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Pensacola Businessman Makes Push For Charter Government In Escambia County
November 10, 2021
A Pensacola businessman made a push before the Escambia County Commission Tuesday for charter government.
“A group of concerned citizens just got together and decided there may be a better way to structure government to be more effective,” downtown resident John Peacock told the commission during a Committee of the Whole meeting. He said the proposal is not an “indictment” of current county government, and is not a “covert attempt to consolidate” or an effort to have a strong county mayor. He said it would have no effect on the Town of Century, the City of Pensacola or constitutional officers.
“It’s no secret that I personally have felt that we should have consolidated years ago,” he said. “This group got together with the intention can we find a better way. We discussed all the different ideas, and several months ago we came to the conclusion that we would like to just pursue and see if a charter was a better option.”
Peacock did not identify the people in what he called “a group of very diverse individuals”.
Reading from a document emailed to individual commissioners last week, he listed Escambia County assets including the Blue Angels, a “historic city on the water”, colleges, airport, hospitals, interstate, large employers, and “plenty of rural land for economic development”.
Peacock requested that his outline be used to form a charter study commission, and if deemed appropriate draft a charter for approval by the commission, legislature and voters.
Commissioner Jeff Bergosh said he would support at-large districts, but never a strong mayor.
“Absolute power corrupts. That person would be the absolute most powerful person in Escambia County,” Bergosh said of a strong mayor form of government. “I don’t want a group of downtown insiders, who can raise a ton of money, to be able to anoint a person to come in here and tell me…we’ve got a different vision.”
“That’s exactly, precisely what would happen, and that’s why I don’t support a strong mayor,” Bergosh concluded.
“This is a process of looking at all of the different charter options and see if there’s a better way.” Peacock responded. “It has nothing to do with the strong mayor concept. That was my original idea; that is still my opinion, just like you have yours. But my opinion is irrelevant to this.
None of the other four commissioners had any comment. Commissioners took no action Tuesday on Peacock’s presentation; they are unable to vote or take formal action at a committee meeting.
Comments
39 Responses to “Pensacola Businessman Makes Push For Charter Government In Escambia County”
Don’t California my Pensacola.
Let me explain this for those that don’t understand:
People who have financial interests in downtown Pensacola would LOVE to tax the people living outside of the city limits in order to spend your money on the downtown projects that will make them rich.
No thank you.
Lets PLEASE not go through this farce again. If commissioners fund a study it is t th e same as their prior approval for it.
Hmmm….I agree with the comments earlier about this being a SJW based “diverse” group. Pensacola Politics has always been hungry for money, and that’s what this is, they are looking at bleeding the county coffers. All these pet projects that hemorrhage money and never bring a ROI. Think of the Lovely Parking System Downtown, that discourages folks from coming to town. Or the administrative fees that are higher than the fines for a violation….. Some folks have brought up Santa Rosa and it’s formerly Dry status. I’m going to post something I told a Dry advocate in the early 90s. He claimed that going wet would usher in gambling, prostitution and drugs…..my response, at 17, he and I could get in my car and go find ANY of that at 11am in the morning…. The argument was invalid. The ONLY thing that Santa Rosa being dry protected was the economy of the bars and package liquor stores on the East Side of Escambia County….and guaranteed, that folks would have DUI fatalities IN Santa Rosa County. Prohibition does NOT work folks, it only empowers the Black Market. In conclusion, I state, Follow the Money, because this, this is what this is about.
I don’t have enough info about consolidation or charter governments to have a strong opinion one way or the other.
However, seeing a local business that STRONGLY supports this proposal with very few concrete details on what it would look like in implementation is super sus.
NO THANK YOU! That’s exactly why I dont live in the city limits of Pensacola.
IT THIS PASS YOU WILL PAY MORE TAXS, LIKE CITY TAX AND COUNTY TAX, AND MAYBE WHO KNOWS, THE SOUTH END HAS TRY THIS BEFORE .I LIVE IN THE COUNTY NOT THE CITY !!!!!!!!!!!! AND I DON’T WONT TO PAY FOR CITY THINGS
Oh,Hell No
No, No, No….don’t drink the kool aid that individual was trying to serve. I went through this in GA in the 80s and 90s and the citizens are now trying how to undo that consolidation of county and city. The city was broke and the county had money. The city of Augusta was about bankrupt and wanted the county to save them. So please voters and BOCC do not by into this.
