PNJ's Local Preference Article and Editorial Miss the Mark

Two articles on local preference in the Pensacola News Journal totally missed the mark and ignored a very important fact--central to their "attack" on us.  Lazy, feckless journalism.....

In August of 2018 The Escambia Board of County Commissioners discussed local preference for projects the county was sending out to bid.  We discussed the topic and we agreed this was a noble aspiration--local preference.  Keep the money local--who woudn't support this?  We also discussed that we wanted to expand opportunities for small/minority owned businesses to contract with the county--and we would do this by widening the pool of qualified small business entities, women-owned businesses, service disabled veteran-owned businesses, and minority owned businesses competing for our jobs.  All of these goals were great, and the vote to affirm the county's commitment to these things was a 4-1.  It was discussed at a Committee of the Whole-- and subsequently we ratified the language from the discussion meeting at the following regular meeting.

We were so supportive of this (and I remain supportive of these goals, btw.) that we baked this requirement into our interlocal agreement with the city of Pensacola when we provided the additional funding needed to complete the ST Engineering Aerospace jobs project at the Pensacola Airport.

So there is no doubt that there is support for this concept from the county.  There is now, and always has been.  Everyone should have a crack at landing county contracts--not simply a select few.

Here is the information from that meeting.  And here is the language from the local preference resolution.

But there are a couple of things to remember and to clarify----especially as Jim Little of the PNJ writes an inaccurate account of what we actually approved.  And then subsequently the "crack" 2-person editorial board use Little's inaccurate piece to attack the county for "not following their own rule!"

But Wait!  We never codified this into an ordinance.  We adopted a resolution.  It was not a rule.  Because there are issues with a specific rule at the local level that would have to be fleshed-out.

#1--such a rule may not be lawful for many of our procurements if any federal grant money is used--as local preferential set-asides are not allowed at the local level with federal money according to our attorney. (although the federal government does use set asides in their own procurments....)

#2--the language itself is/was vague and aspirational--so even if passed as an ordianace (which it wasn't) it would have been difficult to enforce on a prime contractor.

So it was never added to our code of ordinances.  

This would have required two meetings-- culminating in a publicly noticed, scheduled hearing.  

But that never happened.  

I'm not saying we shouldn't--maybe we should, and maybe we will.  

Again--no value judgement on the merits--that discussion should happen.  My judgment is only on the PNJ for once again painting the commissioners in a false light, creating a straw man, and knocking it down in another attack on the county based upon a story that is not accurate.  

Jim Little often writes good articles that capture the essence of what is happening in the county.  Here, however,  he totally and completeley missed the mark.  I'm told he never even reached out to the county attorney to ask her about this--he just wrote the article without the one most  salient fact attached (that the county never formally adopted a local preference ordinance in procurement--which would have been the method by which this language from the adopted resolution would have been a requirement in the procurement process).

Wouldn't it be great if Journalists were not lazy---and actually did their homework and the research on these things to write factual articles instead of inaccurate hatchet jobs?

No wonder nobody trusts the media anymore.  Too many agenda-driven, loose, factually inaccurate stories like this latest example from the PNJ.....