Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the Board of County Commissioners and County Staff!

The County's EMR team put together this very nice Holiday Video Greeting...........Enjoy--and Merry Christmas!

Pay Stipends to Bidders?

 

At today's Committee of the Whole meeting the idea of paying stipends to bidders was brought for our consideration.  After reading the backup materials that I received only 2 days prior to this meeting, I was amazed that such a thing was actually being considered.

 

I reached out to several area professionals with extensive contracting/building experience in both the public and private sector in an attempt to see what these experts thought of this idea.  The consensus was that this practice is not common, and most of the folks I spoke with had never been paid a stipend for preparing and submitting a bid.

 

"It's a cost of doing business, period" said one Engineer I spoke with that spent 27 years in the Navy in acquisitions and contracting all over the world.

 

"I've never heard of this before" said a developer friend I called.

 

Another expert I have known for many years and who currently works out of state told me "I've heard of this, and for design-build projects that are not well-defined by the customer and that require a significant amount of design and staff time--this is not necessarily out of line."  He continued "but not offering the stipend is not going to chase away the top-line firms, they will be there and they will submit because they want the work."

 

So after staff presented their materials, I spoke up right away and explained that I could not support this, and that I would not support this.  I explained that as a school board member in a district that has done extensive building over the last decade, we have never offered stipends for bidders, ever.

 

And having worked for four different companies over the last 12 years at NAS Pensacola in a variety of facilities related positions---I have never seen this sort of a stipend program out here at the base, even during hurricane Ivan reconstruction where the base did hundreds of millions of dollars in construction projects to address the immense damage from that storm.  

 

With all of this as the backdrop, I dug in my heels and unequivocally stated I wouldn't support stipends for the unsuccessful bidders competing for our jail rebuild project.

 

Although one commissioner did say he could support this concept "at the low end of the contemplated amount"---three other commissioners joined me and expressed that they would not support this--for a variety of very good reasons.

 

Escambia County will not be paying stipends for our unsuccessful bidders.



Tremendous Concerns over Proposed Bay Bridge Design

At the TPO meeting this morning the big item of concern was the plan for the replacement of the Pensacola Bay Bridge.  The plan to stage the construction with one side being utilized for travel both directions was panned by many in attendance.  The issue is that the width of the travel lanes are going to be even more narrow on the bridge during construction than are the lanes currently--and the current lane widths barely allow access by fire/emergency vehicles now.

Everyone, so far as I could tell, agrees that the eventual finished product will be amazing, but for the two year period where we will have to rely on just one side of the bridge span to accommodate traffic in both directions--this plan still needs work.  The police chief of Gulf Breeze, the Gulf Breeze mayor, the deputy fire chief of Gulf Breeze, Escambia County Emergency Management Director, and others spoke out with dire warnings about this plan going forward.  "We do 2,900 trips a year on the bridge as is" said one ambulance driver who spoke.  He continued "We barely have enough room to maneuver our vehicles as it is right now, and sometimes we clip the mirrors of other vehicles....with even more narrow lanes, we are going to have problems."

Another concern:  That drivers that glance over at the new construction happening on the bay will increase the number of rear-end collisions on the existing bridge.  "I think we're all guilty of rubber necking and looking at stuff that is going on around us when we should be watching the road--I know I am" said the Gulf Breeze police chief.  "This will make that situation even more concerning"

My sense is that the contractor that is doing this design build project will come back after the new year, to February's TPO meeting, with a new phasing strategy based upon the concerns voiced today--as it is abundantly clear from purely a safety perspective the current plan is a non-starter.....

Smashing Sour Grapes

It's no secret that failed 2010 Mayoral candidate Diane Mack was in the tank for one of my opponents in my recent campaign for County Commissioner in District 1.  In February, she wrote this piece in the PNJ.  During the campaign over the last 11 months, Diane Mack was a consistent facebook "like" to many of my opponent's posts on her campaign page.  Who cares, though? I didn't, I just went about my campaign doing what I do---campaigning hard and crushing elections.

Didn't matter what Diane Mack said, thought, or did--- I won the primary and general election by a large margin.

Here's the thing-----It really is not about two of my opponents in this last election being male or female--it is about who the voters select.  The voters selected me.  I'm sure Diane is distraught about the national elections as well, where her superstar Hillary Clinton was beaten by Donald Trump---despite Barrack Obama campaigning harder for her than any sitting President in American History ever campaigned for his successor....really embarrassing for him....

But back to local politics...

