On July 24, Mayor Ashton Hayward was interviewed by WEAR TV reporter Amber Southard about the qualifications of his Chief Operations Officer, Tamara Fountain.
In the interview, the mayor said, “She’s very qualified, having an undergrad from Florida State and an MBA from the University of West Florida, so she understands government.”
Yesterday the daily newspaper reported that Fountain does not have an undergrad degree from Florida State. FSU official said Fountain “attended Fall 1988 through Summer 1993 and Fall 2000 through Spring 2002,” but no degree was awarded. She does not have a MBA from UWF. In 2008, she was awarded a Bachelors of Business Administration.
Fountain told the PNJ that she emailed Southard to correct several errors, including her job title, salary and schools attended. She provide the newspaper the email that she sent the evening of July 24: “There is a bunch of stuff wrong in the story. I just watched story. I am not a CFO. My salary is wrong. My time with responsibilities is wrong. Schools.”
Inweekly contacted Southard the week after the Hayward interview aired. The reporter said that she called Fountain when she got the email. Southard told Fountain that she never said CFO in the interview. Fountain admitted that she personally hadn’t seen the interview but a friend had called her. Southard asked Fountain to tell her the corrections so that she should change the story. Fountain said she would email the reporter the corrections on Monday (July 28). No such email was received.
Southard confirmed late last night at Fountain still had not sent her the corrections: “I never received any emails with corrections.”