Escambia County
When county officials decided Bradley Vinson wouldn’t get the library director’s job, they didn’t just pass her over—they set out to destroy her reputation.
The text messages and emails tell the story. Before the votes were cast and after, Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger and her allies inside county government traded claims about Bradley Vinson that weren’t true—that she bombed her interview, that she took off her shoes, that she had zero management experience.
- Each claim was false. Each claim was spread deliberately. And the paper trail of texts, emails, meeting minutes and recorded interviews now makes clear that county officials didn’t simply prefer another candidate. They worked to ensure Vinson would never be taken seriously and that the public would never know the facts about her.
Vinson Didn’t “Bomb” Her Interview
Bradley Vinson, currently the media services coordinator for the Escambia County School District, was the library board‘s preferred choice over the candidate hired by County Administrator Wes Moreno.
Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger’s former aide, Melanie Luna, texted the commissioner that County Administrator Moreno had told her Vinson had “bombed (the interview) completely.”
- The day of the commission vote to approve Moreno’s hiring of his choice for the library services director position, Commissioner Hofberger texted Pensacola City Councilmember Jennifer Brahier: “I do know that the rumors around our office is that she (Vinson) did terrible in that interview. She even took her shoes off.”
On Feb. 20, the county administration and the WFPL Board of Governance had long-form interviews with the four finalists: Christal Bell-Rivera, Chris Hare, Michael Jenkins and Vinson.
- Vinson didn’t take off her shoes. Her interview covered 14 questions ranging from staff morale to financial priorities. Inweekly listened to the interview recording. Vinson didn’t bomb it.
The Interview
Vinson cited more than two decades in library work—from a high school volunteer position in North Carolina to Florida State University’s Strozier Library to circulation, cataloging and children’s services at the Escambia County Public Library. She later served as a school librarian and moved into her current district-level role. Vinson also served on the Library Board of Governance from 2019 to 2023.
Hofberger Doubles Down on Vinson
In her radio interview with Jeff Bergosh, Hofberger attacked Vinson, saying, “I will say, after this vote, I’m doubling down on my stance. Not only am I thankful she didn’t get the job with the county, but I’m a bit appalled that she’s still employed with the school system.”
- She continued, “There’s ongoing litigation there. There’s her definition of what’s acceptable in our school system raises a lot of red flags. And as someone who is responsible for county dollars, I don’t want to hire someone else’s problems.”
Vinson addressed book challenges in her interview. She described the school district review process she helped manage as empowering community committees—drawing one member from each school board member’s volunteer pool, plus a media specialist, teacher and administrator—to evaluate challenged titles and recommend age-appropriate placement rather than outright removal. Parents could authorize younger students to access materials moved to higher collections through an interlibrary loan form.
- “I thought that process was amazing, and I did not always agree with where the process ended up, but the way that the community came together” to resolve disputes was a model she admired.
Other Interview Questions
On staff retention, she said she would establish anonymous employee surveys with follow-up action plans, create space for staff to develop and lead new programming, and connect employees with community service opportunities to reinforce their role as “the helpers.”
On budget experience, Vinson said her largest direct responsibility is the school district’s textbook procurement—approximately $11.2 million this year—coordinated across more than 50 schools, multiple departments and the procurement office. Her financial priority framework begins with protecting community access: keeping libraries open the same hours before considering cuts to collections, equipment or courier services. Note: The entire WFPL system budget is only $12.3 million.
On emerging risks, Vinson identified three: funding instability, AI-generated misinformation in published books, and censorship. She praised Escambia County’s MSTU library funding structure as more stable than what many Florida counties face. On AI content, she said vendors should be expected to certify whether nonfiction titles are the product of genuine research or generated text. On censorship, she called for transparent public processes when materials are challenged and easy mechanisms for parents to authorize access to restricted titles.
On the potential for conflicting direction from the Board of County Commissioners and the Library Board of Governance, Vinson said she would first consult the county administrator for perspective, then engage individual board members before attempting to mediate a resolution.
Her answers were honest, candid and sincere.
Read the transcript – 2026-11-24Bradley Vinson Full Interview
The “Zero Managerial Experience” Lie
When citizens began protesting the Moreno’s decision to hire a less qualified candidate, Luna texted Hofberger what Human Resources Director Nikki Powell had told her: “Nikki came by and said Bradley has ZERO managerial experience.”
- Hofberger texted Brahier: “I will say I looked at all of the resumes and that candidate that the board nominated (Vinson) had no management experience.”
On March 3, Commissioner Steve Stroberger didn’t ask Assistant County Administrator Debbie Bowers if Vinson took off her shoes. He wanted to know, “Is this the woman that came to the interview in sandals?”
- Obviously, Stroberger had heard the hallway gossip demeaning Vinson. Bowers replied, “Yes, it is, and after further review, she has never managed anything except an elementary school library.” Read Stroberger_Bowers.
Managerial Experience Documented in Her Application
In her job application, Vinson reported her managerial experience. She described her job as the school district’s coordinator of media services: “Provided district-level leadership for all school libraries by supporting media personnel at 50+ schools, coordinating instructional materials adoption, developing policies and procedures, and managing book challenges while ensuring equitable access for students system-wide.” See 2026-1121-JobApplication5687766295 (2)
- Under education and experience, Vinson wrote: “After receiving my master’s in library science in 2006, I was hired as the primary cataloguer for WFPL’s Technical Services department, where I managed other cataloguers. I was named head of Children’s Services in 2013, where I supervised children’s staff and coordinated programs across all branches. After serving as a school media specialist for many years, I became the Escambia County School District’s Coordinator of Media Services in 2023, overseeing school libraries and coordinating media services for the school district.”
