Blog: White Versus Whitehead

June 6, 2008

Mike Whitehead stepped down as chairman of the Escambia County Commission Thursday night, perhaps staying just one step ahead of Commissioner Kevin White. White had prepped a handwritten statement as prelude to a motion to remove White as chair at the end of the meeting.

But Whitehead had perhaps seen the writing on the wall and resigned as chairman at the beginning of the meeting. White told me Thursday night after the meeting that he had told only his wife and mother of his plans, and he was sure that neither of them had told anyone.

White used the words “arrogance” and “arrogant” repeatedly to describe Whitehead’s attitude toward the commission and toward the citizens of this county. And he blasted Whitehead for attending a campaign fund-raiser on Whitehead’s behalf hosted by a contractor that is currently involved in a lawsuit with the county .The county attorney had even told commissioners to steer clear of the contractor or anyone else suing the county and to run everything dealing with them through her office. Whitehead chose not to do so, and has yet to admit he made a mistake or even apologize.

It is an election year for both White and Whitehead. It took political guts for White to plan to remove Whitehead. For that, we applaud him. He could have made the motion to remove Whitehead, and it could have failed. Talk about egg on your face, especially in an election year.

I do want to make it very clear that NorthEscambia.com does not plan to endorse candidates in local races that directly affect District 5 this year. We just believe White deserves credit were credit is due.

But since Whitehead’s District 1 is not in NorthEscambia.com’s coverage area (it’s primarily the western part of Pensacola), let’s talk about that race.

You have Whitehead as the incumbent in that district.

Let’s look at some of his accomplishments so far this year, besides raising campaign money from the contractor suing the county.

The Myrtle Grove Volunteer Fire Department recently celebrated its 55th anniversary of dedicated service to that community. They invited Whitehead to be their guest speaker. After all, the Myrtle Grove VFD is in Whitehead’s district. He declined, telling the fire department that he would be out of town. But he was not out of town. In fact, he admitted to the Pensacola press that he was playing golf instead.

He said it was just a misunderstanding with his schedule; he thought the fire department event was Friday. But he admits he was not out of town Friday either. “I don’t think anybody was that upset about not having another speaker there,” he told the Pensacola News Journal. “I’m not that worried about it.”

Whitehead skipped the fire department event. One of his opponents in this year’s election, Wilson Robertson, attended the VFD event.

That was not the last time the golf course has cast a bad light over Whitehead.

The Sons of Italy held a golf tournament a month ago at Marcus Point Golf Club. According to the Pensacola Independent News, lots of people ponied up 75 bucks to play and more money to sponsor holes and put up their signs. Whitehead, the Independent News says, paid to play. But then he put up campaign signs and refused to pay the sponsor fee. (You can read more, and see pictures by clicking here.)

Wilson Robertson was at the golf tournament too. He paid to place his signs, as did new Commission Chairman Gene Valentino.

The Escambia County Farm Tour recently loaded up agriculture and political leaders in Pensacola and headed north to the North Escambia area. The purpose of the tour was to introduce the “south end” to the life and agriculture in our “north end”. Commissioners Valentino, White and Grover Robinson were on the tour. Wilson Robertson was also on the tour.

Whitehead? We are not sure where he was. Was he at the golf course again? We are not sure. But we do know he was not on the farm tour in North Escambia.

We stopped in at a recent meeting of the Escambia County Dirt Road Paving Committee. While their members are not the faces you see on the evening news every night, they are charged with the important task of deciding which dirt roads in the county will be paved next. Paving dirts roads is a big deal to a lot of people in North Escambia. White was at the meeting. To our surprise, Wilson Robertson was at the meeting.

It’s our understanding that there are no unpaved dirt roads in District 1 where Robertson is running against Whitehead. But he told us he was there because he still cares about District 5 where he used to serve, and he cares about the county as a whole. Imagine that…the potential to have a former District 5 North Escambia commissioner serving on the commission in another district. Two commissioners in Escambia County that understand the “north end”. That certainly seems as if it would create a better advantage for North Escambia in county government that we have not had in some time.

If you have friends or relatives in Escambia’s District 1, you might pass along a link to NorthEscambia.com.

We must add that Democrat Stephen M. Davidson is also in that race. I must admit, I don’t know much about Mr. Davidson, so not much about him will we say.

As for Mr. Whitehead, we predict that he might just have a lot more time on the golf course after November.

Comments? Let me know what you think at news@northescambia.com

Comments

One Response to “Blog: White Versus Whitehead”

  1. Chuck Sansom on July 9th, 2008 11:45 am

    This painted a perfect picture of the antics of Mike Whitehead and goes to show how strong the incumbancy factor is in elections. Let’s hope the voters in mike’s district wise up this year.

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under Blog, News