Just today----- along comes this piece of tripe in today's PNJ by Diane Mack....  Where she takes a shot at me by saying   "In this year in which we witnessed the defeat of a woman who was the most qualified of four candidates for a vacant Escambia County Commission seat (District 1) the community has been given an uncommon opportunity"  Here is what I have to say to Diane about her

On 1370 WCOA's Good Morning Pensacola Today

From who I am and where I'm from, to my time on the school board and how I found myself in that job for 10 years, to what I think of politics locally, to hot topics like building the new jail,  beach traffic and economic development and the OLF 8 land swap--the conversation this morning was wide ranging.  I appreciated the opportunity to offer my opinions on all these topics.

You can listen to the entire interview    part I  here
                                                               part II here

Market-Driven, Private Sector Approach to Managing Beach Tolls, Traffic

When I heard about the recent move to automate all lanes going out to Pensacola Beach, I was somewhat concerned.  I believe this will drastically reduce revenue.  I know it will.  A large portion of the revenue generated will now be re-directed to Sun Pass, and these recurring fees and costs will result in steep revenue declines going forward, as much as $500,000 yearly compared to what we currently collect.  How will we replace that revenue?  I’m not inclined to support new taxes on citizens, or the imposition of new fees for consumers who choose to go to the beach, simply to cover a self-inflicted revenue loss created by a bad decision.  I’m a small-government, fiscal conservative and I want less government, less regulation, less taxes, smarter decisions and more prudent governance.

Government is not like a business in the sense that government’s job is not to maximize profit but rather to generate revenue sufficient to provide needed services to citizens. Services cost money and revenues must be raised --and government should strive to be efficient like successful private sector, for-profit entities are.

Movie theaters offer discounts for matinees, restaurants offer early-bird dinner specials, and bars have happy hours.  All of these promotions attempt to increase revenue in off-peak periods.

Why don’t we use some smart, market driven initiatives to help ease beach traffic issues while simultaneously building off-season use of the beach by citizens?  I think there are some things that can be done right away to create a win-win scenario—without going to a fully automated, Sun Pass system.

The toll by plate collection process will be cumbersome and I believe will result in further revenue declines (e.g.  Where will the fee be sent for island visitors driving rental cars?) What percentage of the toll by plate notices and bills will we realistically collect?  50%, 40% or less?

How about we do something better:

I’d like to look at reducing the toll to $.50 cents,  re-installing automated baskets,  thereby substantially reducing employee costs currently incurred by utilizing human toll collectors.

One Foot in School District, One Foot in County Government.....

I have one more School Board meeting to go this coming Tuesday, November 15th, and then one week later, on Monday November 21st at 12:00 Midnight my time on the School Board will end and my time as a County Commissioner will begin.  So I am in between both jobs now, in a very unique position hving one foot in the school district and one foot in County Government.

Leaving the School Board will be bittersweet:  I have one child left in the schools, two nephews in the schools, and many friends intimately involved in the schools, either as employees or volunteers that work closely with the district.  So while I am leaving my service as a school board member in just a few days, I will always have fond memories of my time here and I will always keep one eye on what is happening with our local public schools ---as I feel the public schools as we know them are in deep distresss.  I believe they will be changing drastically in the years going forward due to numerous issues and problems that are not being properly addressed. We need to be more fiscally responsible with certain spending items that we fund.  We spend HUGE amounts of taxpayer dollars on high-priced seminars--and nobody bats an eye.  We need to be more frugal.   We need to enforce discipline strictly and demolish the politically-correct approach to discipline that has infested our schools from the top-down to the detriment of good teachers, good students, and good families (this is what is driving our significant enrollment declines).  We must eliminate as many locally required tests as possible--we test too much and people are sick and tired of this.  We must eliminate social promotion that still runs rampant in our district (especially between middle school and 9th grade and acutely among over-age students), and get back to enforcing rigorous academic standards that have meaning and giving grades that are earned.  If we give away advancement and promotion for those who do not meet the standards, we are simply awarding participation trophies, and NOT doing anybody any favors.   And we have to look at district enrollment as a key metric instead of fecklessly trying to ignore and/or explain away this real problem of enrollment decline while simultaneously not measuring it as a function of our strategic plan.  Our neighboring district to the east is EXPLODING in school population and we are declining....why?  We need to look at and measure teacher churn site by site, to see where teachers are under significant stress---and we need to increase  pay for teachers who work in schools that serve communities marked by significant levels of social dysfunction. What is going on with the IB program and other issues at Workman MS?, what is happening at O.J Semmes ES?  I hear stories about the iCare program at Brentwood ES