What Vinson Said During the Interview
Bowers attended the Feb. 20 interviews. See february-20-special-meeting-minutes.
In her interview, Vinson described that as the media services coordinator for the Escambia County School District, she oversees school librarians across 50-plus schools. Her challenge is managing a largely dispersed staff that she can’t easily convene. She restructured her weekly and biweekly meetings for librarians into more open office hours on her calendar to allow the librarians to convene for 15 or 30 minutes via Google Meet.
- After losing her one direct support staffer, she started making more in-person school visits, sometimes taking her own work with her to do on-site. She framed this as combating the perception that she was too busy to help. “They are still my first priority, and I want to be sure that I’m visible and that they know that I’m there.”
Clearly, Vinson was a manager with district-wide responsibilities and much more than an elementary school librarian. Bowers knew this, as did HR Director Nikki Powell. We don’t know if Moreno ever read Vinson’s application or listened to the Feb. 20 interview.
Why This Matters
Government hiring processes carry an implicit promise:
- Candidates will be evaluated on their qualifications,
- The people making decisions will deal honestly with the candidates’ records, and
- Officials who participate in the process won’t use their positions to destroy the reputations of people who applied in good faith.
Bradley Vinson submitted her application. She sat for the interview. She answered 14 questions honestly and in detail. She described her management philosophy, budget experience and vision for the library system. The Library Board heard her and chose her.
- What she got in return was a coordinated campaign of falsehoods, spread through text messages, emails and spoken aloud in the halls of county government, aimed at ensuring she would never be seen as the qualified professional she is.
And the Board of County Commissioners, except for Commissioner Mike Kohler, appears to be okay with it.
- This should trouble every person who applies for a job in Escambia County government.
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Bell-Riveria needs to step down and allow the hiring process to start over from scratch. Commissioner Hofberger should consider removing herself from the second interview process, should one occur.
If our elected leaders can not follow a transparent, fair and honest process to hire someone to be in charge of our libraries then where else are they failing? Once again, Escambia County embraces mediocrity and deceit.
As someone who knows a little bit about what it feels like to have smears conducted by County officials (including a fake defamation suit brought against me), reading this my heart sank when I realized how orchestrated this thing really was.
And now I regret coming in support of Wes’s contract extension, and if I could do it over, I would have instead said that I couldn’t support it unless he vowed to make the library thing right. Not that those remarks would have made any difference in the vote outcome, but I certainly would feel better about my own integrity.
I still have some small hope that Wes will relocate his moral compass and do the right thing in the end, but the problem is that an active smear campaign is something that can never really be put back in the bottle. How does this even get fixed? It would have to start by firing everybody who was involved in setting it up and disseminating it. If he did that, I could feel good again about supporting his contract extension.
But that would simply be the first thing necessary for whatever degree of fix can be gotten at this point. Having people in positions of County power actively spreading bold-faced lies about you is a horrible feeling. I hope the silver lining for Bradley Vinson is that the public immediately recognized the injustice and is absolutely appalled by it. She didn’t deserve this. Nobody does.
The BCC should direct the County Attorney to hire someone to do an independent review of the entire Library Director hiring process starting in August when County Administrator Moreno bypassed the Library Board to make Bell-Rivera the Interim Library Director. I’d focus on the efforts of HR Director Nikki Powell to manipulate the process to benefit Bell-Rivera, presumably doing so at the direction of her boss Moreno. When discussing the applicants on January 13th, Powell did describe disagreement with her staff. (Library Aide Sheridan left that part of the meeting out of the official meeting minutes.) Apparently, this is how the county does business. On page 4F of the December 14, 2025 edition of the Pensacola News Journal was a letter to the editor written by James Bowman titled, “Unprofessional hiring practices putting a stain on Escambia County.” Mr. Bowman describes a situation very much like we all saw a few months later with the library director hiring scandal. At the January 13th Library Board meeting HR Director Nikki Powell (a direct report to Moreno) told the Library Board that there were 22 applicants for the Library Director position. Powell said that 13 met the “Minimum Qualification Requirements” to include “five years of experience [in a public library] which were in managerial and administrative roles.” Vinson checked that block. Bell-Rivera didn’t check any of the blocks unless you accept the belated claim that whatever she really did from 2008 to 2022 as “Senior Highway Safety Specialist” made her the most qualified of the 22 candidates. Has HR Department seen the state’s position description for that type of job and reviewed her performance evaluations? I doubt Bell-Rivera has “almost 20 years of general management and library operations experience in state and local government” as Moreno claimed to the BCC. Also, Bell-Rivera’s resume has a nine year gap. Did she hold any jobs in that timeframe? If so, why are they not listed? I was one of only four citizens who attended all four Library Director in-person interviews on February 20th. Also present were four Library Board members and five county employees, six if you include District 4 Aide Melanie Luna who only sat in for Bell-Rivera’s interview. It wasn’t even close. Bradley Vinson was the superior candidate with Chris Hare a ways back at #2. Michael Jenkins was solidly #3. Bell-Rivera bombed it finishing last as #4. If there had been five or six candidates interviewed, Bell-Rivera would likely have been #5 or #6.