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I am one member of a five person board. The opinions I express on this forum are mine only, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Escambia County Staff, Administrators, Employees, or anyone else associated with Escambia County Florida. I am interested in establishing this blog as a means of additional transparency to the public, outreach to the community, and information dissemination to all who choose to look. Feedback is welcome, but because public participation is equally encouraged, appropriate language and decorum is mandatory. Although this is not my campaign site for re-election--sometimes campaign related information will be discussed, therefore in an abundance of caution I add the following :








Friday, November 5, 2021

Doug's Second Map Fails, Too

Like a plane crashing into a mountain--D2's latest effort at a redistricting map is a disaster....


So we're in the middle of a once in a decade redistricting effort and there has been a lot of effort put into the process by 5 School Board Members and 4 of the County Commissioners.

Commissioner Doug Underhill has not put in equivalent effort, though, even as he lobbied heavily for us to complete this process in rushed fashion this year.

Doug didn't come to the first joint meeting on October 5th, he blew that meeting off.   And he didn't leave a draft map for the other 9 of us to consider, either.  

He didn't bother to "zoom" into that meeting--although he could have no matter where he was.  (School Board Member Kevin Adams, for example,  attended the meeting via Zoom--as he was on School Board Business 500 miles away)  I was subsequently told Doug was away from town at a Jet Ski race.

And between that first meeting and up until the second meeting last Tuesday evening--Commissioner Underhill  didn't submit a proposed map for our individual consideration prior to the second meeting.  

Crickets.......nothing.

Tuesday evening, five minutes before the final joing meeting, he brought hard copies of his first attempt at a  map to the group.  It went over like a lead balloon.  A total and complete, utter and epic fail--as I chronicled in detail here.  Numbers didn't balance, it knocked an existing elected official from her seat, it threw off the balance of schools between school board D1 and D2, left Myrtle Grove jigsawed between D1 and D2,  and on and on.  It was a non-starter from the get go.  

Then, last night, at the last minute, Doug submitted this disaster, below.



This rendition, hard as it may be to believe, is actually worse than his version from Tuesday night.  The only improvement it brings over the first disastrous map is that it does bring each district's size closer to being in alignment with the ideal size of 64,381 citizens each.  

But that is the only redeeming quality of this map.

With this iteration, above, not one, but TWO (2) existing elected female ECUA board members get knocked out of their respective districts, the balance of schools between D1 and D2 on the school board is jolted out of balance, Myrtle Grove and other west side neighborhoods are still chewed up like jigsaw puzzle pieces between D1 and D2, and on and on.  Significantly:  We worked hard at the last meeting to assist D3 maintain and expand their required minority majority precinct.  The solid map we settled on Tuesday night--- the one we will be bringing forward next Tuesday morning---was carefully created with input from all participants and established a minority-majority of 1,518 Citizens for D3.   Doug's disaster plan above slashes this majority by 45% in his rendition--down to a majority just 835 minority voters.

So, to summarize, the second map commissioner Underhill has brought forward at the last minute is actually worse than his first effort.

It completely ignores the other 9 elected officials' input and suggestions in favor of a Frankenstein approach with thin tentacles in D1 over to Perdido Bay in the middle of the county and a giant appendage going west to east along 9-Mile road over past the I-110 interchange for reasons which are inexplicable.  It looks like a horror show. This map is flawed, ill-conceived and unworkable for reasons much too numerous to list.

I'll go through the list in detail on Tuesday if it is necessary...but I don't think it will be 

Like the first, I predict it quickly finds ZERO support and subsequently the trash receptacle on Tuesday morning--as it should.


16 comments:

Mel Pino said...

His office also sent the map out to a bunch of civil rights and voting advocates effectively telling them that Commissioner May and Dr. Edler were selling them out. Insinuating they had left a bunch of minority votes on the table. He tried to get them to storm the podium last night and probably thought his craptastic coloring book would result in a horrible display of racial division and then force a vote with the question in the air.

Which is exactly the reason I say that Doug is evil. The reason that I say Doug is evil is because he is evil. Even if a single one of his lines results in some more voters to keep Escambia from another lawsuit on diluting minority voting blocks, that isn't what he's after. He's just going to continue to try to blow things up for the rest of his time on the commission. This is what a supreme sadist looks like when his self-fashioned narcissistic "reality" starts coming unglued.

