Thanks to a public records request, the IN obtained a copy of the electronic filing of the last campaign report of No Boss Mayor. This is not the official report – NBM has put that in the mail so the final copy may be different.
What were they hiding from the [...]
From Newsweek:
1. Steve Jobs – got people to stop thinking about computers and the Internet as weird, complicated things
2. Jon Stewart – gone from optional to indispensable.
3. The Google Guys – brought the ethic of speed, automation, and efficiency to the work of the mind
[...]
Tim Eagan – former Marty Donovan campaign worker and the man who wanted so badly to present to the Pensacola City Council his plans for a multimillion dollar development at the Port of Pensacola – faces a new charge – failure to appear. Eagan was charged on Nov. 16 for [...]
In ten months Marco Rubio has gone from 5 percent of the GOP vote in 2010 U.S. Senate race to a whopping 37 percent. Gov. Charlie Crist has seen his margin shrink in the 43-point swing, according to a poll by Daily Kos.
Republican Primary – poll 11/16-11/18
Charlie Crist (R) 47%..( [...]
The New York Observer reports “…Morning Joe is struggling to hang on to viewers. So far this fall, from Sept. 1 through Nov. 13, according to The Observer’s analysis of Nielsen numbers, Morning Joe has averaged 357,000 total viewers and 124,000 in the 25- to 54-year-old demographic—down 35 percent and [...]
Orlando Sentinel reports how a Winter Garden couple and their son were terrorized for two days by four people who kidnapped them at gunpoint, forced the woman to withdraw nearly $24,000 from the bank and shot her as she tried to escape. The family lived in 3,700-square-foot house inside a [...]
I got up early this morning and listened to Fox News while I was making coffee. The news anchor signed off his broadcast with, “This is Fox New–fair, balanced and unafraid.” It really struck me as odd. What national news network is truly afraid? What good journalist lets fear impact [...]
Another bit of irony, the anti-charter group is now warning people about the provision that would allow petitions and initiative with signatures from 10 percent of the registered voters.
They are saying, “It’s too low. Fairchild and Donovan would be doing petitions on everything.”
Charlie Fairchild is one of the founders [...]
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, is sharply critical of recommendations from a health panel that said this week women in their 40s don't need routine mammograms.
Wasserman Schultz is a prominent breast cancer survivor.
Here's what she's said on MSNBC (about 4 minutes into the' [...]
I attended today a luncheon for Take Stock in Children – a college scholarship program for Escambia County’s public school students. Each year, sixth grade public school students who are financially eligible can apply for this program at their school and are chosen through a selection process. Students selected will [...]
Courtney B. Peterson has prefiled to run in 2010 for a Pensacola City Council District 2 seat that is currently held by Councilman Sam Hall. Peterson is a member of PYP and should be a very credible candidate.
[...]
For the last two years I've voted in the Hugo Awards, yearly literary honors for science fiction and fantasy (but mostly science fiction). I skipped the best novel category because I hadn't [...]
According to the Mobile Press Register, The Mobile City Council voted 6-1 this morning to take out more than $80 million in bonds to refinance old debt and help pay for the construction of GulfQuest, an interactive maritime museum on the downtown waterfront. What no petition drive?
Pensacola has Marty [...]
Today Believe in A Better Pensacola deposited the following contributions: Mike Bruce $100
No Boss Mayor is apparently changing its name to “No Backroom Deals, But Ours.”
[...]Today Believe in A Better Pensacola deposited the following contributions:
Charles Presti $100
Dr. Richard Hawkins $350
Still no word from No Boss Mayor on who repaid co-founder Charles Fairchild his $3000 loan or how they are paying for their campaign expenditures. Why is No Boss Mayor so reluctant to tell [...]
Today’s column: Don’t let fear stymie strong mayor change
“Diane Mack is right. It’s better to vote to establish a “strong mayor” in Pensacola than to heed the exaggerated fears of opponents, who see conspiracies everywhere and use scare tactics worthy of Sarah Palin’s “death panels” by implying that change will [...]
Press release:
Escambia Sheriff’s Investigators are asking anyone who may know the whereabouts of Terri Lynn Lewis, (40) of Pensacola, to call the Sheriff’s Office at 436-9620 or Crime Stoppers 433-STOP.
