Lois gets it!!!
Below is a response to a post on Mark O'Brien's blog regarding consolidated government.
I applaud Ms. Benson's recommendation for unification.
I said in my first campaign that one measure of my success would be how far I could go to eliminating my job. I'm not there yet, but I am a member of Escambia All for One who is hoping the voters of Escambia County will adopt some form of unification measure.
I like the Jacksonville model.
My hope is that the Century, ECUA, Escambia County, and Pensacola governments agree to come under one authority.
Even better, I'd like to see an executive who is accountable to the voter. We have it at the state and federal level. Why not Pensacola?
In fact, door-to-door on a number of topics, people are saying to me, "Why not Pensacola?" Many believe there is a better way.
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Presumably it’s the registered voters in Escambia County vice the three sets of elected officials that get to make the final decision. All three groups of voters would have to agree to be “all-in.”
The City of Century voters (population nearly 2,000) could hold out like four cities did when most but not all of Duvall County merged to become the City of Jacksonville. A special effort might be required to “woo” them.
A parallel effort should be to eliminate the alphabet soup of bureaucracies like ECUA, SRIA, CRA, DIB, etc. The involvement of our state representatives would be a crucial element of success in coordinating these efforts. In the end we need municipal unity of effort ahead of full employment for bureaucrats.
If feasible and legal it might make sense for the county constitutional officers to also benefit from this reorganization. There must be common support functions like human resources, vehicle maintenance, purchasing, building maintenance, etc. where we can save taxpayer money by working together better.
The next city councils (Pensacola and Century) and county commission could in January vote to meet together on a monthly basis with citizen input to begin hammering out a proposed implementation plan. I don’t think we need another blue ribbon task force to study the issue to death. We just need more work out of our elected officials. The alphabet soup crowd might try to sabotage the effort so “forewarned is forearmed.”
If starting in January we initially agreed in advance that we were probably all headed down this road together we might caste aside our current parochial blinders and begin to cooperate in advance of consolidating.
As an example, I’d prefer to not see Jerry’s Cajun Café burn to the ground (again) just because the annexation-obsessed city council has ordered Station 6 to “Stand Fast” in the absence of an approved city-county affirmative mutual aide fire suppression agreement. Station 6 would of course respond in spite of any orders to the contrary and sprint the 0.6 miles down 9th Avenue to the smell of smoke and the sight of flames. That’s why they’re Firefighters and not mild-mannered data entry clerks.
My only recommendation is that we name the new government “City of Pensacola.”
Not sure why city residents should fund county residents fire protection.
Is the county going to contribute to the city?
Let's face it, city residents pay FULL county taxes that county residents pay plus the city portions but what services does the county provide us?
Not only does she get it but she looks great in leather or a mini-skirt. Lois rocks like no other elected official in NW Florida. Debbie and DeeDee Ritchie are bookends to Lois' political/****** prowess..
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