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Government Consolidation Plan Hits Roadblock: Escambia Withdraws Support For 2010 Vote
January 8, 2010
On a split vote, the Escambia County Commission has pulled support for a 2010 vote on a government consolidation plan, delaying any possible consolidation referendum until 2012 at the earliest. Escambia became the second of three entities to withdraw support; Century pulled their support in January of last year.
A motion by Commissioner Wilson Robertson to ask the Escambia County legislative delegation to delay any consolidation vote until no earlier than November 2012 passed 3-2. Commissioners Robertson, Kevin White and Gene Valentino voted for the delay, while Commissioners Marie Young and Grover Robinson voted against.
The Escambia County Consolidation Study Commission’s proposal to unify the three governments is due by January 15, but it is still not complete. The group has three meetings remaining, including one on January 14, in which it planned to hammer out a final proposal.
That schedule, Robertson said, was simply not acceptable to allow for full review of the plan.
“There is no rush, and there is plenty of time to do this,” Attorney Kenneth Bell told the commision. Bell, who chairs the consolidation committee, said that the actual bill in legislature does not have to be filed until February 15. “I was given my task under the bill agreed to by this commission, the City of Pensacola, the Town of Century and other folks…And the deadline we were given was January 15, and we are on task to reach that deadline.”
Bell said he was disappointed that there “would be an attempt to the pull the rug out of this process”.
“Many things that Mr. Robertson has put in his letter are simply not true,” he said. He encourage the commission to wait until the final consolidation commission meeting on January 14, or “at the latest” January 21 for final proposal that he said the commission had worked thousands of hours to draft. “I think it is incredibly disrespectful.”
“I didn’t think you could make it,” Robertson said. “I was very concerned about seeing this document so we could decide if we wanted to continue to support it.”
“I don’t want to have a document that has been approved by the delegation,” he said, “that all I am going to be able to debate for the next 10 months before it goes to election is whether I am for it or against it. I want a document that has been worked out, that has been hammered out, refined, that’s went out to the community, that’s been discussed.”
“I am not trying to kills this. Get it on the 2012 ballot. Why does it have to be 2010?” Robertson said.
“I do support some form of consolidation. I’ve referred to it as ice cream that comes in 20 flavors — which one are you talking about?” Commissioner Gene Valentino said. “There is no judgement being passed here — directly or indirectly — on consolidation.”
The Town of Century also pulled their support for the plan altogether. In December 2008, the Century Town Council voted to support a consolidation study, but a few weeks later, Century withdrew their support with council members saying they were misled by the group Escambia All For One.
If the 25-member Escambia County Consolidation Study Commission finishes their proposal by January 15, it will still go to the Northwest Florida Legislative Delegation. The delegation will usually not send an item to the full legislature if it does to have the full support of the local governments involved.
Pictured top inset: Commissioner Wilson Robertson at Thursday night’s BOCC meeting. Pictured bottom inset: Kenneth Bell.
Comments
10 Responses to “Government Consolidation Plan Hits Roadblock: Escambia Withdraws Support For 2010 Vote”
I am Lamar Smith of Dogwood Park/Molino area and I support what Robertson did to postpone the vote of the people on consolidation. In fact I don’t support consolidation at all. I only enter the dicussion because someone else with the name Lamar Smith left a comment.
O.K. Wilson ; You made your point and for that I am thankful. To white and Valentino,I appreciate your support on the vote. Now for Mr Bell,I would like to know more about his persistence,what’s in it for him. Someone inside needs to put a gag order on him. However now is the time to go ahead and shove the dagger in the heart of this movement .The time is perfect,while we still have the attention of the politicians all the way to Tallahassee. Greg Evers is still on the top of my list. NO CONSOLIDATION NO GREG EVERS.
The county obviously hoped that the committee would recommend that everything be consolidated under them and when they saw that wasn’t going to be acceptable to everyone they decided to abandon their power grab instead of risking losing what power they currently do have.
I hope we can just bury this issue now because its a waste of time and money. There are 3 main entities: Escambia County, City of Pensacola, City of Century. For every department or issue up to be consolidated, there will be 1 who is in favor because they will get to be in charge of it and 2 who will be opposed because they won’t be in charge of it anymore. Any which way you slice that, it’s doomed to failure. The County had more people on the committee than anyone else and they thought that would insure the success of their power grab. Me thinkest not!
Is it a coincidense that Mr. Robertsons term is up in 2012? Sounds like politics 101. Vote for what is good for yourself–the heck with whats best for the county. Job preservation. Let the voters decide.
Commissioners Young and Robinson live in districts that would benefit the most from consolidation so they were only standing up for their district. However, I’m glad Kevin White stood up for the north end who will NOT benefit much. This may help him at reelection time, if he runs again. Now if they would just move onto another topic maybe something could get done.
The Escambia County has voted many times “No” on any form of a Charter Government. This is just an attempt to force Charter Government on the county. If this was so good of a form of government why hasn’t every county in the state going to this type of government and the ones that have votes for is now wished that they had not. The county voters again will vote this down.
Consolidation is not going to save money. It is going to cost a lot of money to make this work. The down town crowd is looking at the county tax base to pay for their errors and all of the city debts. As far as being more efficient it will be harder to get things done due to more people having their hands in the pot.
Why are some people trying to get this passed in such a hurry? Why done put out a completed plan for everyone to read? Why? Because the people pushing for this knows that people (City and County residents) will see through this and vote it down.
It’s all Greg Evers’ fault. On Ricks Blog on the Pensacola Indepedent News, they report that Evers got worried about all of the comments about consolidation on NorthEscambia.com.
http://ricksblog.biz/?p=8598
Thank you NorthEscambia.com for giving us a voice. I think “our” little paper may be have stopped consolidation, at least for now.
I would like to see it also… it is good that the county is not supporting this city tax grab, maybe by 2012 this thing will be gone… we can hope.
I agree with Robertson, White and Valentino. Rushing to change our form of government without everyone having a chance to become fully informed of the pros and cons is another attempt by the “downtown” crowd to institute “government by the elite”. The new city charter with a strong mayor was the first step. I can’t imagine any county resident wanting the downtown mayor calling the shots for the entire county and having the power to tax county residents.
The downtown crowd is also going after independent government entities like ECUA which would become a cash cow to finance downtown projects. All they have to do is raise the water, sewer and sanitation rates whenever they want more revenue.
The quickest most transparent action that would address the needs and wishes of the people of this county would be to abolish city government after they address and resolve their financial liabilities.
It always goes back to the money. Downtown wants the county tax base.
Why not do this. KIll the whole thing. When the county residents submit a sign petition with 2/3’s of the county residents, to the county commissioners, stating that we might want to consolidate. Then form a group to look at it. But until then , leave it alone. We need to stop the power hungry from trying to push this on us all the time. How many times do we have to keep voteing this down? NEVER GOING TO VOTE FOR CONSOLIDATION!!