Ms. Lewis may be a possible witness to the Oct 10th 2009 murder of Derry Dickerson (81) who was found [...]
Press Release
A delegation representing the City of Pensacola and Pensacola Gulf Coast Regional Airport met with Southwest Airlines executives today (Friday, Nov. 13) in Dallas.
“We had a very productive meeting with top Southwest executives,” said Pensacola Mayor Mike Wiggins. “Everyone was forthright and all the participants left the meeting with [...]
Supervisor of Elections David Stafford says that while he isn’t the authority to determine whether C.J. Lewis violated Florida Election laws, it does appear, in his opinion, that flyers don’t qualify as “independent campaign expenditure” because they don’t expressly advocate a position for or against the referendum and therefore would [...]
Former mayoral candidate C.J. Lewis may have violated Florida Elections laws with his recent mailing of 5,000 flyers to Pensacola voters regarding his stance against the new charter referendum.
Under Florida Elections Laws: “An independent expenditure means an expenditure made by a person for the purpose of expressly advocating the [...]
In a big blow to the No Boss Mayor effort, the Pensacola City Council’s most independent member, Diane Mack, has announced that she is supporting the new charter proposal. She says that while both sides of the charter issue had “engaged in a fairly equal share of exaggeration in their [...]
Many of the same players that supported the biggest backroom deal in the history of Pensacola—the reopening of the General Pension (Read General Pension Fiasco) have now manipulated the campaign finance laws to hide their biggest contributors. Mike Wiggins, Paul Young and Mike DeSorbo all voted for the pension [...]
Supervisor of Elections David Stafford reports that 7,990 ballots have been received by his office, about 1,600 today alone. He believes that about 14,000 votes will be cast, a 37-percent turnout.
A big question is whether the under 35-year-olds will vote on the charter referendum. As of Monday, less than 7 [...]
What if you haven’t received your ballot in the mail or threw it away thinking it was junk mail?
You can still vote. Call the Supervisor of Elections at 595-3900 to check the status of your ballot. Voters needing a replacement ballot –if ballot was destroyed, spoiled, lost, or not received—must [...]
Today Believe in A Better Pensacola deposited the following contributions:
Jere Peacock: $500.00
Toni Tan: $100.00
Robert Patton: $100.00
No report from No Boss Mayor since Nov. 2. Their last report only showed that they had less than $2300 in the bank. The best guess from different marketing firms is that they [...]
It has been two days since we emailed No Boss Mayor for their financial information. Still no replies. As you may remember, No Boss Mayor sent out a press release on Monday, November 2 with a draft of their first campaign finance report, which wasn’t due until Nov. 6. Since [...]
Today Believe in A Better Pensacola deposited the following contribution:
Melinda Hilterbrand 500.00
This is the fourth financial report released by this PAC.
[...]Dara Kam, political reporter for the Palm Beach Post, is in town investigating the recent Gov. Crist appointment of former ECSO CFO and current bar owner Steve Stevens to the Florida Public Service Commission. She caught with Stevens at his bar “Rick’s Cabana” and blogged on that and his promotion [...]
Still no reports from the No Boss Mayor PAC—-the one who believed a week ago that the voters should know who is backing each political action committee. If you believe that both sides should tell the voters who their backers are, please email the No Boss Mayor folks and let [...]
Today Believe in A Better Pensacola deposited the following contributions:
Col Richard J. And Betty Hooton $100
Laura Keene $250
Barry Beroset $250
John Beroset $50
Corbett Davis $400
Deedee Ritchie $100
We now know how the General Pension contributions jumped from $400K to $6 million. We see how the staff miscalculated the financial impact of the changes to the pension system and the City had its unfunded pension liability go from $2.9 million to $28.9 million in two years to over [...]
The City pensions have puzzled me. How did the City end up with such a huge jump in pension costs?
The City’s contributions to the pension plans are eating up a sizable chunk of the City’s revenue. The unfunded portion of each of the three plans continues to mount, even [...]
Last week, No Boss Mayor get attention for releasing its early campaign finance information, insisting that it believed that voters should know who is financing each campaign. We agree and have asked both sides to remain transparent. Believe in a Better Pensacola has done so. No Boss Mayor has been [...]
