Today is the final day to submit nominees for the two at-large seats on the Escambia County Commission’s RESTORE Act advisory committee. The nominees thus far include a Gulf Power executive, a former mayor of Pensacola and an individual who recently withdrew himself from consideration for the committee’s environmental seat.
Last night, in between public forum and the regular county commission meeting, Assistant Administrator Larry Newsom took a few minutes to shuffle through the nominations in his office. Resumes and bios sat in stacks across a small table, to be culled of duplicates and collected in a folder.
It was the first time Newsom had waded through the collective grouping. The nominees still must be crosschecked with the commissioners’ picks for duplicates and vetted by the county attorney for possible conflicts, but as of now there is a tentative list of 15 people interested in the two at-large seats on the committee.
The tentative list consists of: Jim Cox, Mike Turner, John Peacock, Bentina Terry, Jim Donavan, Jesse Casey, Barbara Mayall, Vernon Prather, Harlan Butler, Fances Yeo, Alan McMillan, John Fogg, Courtney Peterson, John Soule and Tracy Watson.
Nominees must be submitted by today, Jan. 18, to be considered for the seats. The field will then be put before the county commission to make final selections.
On Jan. 22, environmental organizations are scheduled to select a representative to fill the environmental seat on the RESTORE committee. The rest of the seats—one representing the city of Pensacola, and the rest handpicked by individual commissioners—will fall into place by the end of January.
The commission’s RESTORE committee will consist of nine seats: the environmental seat, Pensacola’s seat, two unrestricted at-large seats, and commissioners’ picks in the fields of finance, business, transportation, government, as well as a citizen at-large.
