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Did Consolidation Committee Members Violate Sunshine Law?
December 24, 2009
A Pensacola blog is reporting that emails between members of the Escambia County Consolidation Study Commission may have violated Florida’s Sunshine Law.
ProgressivePensacola.com, a blog that typically focuses on Pensacola city issues, reports “The emails, between Commission members Ken Bell, Janet Lander, and Ed Fleming — all members of an ECCSC committee charged with drafting a charter for a consolidated city-county government — show extensive discussion of consolidation issues which have yet to be voted on by either the draft committee or the full commission.”
The blog’s owner, Dereck Cosson continues “It’s unlikely that the three members of the drafting subcommittee could argue ignorance — all three are lawyers”. In several of the emails, the three discuss the need to wait for a public meeting to continue their partial discussions.
An email from Bell to Lander and Fleming even discusses if Century should be included in the consolidation proposal. “Do we want to recommend that the consolidated government include the Town of Century?” Bell wrote on December 15.
The blog reports that in a December 5 email, Bell emailed a copy of the draft charter document to Fleming and Lander, noting “that he’d made ‘corrections’ and ‘notes’ in order to ‘assist in the deliberations at our next Draft Committee meeting.’ Justice Bell then went on to list several issues he planned to raise at the meeting.”
To read the ProgressivePensacola.com article, click here.
Pictured: Consolidation Committee members (L-R) Janet Lander, Ed Fleming and Ken Bell.
Comments
12 Responses to “Did Consolidation Committee Members Violate Sunshine Law?”
“Somebody’s got to support the fat cat republicans, and it looks like it’s gonna take everybody in the county to accomplish that.”
Are you sure they aren’t Democrats? It sure sounds like a Democrat type thing.
But how will Pensacola repay the bond debt for the CMP if they don’t consolidate with the county so they have more taxpayers to contribute to that debt? Those fat cats that bought those bonds will collect one way or the other, and repayment of the $40-some odd millions of dollars will be $90M+ according to Studer and Wiggins. Somebody’s got to support the fat cat republicans, and it looks like it’s gonna take everybody in the county to accomplish that.
“and the sign coming over the overpass from Flomaton is going to read: Welcome to Pensacola……City Limits”
PICTURE IT:
“Are we there yet?”
“Honey, that sign said we were inside Pensacol City limits nearly half an hour ago.”
“Yeah, Dad, I thought Pensacola had beaches but all I’ve seen is trees.”
“Somebody lied to us.”
“If youse guys don’t quiet down, I’ll turn this car around and go back!”
“Great, another half hour of trees inside the ‘City’ of Pensacola.”
This definitely slows down government, usually a good thing.
It appears our Sunshine Law makes it impossible to communicate with anyone else without everybody in the world being in on the communication. (That’d be like nonstop me.)
Maybe it’ll work. If you can’t blind them with your brilliance, bury them under your bull. It should be interesting if the time ever comes where every last part of the decision making process has to be made public.
Reading the information they make public shows consolidation is seldom more efficient. It has a failure rate somewhere around six to one.
It usually fails unless they exclude full consolidation in things like police protection.
It usually fails unless they give special services for certain areas with higher localized taxes to boot, (Basically the same way annexation works now, join the city, pay higher taxes but get better services and protection.)
It usually fails unless they (pretend to?) isolate pre-existing debts from becoming general debts.
It usually fails if it is not careful to preserve special ethnic status to minorities, gerrymandering districts to insure their majority status inside some districts. This is socially polarizing but makes existing leaders happy.
……………………………………………………
It is more likely to pass if proponents can convince voters Consolidation will somehow draw businesses in from afar to improve the local economy. I didn’t see where it actually accomplished that goal, but simply promising it
sometime in the indeterminate future
somehow sometimes convinces voters
if done with a straight face.
THIS IS MUCH HARDER TO ACCOMPLISH IF THEY HAVE TO DO IT COMPLETELY IN THE OPEN..
David the disappointed
How in the world can a bunch of egotistical maniacs think they may be able to draft anything in the best interest of Escambia citizens. There is going to be an uprising from the general population before this draft gets to the voters,and the people that are responsible are going to be long remembered. Greg Evers is tops on my list to remember and the long list will grow from that point.
They learned from our Democratic Congress…..backroom deals…….before you know it, we will blink and the sign coming over the overpass from Flomaton is going to read: Welcome to Pensacola……City Limits
what’s wrong with cramming legislation down the throats of the american people?
after all, isn’t that how its done?
Darn. I was hoping he was asking for your approval on the proposal, or you were spelling out to him what we want up here in the north end.
“No Way Consolidation” — I had called Justice Bell and requested a copy of the draft proposal to that date. He emailed it, and I thanked him.
That info ended up this article:
http://www.northescambia.com/?p=12460
I noticed in the full emails that there are emails between Ken Bell and William at northescambia.com. What’s up with that.
The one from Bell says “Here it is” and William replies “Thanks.” That makes a lot of sense.
Many years ago in Tampa there was a hobo named Jim Fair. He somehow managed to get his name on the ballot for one elected office or another at every city and county election year after year. After many failed attempts, he finally won Supervisor of Elections in 1964.
After winning the election, Jim Fair was so incompetent and he screwed up the elections office so badly that Florida Governor Claude Kirk had to remove him from office.
Now, that bunch of lawyers and judges down in Pensacola are trying to pull the same stunt – put consolidation/charter on the ballot again and again until it finally wins.
However, this time after they screw up our county, just the same as Jim Fair screwed up the elections office down in Tampa, we will not be able to throw them out. We’ll be stuck with it forever.
Good. Even more reason to vote NO on consolidation. These three can pat themselves on the back for putting another nail in it’s coffin.