Anonymous said...

In a future post, please describe what state law requires during the redistricting process both after each decennial census and at other times in odd-numbered years. It's hard to believe that all of this open talk about torturing the geographic boundaries to protect incumbents is legal. It is even harder to believe that it is legal to racially gerrymander a Black Democrat district to protect an incumbent. If the county gets sued, does someone sue the entire BCC or just the Chairman who signed the gerrymandering ordinance? Similarly, if the Governor learns what was done, or someone files a complaint, and he decides to remove someone, does he remove all of the commissioners who voted for the gerrymandered plan or just remove the Chairman? A much better approach would have been to appoint an independent redistricting commission, tell them what the law requires and let them present a plan without regard to how it affects incumbents unwilling or afraid to run for reelection in 2022 vice 2024. As for the Underhill plan, it looks the best of any seen to date.

Anonymous said...

Look
Whatever anyone attempts to make sense of what Underhill did or said to May or Dr Edler is a lie.

If you can go from there and try to make sense of it. That is where have to start.

Melissa Pino said...

Anon 4:51's diction, rhetoric, and cadence sound a heck of a lot like John Peacock's. If it's not him, it's someone who took the same course on how to write blowhard.

Anonymous said...

Someone needs to tell May. Stop being a Dumbass. Stop deferring to "the commissioner in his district." Figure out what to do. Seriously Underhill uses May's fear. Underhill uses anybody stupid enough to buy into his poison. Can't believe I wasted this much time pointing out the obvious. Watch him with a brain one month and see what he is.

Melissa Pino said...

Anonymous 8:18, Commissioner May cares about his constituents and doesn't want Doug to have efficacy running games on them (just as a school board member from another district tried to insert himself into D3 school board business). For the life of me, I don't know why people believe Doug on anything, but he still has his medicine man tongue flapping to put one over on groups of people who don't yet have the clear facts at hand. And that's what he intentionally orchestrated, in order to try to blow up the redistricting into chaos and watch the commission be forced to take a vote that the press could then run with for his Downtown handlers. (Doug making the motion on the Roger Scott tennis courts, anyone?) I can't believe I wasted that much time pointing out the obvious.

"Whatever anyone attempts to make sense of what Underhill did or said to May or Dr Edler is a lie." --Anon 8:08

The tactic of claiming people are lying when they are stating facts may still hold sway on social media. Where it does not work, as demonstrated at the last meeting, is in Chambers, where people actually know what's going on, who's lying, and who isn't.

This is the same tactic that Doug tried to deploy on me in public forum, claiming that I was lying about his business connections with the builders who screwed up Perdido Estates and continued to refuse to fix the problem under Doug's duck and cover while he has been commissioner of Perdido Estates. Check out my Facebook post on that subject to see how well accusing people of lying while you're the one lying through your teeth tends to work out on somebody who won't countenance the BS.

Anonymous said...

Underhill is a pathological liar.
He consults his logical fallacy To do list daily. Do not trust anything he says. Assume that each and everything he says is untrue and is just a tool in his Pandora's box that he wields to ruin anything he comes near or is a part of.

Rue the day he ever entered into local government.
https://conjuringjusticeblog.com/category/doug-underhill/

I thought this was already voted on. So he sent out chimp mail and is using D3 and racial strife in his arsenal after the fact. Sounds about right.

Why would chairman agree to a special meeting?

I know Mel, you can't just avoid him nor let it go. I may watch the public forum later. I'm finding I can just not look at him on f/b nor ECW much and life goes on. It seems PNJ got the message, as Marlette isn't drawing Doug's lies as truth, at least nothing published lately.

Maybe BOCC will vote on the Beach Haven project with the discretionary $$ that Underhill did post publicly on his Commissoiner page that He stands alone fighting and will not accept, July 1 HAHA He can't keep his stories straight.

I'm relieved the other commissioners have him in check but it seemed May and Bender waffled a little.



Anonymous said...

Very unprofessional. I watched the 11-4 commission meeting today. Disgusting. You and Barry talking about a duly elected commissioner when he is not in the room. Even Ray Charles can see what unprofessional conduct that was. Whether right or wrong you might want to remember that in your newly created district Underhill was voted in.

