Pensacola Independent News

OUTTAKES | Vol. 11, No. 36, October 1, 2009
(A Question of Leadership)
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Outtakes

EXPECT MORE While working on this issue, I spent time with Jerry Maygarden talking about leadership, particularly leadership inside city government. Having served on the city council, as mayor and in the state legislature, Jerry may be the most knowledgeable person that we have on the subject.

RELIABLE, INDEPENDENT SURVEY Jerry serves as the executive director of the Better Pensacola Forum, an independent, non-profit organization that surveys citizens in Escambia County annually about their quality of life. The study is done by the nationally respected research company Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Inc.

For over 15 years, Mason-Dixon has conducted surveys in every state in the country and tracked every major election and referendum. Over 350 news organizations have relied on Mason-Dixon for their election and issue polling. A Mason-Dixon poll can be counted on to be accurate and reliable as many of the city officials found in the 2008 city elections that saw three incumbents defeated after that year's Better Pensacola Forum survey revealed voters were dissatisfied with the city leadership.

FAIR OR UNFAIR EXPECTATION The 2009 Quality of Life survey shows some improvement in how people feel about the directions the county and city are headed but still show more people are dissatisfied than satisfied. When I asked Jerry if this is why the effort for a strong mayor is gaining so much support, he was hesitant to jump on the bandwagon.

"The survey shows clearly that people are concerned about jobs and economic development," Maygarden told me. "But that's not how the city government is set up.

"Pensacola city government does an excellent job of law enforcement, fire protection and maintaining our streets. It was never intended to handle economic development. We have a government structure that does a fine job of the things it was intended to do and getting mad because it can't do the things that it has always expected the county and the chamber of commerce to do. It's not fair."

WHO IS ACCOUNTABLE He makes a very good point. However, the next question is does our government structure hinder or help economic development and the creation of jobs? The recent failure of the proposed technology park for inside the city limits to keep Avalex Technologies and recruit Appriver shows that something is amiss. The failure to ever get started the much praised Hawkshaw East development near Gulf Power's headquarters also shows that better processes are needed.

After five years of working with the city on making that site available, Avalex saw the Pensacola City Council give it to a development group that ended up handing the land back to the city when the commercial real estate market crashed.

Would a strong mayor change this? I do believe it would. A strong mayor would have brought Avalex and Appriver to the table and figured out what it would have taken to complete the deal. He would have fully vetted the Hawkshaw proposals and stayed on top of whatever development group won the bid to ensure that they built as their proposal promised.

Today no one in city government is held responsible for these failures. The city council and mayor are oblivious to the problems and have no power to correct them. The senior city staff has no objective evaluation in place that grades them on their performance. They are not rewarded or punished for the painfully slow development of the technology park or Hawkshaw.

ANSWERABLE TO VOTERS A strong mayor would have to go before the voters every four years and defend the successes and failures of his administration. Someone that is answerable to the voters would be held accountable.

It's time we change our city government to meet our expectations and not be upset with the citizens for wanting more from their elected officials.

rick@inweekly.net

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