By Jeremy Morrison
Homeless advocate Mike Kimbrel is currently in some trouble, with the Downtown Improve Board charging that he cut the lock off of one of the organizations’ portable toilets for a homeless woman to use the facility. During his weekly presser on Monday, Pensacola Mayor Grover Robinson said that the city wasn’t involved with this recent issue — “the port-a-let itself is the stuff of the DIB and the Downtown Market, so we didn’t have anything to do with that” — but that he understood that the lack of available public facilities presented “some challenges.”
“We did have a number of portable toilets all throughout the city during COVID. As that has ended, we have pulled back, and we no longer have those open,” Mayor Robinson said, noting that the city was working towards having restrooms available at both Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza on Palafox, as well as at Veteran’s Memorial Park.
Robinson continued, addressing Kimbrel specifically; the longtime homeless advocate serves as director of the Alfred Washburn Center.
“I met twice with Mike Kimbrel as we dealt with homelessness, and he certainly has a very — he has a passion for that, and I appreciate it, and he has an expertise in it, and I appreciate it,” Robinson said. “My challenge with Mike is that Mike wants a 100 percent of what he wants. I can get him to about 75 percent of what he wants, but he’s committed to going to conflict if we haven’t given him the additional 25 percent and conflict has not provided us anything we want.”
Mayoral Thoughts on Charter Review
The Pensacola City Council is in the process of formalizing potential charter revision to put before voters in the fall. So far, the city council appears to be rejecting a mayoral suggestion that the city’s top executive position be limited to two terms, as well as a rejection of a Charter Review Commission suggestion that city department heads be provided an appeal process via city council if the mayor terminates them.
When asked about these issues on Monday, Mayor Robinson turned first to the issue of the appeal process, including the assertion by former staff (former Pensacola Police Chief David Alexander, who sat on the CRC), or rather, the mayor turned to various department heads sitting in on the presser, requesting that they provide assessments.
“I mean, I would say — Sherri? Amy? Y’all wanna come forward? David? Y’all are welcome to answer the question?” Mayor Robinson said. I think the question is, there’s a lot of talk, but has anyone actually asked the department heads?”
Amy Miller, deputy city administrator and previously director of the Port of Pensacola said she had served under two strong mayors and did not find any council-based termination appeals process useful.
“I’ve never felt like I couldn’t have an honest conversation with the mayor. And that’s the key. At the end of the day, the mayor is the boss — so I’ve never felt I couldn’t have honest conversations about my boss, but once the mayor makes the decision, it’s the department head’s responsibility to support the mayor’s decision,” Miller said “Personally, if I were terminated, even if there were an appeals process, what department director is going to want to be terminated, go through an appeal, get upheld, and then come back to work for the person that fired them? I mean, it doesn’t make any sense to me that that process would work in any way or that it’s necessary.”
As for the apparent two-term-limit rejection, Robinson said he would have liked to see voters decide the issue. Instituting the two-term limit, the mayor said, would serve as a safeguard against executive excess.
“If the decision had gone to a vote and the people had decided they didn’t like it, I couldn’t live with that, but my point is if you’re going to complain — I’ve said it multiple times here — if you’re going to complain that your fear is that all this power is vested in one person, then the best way to do it is to limit that person’s ability to sit in that seat,” Robinson said.