Sounds like everyone agrees that it is a no from us.So we need to go to more meetings and make our voices heard instead of commenting here as well.go sit in meeting .I am going to be more active I like my community the way it is and will stand and tell them so.
Any candidate wanting to run for office should be required to take a government studies course. Learn about the city/county ordinances, (you should know them by heart before running) zoning, code enforcement, etc.
That is the least you could do in order to serve your districts. It’s not hard people.
All you have to do is look at the BOCC, Pensacola and Century councils to see that none of these people are capable of governing. So now you want to create a bigger, all inclusive commission/council? I would hate to see someone like Bergosh or Gomez having that much power! Almost everything that these people touch turns out as a disaster. Look at how the Pensacola City Council wants to handle their homeless crisis, move it out into the county. The Century Town Council can’t follow a law or guideline with a team of lawyers leading them, and you want to give them more responsibility? Then there’s the BOCC and their inability to get anything done without a WWE style cage match, for every single issue.
When they mention “diverse group” they actually mean diverse only in racial terms, they’re not talking about the diversity of economic classes in the county. When it boils down to it, these people could care less what certain people want or think Sounds like another transplant who thinks they know what’s best for us poor backwoods folk.
been here since 1957 stop building
Remember when Santa Rosa county was dry? It was brought up time and again and defeated, until it wasn’t. This will be the same.
Whole thing sounds like “Peacock” has consumed the Downtown Crowd Kool-Aid and is part of the Young Pensacola bunch that along with some Politicians pushed the Appointed Superintendent of Schools mess.
NO–NO–NO a Million Times NO on the issue of WE the People giving away more of Our Powers to a handfull of suits who think they Know What We REALLY Need.
Downtown area has become Rich Folks Land and pushed out generations of people by buying up their land and then building $300,000-$450,000 junky looking tic-tac housing.
VOTERS, and COMMENTERS, WE ALL Need to Get Out and VOTE when this garbage grab stuff comes up for Our Decision.
All the nopes in nopeville!
My father , may he rest in peace , used to say eventually there’d be enough outlanders move here that there’d be liquor in Santa Rosa County & charter government in Escambia County . He;s half right so far.
Well,
the downtown crowd my like it…….
BUT, the rest of county doesn’t
GET MESSAGE
See here? So far, a hundred per cent of the comments are against this proposal. Usually the ones with money get their way anyway, and that is just WRONG. Do go to the polls and vote, if it gets that far and is on the ballot. However, WATCH OUT, for tricky wording and be very careful. These things often have deceptive wording to trick people into voting the opposite of that for which they think they are voting. So sick and tired of the few who put themselves above those they are supposed to serve. That is so selfish. We the people are sick of it!!!
@ M in Bratt. If consolidation is so bad then why have Louisville, Nashville and Jacksonville all benefited from it? Do you people want more funding for roads? I guess not. That’s okay because the money that we are refusing by refusing to consolidate will make its way down to the I 4 corridor as always.
Well, the downtown crowd is behind schedule on this one, they usually roll this out every 10 years or so. The goal of this is so transparent that even Ray Charles can see it. Being in control of most of what goes on in Escambia County is not good enough for them, they want to control it all. It’s also funny that whomever comes up with this idea regularly seems to always mirror the form of government that the City of Pensacola has. How convenient it would be for them to just roll us all under the thumb of the City of Pensacola. We all better pay attention when they roll this out and show up at the polls, or we will lose our vote like we did on the School Superintendent.
