Recently the board of county commissioners of Escambia County filed a complaint in the circuit court for a writ of mandamus against the clerk of the court Pam Childers. That complaint was moved to a judge in Okaloosa county on Tuesday. That particular judge quickly recused. Now, today, comes word that the case was reassigned to a different Circuit Court Judge in Okaloosa County. We shall see what comes of this. Some with whom I have spoken predict that all judges in the first circuit will recuse and this complaint will land in the 14th circuit, in Panama City.
But we will see what happens in the next several days......
10 comments:
Thanks for keeping us informed.
Today the commissioner is not Doug hate clan site is back to quoting PNJ and Marlette -- as though suddenly now they and cartoon guy is an expert.
At least the area is into recycling. Same image, different day.
http://jeffbergoshblog.blogspot.com/2021/07/blog-post_66.html
You know the one with the "violent female imagery" [check comments old parody] ^^
Might as well recycle too.
Spin spin
Publish what happens with Underhill's Ethics hearing this week if you will please.
It looks like he has his shills on facebook kicking up dust about bridges. I wonder if they made up a letter supposedly from an employee. Probably. That is their standard operating procedure. Wonder who is using his account. It looks like its not him again. Then people say, "ALL the bridges are out". Doesn't take much. They are probably trying to get people riled up before your town hall and will have their plants in the audience to disrupt. Smokescreen and red herrings.
JAR posted Marlette again and tagged him. You know they feed him info and he gobbles it up. What a goober.
Hard to sue when if it published as Opinion though. They sure are bad for the area.
On another item here. The Triumph bill is NOT just for Escambia and it is NOT RESTORE $. It is in black and white if one takes the time to research it.
It is intended for Regional Economic Impact and Escambia has failed to get anything on that passed. Here is our opportunity to network with Brown in the D2 seat.
1.
1:50 pm, the problem with some of Marlette's comments is that they cross the line from opinion to statement of fact, and in doing so becomes malicious libel when he knows that he has no proof of it and cannot make a reasonable argument that he thought it was true by any other means than hogwash. He didn't say that it *looked* like operating out of the Sunshine. He said it *was* operating out of the Sunshine, a statement for which he does not have any evidence whatever, because none exists.
Per BP money, there are three general streams of monies stemming from that devastating event: (1) environmental damage assessment; (2) civil and administrative penalties falling under the Clean Water Act; and (3) criminal penalties.
There was about a billion dollars awarded all told through civil and administrative penalties. About 20% of that went into an Oil Spill trust fund. The other 80% went to the RESTORE umbrella, which has come to be thought of as five "pots" (Pot 1, Pot 2, etc.)
Pot 1 was the monies for which Escambia decided to create a Restore Advisory Committee to hear citizen input and oversee the selection of grant proposals. This committee met for the better part of two years, with citizens and stakeholders attending dozens of meetings, and was then promptly and summarily ignored in its results. Instead, the commissioners divvied the money up about equally and selected projects for their districts. In District 2, for example, Doug Underhill has prioritized the multi use path. This Pot 1 received roughly 35% of the 80%/800,000,000.
Pot 2 is the Gulf Coast Ecosystem pot (roughly 30% of the 80%), shared by the impacted states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississipi, and with everybody pretending that Texas was impacted by BP for purely political reasons. That Council is made up of representatives from pertinent federal agencies (Dept of Interior, Army, Homeland Security, etc) and a proxy from each governor:
https://www.restorethegulf.gov/people
Pot 3...then there's the Gulf Coast Consortium: https://www.gulfconsortium.org/ This oversees the 23 counties affected and, most important, the 8 counties that were "disproportionately" affected, which has its own subcommittee. This consortium is the RESTORE Board that Robert Bender sits for the BOCC and also is about 30% of the 80%/800,000,000.
Pots 4 and 5 are for science, monitoring, and technology innovation, so of course got screwed big time and only received together about 5% of the 80%--can't even really scrape together enough to do much with it, although it doesn't keep people from squabbling over what's there, as environmentalists are sadly so perennially underfunded in the Gulf Coast and throughout Florida they have to fight for scraps.
Like you said, TRIUMPH has nothing to do with any of that.
2.