Anonymous said...

You do know most citizens think you are a joke. It’s like a reality show watching you.

Anonymous said...

I figured my post wouldn’t be released. I know the game.

Anonymous said...

Last 3 comments, you must be new around here.

Anonymous said...

641 sounds like little Q man claiming "everybody sees it, everybody knows it" lame.

Go away..Shoo fly don't bother me.

Some people like Underhill because they are in on his theft of our shore. Or either they fall for the con.

Bergosh took on Morgan and Haines during the sheriff budget debacle 2017.
Took on Perdido trying to close Beach access bought for the public.
Took on Admin treating employees unfairly.
Helped get Bed Tax raised to going rates.
He tells it like it is. And is true to his word.
OLF 8 is purchased for economic development.

Underhill continually twists Everything all day everyday. Too numerous to count.

Last 3 comments just demonstrate ignorance, Be the ball. Clueless.

Anonymous said...

November 6, 2021 at 6:39 PM
What are you going on about? They were all in chambers.

Melissa Pino said...

Anon 4:02, the problem is he is just getting worse and will continue to do so. While he has no ability to get his special interest initiatives past the BOCC at this point, thank goodness, the destructive capacity of his final year as a wounded lame duck is horrendous. The further he slips out of relevancy, the more drastic his tactics will become. And he keeps dragging things out that should have been put to bed. So yeah, while I long for the day that I don't have to deal with the man ever again, unfortunately he is making it clear that we can't just check out from counteracting his malfeasance.

This is why, after I watched him manipulate Flood Defenders and the really amazing speakers who came about their flood issues, and fashion himself as the savior of Perdido Estates--his shell game Coastal Homebuilders shared/shares an address with the now defunct HOA he is pretending they can go after, for cripe's sake--I urged the Board to just take control of his district in the coming year.

No doubt that would be shouldering a huge burden--it's not like they don't have enough on their plates in their own districts. But voting his discretionary on the Beach Haven drainage project is a one-off solution to a year-long problem, and will just get billed as retribution on their parts. I still don't think the Board understands how bad this man can and will get...the less room he has to operate, the more viciously he will lash out from his remaining space. Meanwhile, his constituents in D2 sit under his wrath and wonder what in the heck he will do to blow up our neighborhoods on the way out the door. The solution to both problems is to vote to direct Administration to do an immediate audit of his projects and get a real accounting of his monies, grants, and commitments. The very best chance people in neighborhoods like Perdido Estates have is to remove Doug from the equation and use his LOST, general fund, and discretionary in a reasonable way for the remainder of his tenure.

Another thing that should happen immediately is that the County Attorney and Buildings should conduct a review of his permitting during his time on the books with Coastal Homebuilders, and get to the bottom of why he didn't disclose income from them in 2017 when he was on the books all but 20 days of the year. He has been remarkably quiet on that topic for Doug. First time in a while that when I include him on a public record email he hasn't come back with some lunacies on paper.

Jeff Bergosh said...

Anonymous 6:41--I posted your comments, all of them, all three of them from the same IP address. Ho hum. You don't like me. Boo-hoo. The reality of the matter is I can spot who you are a mile away, even if you post anonymously with your garbage. Let me take a guess....You're either the emaciated Q guy running around from meeting to meeting and on the Escambia Hate Site, busily carrying Doug's water-------OR-------you're the Denver House-husband with a bucket of KFC on each knee, still intently watching social media in a city you haven't lived in for several years as you followed your wife's career move out of the area. And you two want to call other people the "reality" show or "Joke?" Look in the mirror. Meanwhile, I keep plowing through the flack you all throw out like an Ice Breaker cutting a path through arctic ice....LOL.

Anonymous said...

Odd yesterday -- The public forum video on ECTV wouldn't load as well as the search on Sun Biz.

I did watch the clip though.

Underhill was in business with Treasure Hill with Owens as business partners that went bankrupt. I remember that from before. I didn't see Doug as a registered agent with Coastal.
Perhaps the Flood defenders will get to the bottom of that.

People who live in flood plains and drainage basins and on barrier islands take their chances when it rains a lot or hurricanes hit.

I do agree the BOCC needs to pass a tree ordinance, making it illegal with no loopholes for heritage trees. Need to do a better job of preservation and conservation.