A better idea would be for the BCC to invite the Florida Association of Counties (FAC) to conduct a comprehensive review of Escambia County’s government. It doesn’t have to be a blame game. But, imagine if FAC was allowed to have experts talk to whomever they wanted from BCC members to citizens and then identify what works and should be done more and what does not work and should be fixed and how. I think a big problem is that the BCC spend too much time interfering in the administrative process. You hear the talk even in the open during meetings as they lobby for this or that special interest. The BCC is a legislative body. It should set policy, make laws, tell the Administrator what to do and then get out of the way and let him or her do their job. If the Administrator is not up to the task, fire them but don’t keep undercutting them which is what happens all the time and why we cycle through one Administrator after another. Further, if you asked the staff both the higher-ups and the actual workers, they would bring forward lots of good ideas about how to do things better. With McMillan gone, I think that the next round of elections with everyone allowed to vote in all district elections for the first time in decades will greatly impact the BCC, School Board and ECUA too.
Residents outside of the city want less government control over their day to day lives and finances not more – it’s why we live in the county instead of the city. The last thing we need to do is expand city style government control throughout the county.
Government is too big and already out of control. We never need more government!
How many Congressman are lifers? The whole system is constructed to keep the already elected officials to continue in office forever! VOTE, NO REELECT!
@JW AMEN!!
More government is NEVER the answer!!
Hopefully this never makes it to the voter’s ballot… and if it does, hopefully the citizens of Escambia County realize that this is nothing more than a power grab by the downtown elite and vote NO.
No. Leave the system like it is. Escambia County doesn’t need a king and barons, because that will make the rest of us Serfs.
SMELLS Wrong for so many reasons.
Appointed Superintendent of Public Schools is only the beginning for this downtown bunch to accumulate more influence, power, status and help friends get rich off our tax money.
Bet there are some state politicians we elected who are pushing behind the scenes for this also.
When we get to vote on this Just Say NO.
We should not be considering any change so radical and potentially dangerous as this which has been proposed, We do have problems in this county so let’s work on them. Now is the time for leadership in the county commissioners. Stop the “Good Ole Boy” junk and get busy……..
A few key words and phrases to take to heart in this article including “downtown resident”, “assets”, “diverse”, undisclosed “concerned citizens”, and “not an indictment”. Flowery words for a power grab.
The Downtown Gang sees all the money flowing around the Nine Mile area, growth outside the city limits and realizes there is nothing left Downtown and within the City limits to leverage into more money for them. Much easier and significantly less costly for Big Money to control a single point of power than to control multiple points of power.
So, tell us Mr. Peacock, before you bring us a solution, what exactly is the problem you are trying to solve? Unless you can demonstrate a need for this change, why should anyone consider it?
“plenty of rural land for economic development”. That quote decided what I think of this proposal. There is a reason people move to rural areas………to live in peace and quiet and beauty. A lot of money is not the most important thing in our lives. I do not want to live in the city and I do not want the city living up next to or surrounding me. Why does money and government always intrude on the peace and happiness of the majority? And, power does corrupt. I like each district having their own commissioner that individuals can go to about their own local issues.
Another attempt to get residents of the county to finance spending in the city.
IN NO CASE IS GOVERNMENT EVER MORE EFFICIENT.
There is a push for big government across our nation. Always remember that governments will seek to grow and gain power as long as they exist. Rarely will a government take a step back. We the people must regulate the size of government before they are too big to control.. yes I said control because our elected officials and those they appoint work for us. Our federal government is well on its way to being an uncontrollable behemoth. Let’s not let the local government go the same way.
If Mr Peacock is pushing it Look Out.
If this was to Pass then…………… The People would Lose their Vote for what’s BEST for the District they Live in. $ would all go on what District 1 & 2 and maybe 3 being the Better part of the City of Pensacola! Poor old District 4 & 5 would be Lose they’re Voice when having some input with your Community.
Question one, what is wrong with what we have now? Districts are set up based population gathered during the census. This equalizes the individual as much as possible. Each citizen in each district votes to elect a representative. They in turn vote the will of the people they represent, or they should.
Question two, what would the county residents, as a whole, gain?
The charter would be at large elections, which would basically take the voting power, and voices, away from residents living rural areas. It would leaving rural communities disenfranchised and possibly unfairly taxed without equal representation.
Something big in it for him or he would not be involved. It the rich who would gain from this, no everyday citizens