Unraveling Zimmerman

Pensacola City Council President P.C. Wu was invited to call in for a radio interview recently. The first question caught him off guard.

“I’m thinking, ‘well, this is real nice, you get kicked in the stomach and then get asked what your opinion is,’” Wu relayed to his fellow council members during Monday’s Committee of the Whole meeting.

The DJ had asked Wu for his thoughts on Councilman Charles Bare’s intention to call for an investigation of the recently-fired Zimmerman Agency, a Tallahassee firm contracted to handle the city’s marketing needs.

Bare took the opportunity of the COW meeting to explain his proposal to council. Questioning the ad agency’s performance and the associated costs, he suggested forming a three-member panel—consisting of himself, Councilman Larry B. Johnson and Councilwoman Sherri Myers—to invoke the council’s power of investigation and dig into the Zimmerman issue.

“I think this agency has shown it’s ability to do things that are improper,” Bare said, noting the marketing firm’s problems in Okaloosa County.

The state auditor has just finished, and the Okaloosa County Commission is just beginning, an investigation into alleged misuse of Tourist Development Council funds. Okaloosa’s TDC director committed suicide last year after spending public funds for illegal purchases. Now the county will be addressing some Zimmerman-specific questions.

The Zimmerman Agency was brought to Pensacola last year by Mayor Ashton Hayward.  The firm was hired to rebrand the city—producing the Upside of Florida tag, as well as a new logo—and also given a $39,500 per month contract to handle marketing needs. In total, the firm has been paid just shy of a million dollars.

While some council members shared Bare’s concerns over the city’s contract with Zimmerman, they also voiced concerns about not being informed on the investigation-proposal ahead of time.

“I thought we were attempting to be more informative and more inclusive when taking such action with such immediacy,” said Councilman Brian Spencer.

Bare said he considered COW the appropriate time to bring up the issue. He said he had already begun reviewing financial data related to Zimmerman and described it as “unnecessarily vague.”

Other council members suggested the matter might be more appropriate to place on the next COW agenda. Councilman Johnson said he’d like to see any material the administration had relating to Zimmerman’s performance issues.

“I would like to see that if there’s any paperwork in that regard, any investigations by a staff member,” Johnson said.

City Administrator Bill Reynolds said that Zimmerman’s contract had been cut because the company had not met their obligations—something Bare said he wanted to ascertain with the investigation. He also said that the city had attempted to address the problem without success.

“I can tell you right now, the contract wasn’t being adhered to,” Reynolds told council, adding that the city communicated such concern to the firm repeatedly. “—it became clear that wasn’t going to work.”

The administrator also said he expected the Zimmerman Agency to sue the city due to the contract termination. The possibility of a lawsuit, Reynolds said, would make a council investigation—and the public airing of Zimmerman’s business with the city—legally awkward.

“I think that puts us at legal risk,” he said.

Councilwoman Megan Pratt noted that council members were only aware of Zimmerman’s termination through reports in the media. She questioned why they were not kept informed throughout.

“If there’s been a problem for months it would have been nice to have heard about them, other than ‘the city terminated them, we like them ok, blah, blah, blah,’” Pratt said, referring to the administration’s public statement to the press.

The administrator said he could provide council with “lots of documentary evidence of things that were not working.” He said the clerk had been directed to gather Zimmerman -related material because it would likely become hotly requested information.

“You might be shocked,” he told council, “but we have it all put together in a nice little binder.”

While some members indicated they might want to take a private meeting with Reynolds, the council also slated the matter for the next COW meeting.