Press Release
Gulf Power Company News
For immediate release – Nov. 10, 2009
All power expected to be restored today
Gulf Power expects to restore power to all customers by midnight tonight as damage was minimal from Tropical Storm Ida.
“Our crews will work as fast and as safely as they can to get things [...]
Press Release:
For Immediate Release
November 10, 2009
Contact: State EOC Media Office (ESF-14) 850-921-0217
NEW INFORMATION
At 6:40 a.m. EST today, Tropical Storm Ida made landfall on Dauphin Island, Alabama. As of 7 a.m. Ida was located 25 miles south of Mobile, Alabama. Maximum winds were near 45 mph. Ida is [...]
Opinion 6 from Byron Kessler
There are those in our community who contend that the lack of sufficient concentration of power is at fault for our failure to achieve greater economic progress. If only, they tell us, we had greater authority vested in a single individual, we would free ourselves from [...]
Opinion 5 from Don Caton, former City Attorney
The more I hear from those that advocate a new strong mayor for Pensacola, the better I feel to be a small part of a large group of citizens who strongly oppose turning our city over to what would be an extremely powerful [...]
Opinion 4
THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY MUST STEP UP
According to the most recent Quality of Life Survey conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, the leading concerns among local citizens are the “economy and job security.” The overwhelming majority of local citizens gave the economy a negative rating, with 35% saying it is [...]
Opinion 3
“Too often, people who deal with the public’s money and do the public’s business view the state’s excellent Sunshine Law as, at best, a hindrance. It’s not. In fact, it is a good thing for those very folks, because it builds credibility. When everything is done “in the [...]
Sam Horton tries again.
Opinion 2
Soon the Citizens of Pensacola will be asked to vote on a new form of government for the city that is best described as a Strong Mayor. This change will not be beneficial to our community and I strongly urge you to vote NO when [...]
The No Boss Mayor website has five opinions to support their opposition to the proposed charter. Here is the first one:
Watching the proponents of the Strong Mayor proposal reminds me of the old-fashioned Snake Oil salesmen of yesteryear. They went door to door touting Snake Oil – the magic tonic [...]
Latest Press Release:
**Tropical Storm IDA – Lengthening Windy Period**
The most current forecasts call for IDA to make land fall in Mobile county, AL. and to turn east sharply once it makes landfall. Although this has been a reasonably fast moving storm, the Gulf Breeze area is forecast to be [...]
Pensacola man, who worked at NAS Pensacola, was sentenced on Friday to 6.5 years for taking trips to Thailand for sex with young boys. Mitchell Kent Jackson of Pensacola pleaded guilty in November 2008 to traveling to have sex with a minor and conspiracy to do so. His sentence may [...]
Using the US Census Quick Facts, I looked at similar sized Florida cities what has been happening to their populations from 2000-2006
Pensacola, 2000: 56,255…2006: 53,248 DOWN
Sarasota, 2000: 52,715…2006: 52,942 UP
Bradenton, 2000: 49,506…2006: 53,662 UP
Margate, 2000: 55,974….2006: 53,909 UP
Wellington, 2000: 38,216…2006: 54,943 UP
As the city population shrinks, fewer [...]
I want this post and comment thread to be on the current Pensacola government, not the proposed charter, not strong mayor. No personal attacks or conspiracy plots.
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Pensacola has a unitarian form of government, meaning the power, in theory, is vested in one elected body. There is an administrative staff, [...]
This week No Boss Mayor PAC challenged the Better Pensacola PAC to release their financial report for the first campaign reporting period. Jeff DeWeese, Better Pensacola treasurer, not only met the challenge but has pledged to release his daily deposits to their campaign account and any in-kind contributions.
Today’s Deposit [...]
I haven't seen the film Paranormal Activity, but I did fill out a web form requesting that it be shown in my town. That's apparently enough for me to earn a spot in the credits of the film when it comes out on DVD.
I got an email' [...]
At last night’s debate on the proposed new city charter, Mayor Mike Wiggins committed to placing the Pensacola Promise on the council agenda. Pensacola Promise is a scholarship program that guarantees a college education at PJC and/or UWF for Pensacola high school graduates. It’s modeled after very successful programs in [...]
