As Pensacola's first charter review begins, past and future mayors support current system

Pensacola voters approved the city's charter in 2009 that implemented a "strong mayor" form of government for the city.

The charter calls on the city to set up a nine-member commission every 10 years made up of citizens who are serving in public office to review the charter and make recommendations for changes.

The members were appointed in September, and the commission held its first organizational meeting Jan. 5.

The Charter Review Commission will spend the next seven months combing through the charter and looking for ways to improve it.

The charter sets up a mayor-council form of government with the mayor holding executive power and the council acting as the legislative branch of the government.

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Pensacola's charter gives the mayor the power to hire and fire the city administrator, who runs the city day-to-day, and hire and fire all city department heads, with the council voting to approve any department leader's hiring.

Meanwhile, the City Council can pass ordinances in the city and set the city's budget and appropriations.

Pensacola has had only two mayors since the charter went into effect. Former Mayor Ashton Hayward held the job from 2011 to 2018 and Mayor Grover Robinson has been in office since 2018.

The two mayors have taken an opposite approach with Hayward pushing the boundaries of the mayor's powers under the charter, and Robinson taking a much more deferential approach to the City Council.

Past mayors

In 2014, Hayward moved to fire then Council Executive Lila Cox and appoint his own council executive. The move led to the City Council putting forward an ordinance to the charter making clear that the council executive and other City Council staff could not be fired by the mayor and work for the council.

That amendment also created new positions under the council, including allowing the council to hire its own attorney, though the council has never used this option.

In the later years of his tenure, Hayward rarely attended council meetings, and Hayward's administration and the council were often vocal and public in their criticisms toward one another.

Hayward told the News Journal that while his battles with the council "made for good theater" for the media, the reality was he worked with the council to move the city forward and rarely lost a vote.

"There are some real issues that are very important that you have a difference of opinions on between the executive branch and the legislative branch, but I had really good relationships with my council members," Hayward said. "I had my votes when I needed them."

Hayward said everything his administration accomplished was because the city charter gave him the power to "get things done," and he didn't believe there should be any major changes to it.

"Our current charter was thoroughly vetted and reviewed by both the public and the experts that really looked at our charter," Hayward said. "And the public, meaning citizens of Pensacola, spoke at the ballot box, which is powerful."

Hayward said the council has broad powers under the charter, namely power over the purse strings if it so chooses.

He said the greatest accountability for the mayor comes from the citizens at the ballot box.

"I wouldn't touch the charter," Hayward said. "I think it's great to always review the charter, but there's nothing wrong with the charter."

Mike Wiggins was the last mayor of Pensacola under the old form of government and will likely be appointed to the commission this week.

"I think it's a very appropriate time to put a commission together, a group of people who are community-minded that understand how government works, to examine the charter that we've been under for 10 years," Wiggins told the News Journal.

Wiggins will be joining the commission if the council approves his nomination this week to replace Councilman Casey Jones' previous appointee Thomas Williams, who had to resign from the commission before it had its first meeting because he was appointed as a judge to the First Judicial Circuit Court.

Wiggins said he liked the old form of government and thought the city had great city managers who ran the city well, but said he is going into the new process totally open-minded.

"The people spoke, and they said they wanted it changed and voted for the change," Wiggins said. "And so we now have 10 years under our belt. I think it's time for all of us to sit back and examine it as a commission and see what changes if any, we need to make in the current charter."

Mayoral candidates

The commission will have plenty of observers, including the five current candidates vying to become the city's third "strong mayor."

Nearly everyone running for mayor agreed that it was too soon to make major changes to the city's charter.

Former council member and mayoral candidate Jewel Cannada-Wynn was there for the charter's creation and was opposed at the time to the city changing its form of government.

She told the News Journal only two mayors — who took totally opposite approaches to their roles under the charter — have served.

"We need just a little bit longer to have a more diverse sample than just two leaders to say something may not be working or this may need to change," Cannada-Wynn said.

Cannada-Wynn said there are always fights between the council and mayor over the balance of power, "However, we were able to work everything out."

Pointing to the 2014 charter amendment regarding council staff, Cannada-Wynn said the episode was an example of the current system working correctly and allowing the two branches to set a power imbalance right.

Pensacola businessman D.C. Reeves said having the Charter Review Commission meet every 10 years is a great thing for the city, adding he always believes there should be an evaluation of the ways things are done in an organization.

"It's something that we should look at all the time, but 10 years and two strong mayors, I think is still a relatively small sample size to be thinking about drastic change," Reeves said. "That being said, if you're running for mayor to be at the service of the community, and the community believes that something should change, then it would be hypocritical to say I personally think this should be one way or the other."

Reeves said the strong mayor system worked out well for the city and survey data backs that up, pointing to the annual quality of life surveys conducted over the last 10 years.

"We're seeing more confidence in our community, about how the city government operates," Reeves said. "And I think if we were to make a data-based decision, things are going, are trending in the right direction."

Former Escambia County Sheriff's Deputy Steven Sharp said he didn't believe anything significant should be changed with the charter and pointed out that the charter gives citizens the power to recall the mayor or council members and put forward citizen-led referendums.

"It gives citizens an opportunity, whether for petitions or recall, to have a direct voice in how the city is run," Sharp said.

Sharp also said he felt the charter sets a good balance of power between the mayor and the council.

"Overall, I think it's been working well, and I think we need to stay with that form of city government," Sharp said.

Tim Horton, a lifelong Pensacola resident and Navy veteran, said he doesn't believe any changes are needed, though the selection of a city administrator without input from the council is a "double-edged sword."

"It could be the good ol' boy routine, 'because I played ball with Jimmy Joe Bob when we were in school,' but in turn, the mayor could pick a person that is known in the business community as a successful business person that would be a good asset for the city," Horton said.

James Hilburn, a security worker in Cantonment who plans to move to the city soon, said he didn't believe anything should change.

"I see nothing that needs to be changed with it," Hilburn said. "I like the Charter Review Commission. I think it's good for the citizens to know what the mayor and City Council is doing. I think it's good that they're getting the citizens involved. Mayors and City Council members need to be held accountable for what they're doing."

Current mayor

Since Robinson took office, he's taken a more collaborative approach to the council, such as allowing the council executive to sit in on staff meetings. In his first two years, the approach worked well, but after the 2020 election council members took a more critical approach to his administration.

Robinson said the strength of the current system is it gives the person running the city government the incentive to take a holistic view of the city, as the mayor is elected by the city and not by districts like the council members.

"It's hard to argue with the success the city has had since having the strong mayor system," Robinson said.

One of the only major changes Robinson said the commission should consider is lowering the term limits of the mayor, which could help prevent any one person from amassing too much political power.

Currently, the mayor can serve three terms each lasting four years.

"Go from 12 years to eight years, I'm not even so sure if maybe it shouldn't be just one term of four years," Robinson said. "But I think the overall point is, if you wanted to counterweight the issue on the strong mayor, the challenge is it puts a premium on who you elect."

Jim Little can be reached at jwlittle@pnj.com and 850-208-9827.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola mayors, past and future, support the city charter