While it's not clear exactly how Broxson intends to try to redistribute as much money as he can--some say he's just after Pot 2, while others say it's also Pot 3 (and it wouldn't even surprise me if Pot 1 came under fire, after the Natural Resources Director has directed staff to slow walk projects from the beginning), what is clear is the following:
1. This puts the 70ish % cut of Pot 2 (*if the original numbers haven't changed, and who would know*, approx 168M) and 70ish % cut of Pot 3 (again, *if the original numbers haven't changed, and who would know* approx 168M) that Escambia was supposed to receive in real and immediate jeopardy; and
2. Kevin Brown plans to run on the results, along with pretending he is rerouting Gulf Beach Highway through the Base and heralding his plan to dump all the funding he can get his hands on over to ECUA, who will then funnel it Downtown, and
3. Nobody seems to have any idea what the hard dollar figures are on what has already been spent on ANY of this is on an Escambia/Pensacola level. That's *spent*, not *allocated.* There's a lot of people putting their hope in the faith that allocated monies will stay put. I can't see why this scenario would be anything special than any other time with the way money gets moved around on a state level, but hey, eternal skeptic here.
PS, we have gotten quite a bit passed through TRIUMPH already--and thank you to Lewis Bear for his leadership in getting that fund established to begin with.
With David Bear and Collier Merrill continuing strong TRIUMPH representation in Escambia (the only time it lagged is when Scott was on his way out and wouldn't appoint an Escambia replacement to the Board), we're in a much better position to have local interest taken care of than we are with a senator whose eyes are on bigger prizes than his current constituency.
I stand corrected on the Triumph comment as far as Escambia didn't get any. I looked on the site and see the links to the Triumph board approved grants for Escambia.Thx for typing that out.
Not so sure about all the rest though. I do agree the BOCC just ignored the Dewberry committee.
https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-markets-financial-institutions-and-fiscal-service/restore-act
Anon 7:49, while "some corners" (ahem) have been pounding the drum that ST was our last TRIUMPH money, that of course is just their typical Underhillian disinformation. Especially now that the funds no longer "expire" (not really the right word, but there's no chance the state trust won't be renewed annually do to the passage of SB 1162--which credit where credit is due, Senator Broxson ran), Pensacola/Escambia County is in very good shape with TRIUMPH, especially with the potential for either Collier Merrill or David Bear to chair the committee next year.
And the entire BP money streams are so difficult to keep track of and understand. I only know how it works because I was very attentive at the time it was all rolling out, having submitted a grant to the Pot 1 process.
**Still, I managed to type an error above which is that Escambia was supposed to get 70% of the ENTIRE Pot 2, which wasn't what I meant, as it's a 5-state pot. But that Escambia was supposed to get a high percentage of the amount of Pot 2 awarded to the 23 impacted counties, as the county with the highest impact our of the 8 "disproportionately" impacted counties.
**ALSO, my sense that those funding numbers were outdated was correct, and by a LOT. The charts and notes I was referring to are years old now. More updated information can be found here:
https://www.restorethegulf.gov/history/about-restore-act
If the information in various places on the Restore the Gulf site is accurate and updated, that means rather than a 1 billion outcome from the Clean Water damages/fines, the amount is closer to
**5.28 BILLION spread among the 5 pots.
The point is, Escambia County was promised a CRAP TON, AS IN GABAMILLIONS of RESTORE money out of Pot 2.
Ask yourself this--it's really the key question here:
With how Senator Broxson "handled" the bridge fiasco we the effect of buffering DOT from liability for the governor, and to the detriment of his own constituents, do you trust he's just going to keep that money pinned here in Escambia?
Or is it likely he plans to try to spread what should have been ours to other key voting counties, while worst yet wheeling and dealing with Alabama, Mississippi, Lousiana, and Texas to make sure evvvvvvverybody is fat and happy before he makes a run at DC?
It's all about trust, I guess. Personally, I don't trust him or Brown farther than I could throw them, especially with Janice Gilley running their program for them. At least the voters will get their chance with Brown. Broxson is running unopposed.
Would you please explain something. Underhill is having his administrative hearing supposedly in early February on the probable cause ethics complaint. If found guilty will he be removed from the board or just fined? Is that why is going off the rails this weekend in public?
Until then I am wondering about his public comments issued on ECW as a board member about this.
How would he have been eligible for $250k if you had voted on a back settlement. Also how is that ripping off the taxpayers if the contribution goes either into the FRS or the annuity. The contribution of money is the same from the county isn't it?
Is it appropriate for him the be issuing public statements today 2/4/2022 on behalf of the BOCC while the board is in this lawsuit. Shouldn't that warrant another CENSURE By the board or be part of discovery in the case?
He said he doesn't take the retirement. Is that true?
I thought it was established he was in fact in the FRS and since he is not running again, unless that was also a lie, then he was not eligible to change to the 401a plan after it has been learned it is an option.
He is issueing these public statements on Escambia Citizens Watch and still issuing malicious statements about your county attorney. I think they are false and intentionally damaging.
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