printed on the item, although it’s certainly amusing that the Clerk was keyed to be Super Madame Helpful with a printed copy to push over, as if it’s something that Chairman Bergosh should have been aware of.
Wonder how it just happened to be sitting right in front of her in that fashion. (Actually, no I don’t. And I feel sorry for the staff members who will now get thrown under the bus for being under pressure by elected officials.)
Even worse, Commissioner Bender tried to play it off as if the CO of the base had ASKED him to bring it to the meeting during a conversation he had with him. Thankfully, Chairman Bergosh boxed him in on that prevarication, and he had to admit that, no, he brought it without the CO’s direction.
As it was rightfully pointed out–this is *exactly* the type of local clown show that is *not* helpful to Pensacola and Escambia’s relationship with the Navy, and Commissioner May was spot-on to bring in the history of the OLF8 dealings to remind people that you don’t just start throwing letters out to top military brass without picking up the phone first. It was an absurd and dangerous political maneuver on Commissioner Bender’s part, and one has to wonder what he is being promised by Downtown to try to orchestrate something this level of lose-lose…get it passed in a dirty fashion, or get caught out and called out.
It makes my heart hurt and my stomach sick to see the honorable military families that are being roped into this mess. They don’t deserve this; I wonder if they are even aware of the long history of developers flirting with turning our Base into Pensacola’s version of a military Star Island. And it’s not surprising to see the head of umpteen “veteran” “non profit” charities with constantly shifting names and missions smack dab in the mix.
If our base ends up losing any level of functionality as a result of this grandstanding, at least the PNJ has provided an archive of the names driving the venture for the public’s convenience.
I often wonder whether Senator Broxson, Mr. Studer, Mayor Robinson, and Commissioner Bender care that rabblerousing about the Base isn’t exactly the best remedy for getting it opened back up and keeping it at its current functionality. Sometimes it seems as if they wouldn’t mind it turning into a tourist destination. It might be a better idea to focus on the jobs that would be missing if the Navy got tired of dealing with inhospitable local forces, rather than the hand wringing over the numbers on the current security measures.
And now we’ve got Doug Underhill on public blast per what he claims to see as dangerous rhetoric, when he has been under Downtown’s protection for years. Not to mention he himself brought the line items on the agenda that have played most closely with fire–pretending the land purchased at the front and back gates was for encroachment, whatever game he’s running with the Inlet Management Plan, slicing off the portion of the Navy Boulevard improvement from Gulf Beach Highway to the front gate for a beautification project. Battling a school by saying that the planes over the schoolyard would result in hearing loss to kids. Oh, and bragging about all the cutters he brought here (as if).
Sitting in my Florida room looking across the Bayou Grande at the Base, and hoping that people just let the Navy do what the Navy thinks is best. I feel very sorry for people pining to visit their loved ones in the cemetery, so hopefully they can get that challenge worked out. But it’s really sad to think a day could come when the cemetery, the lighthouse, and the museum are all that’s left. Then again, some people think that Roosevelt Roads is a nice place to visit.