(ESCAMBIA) --- (PENSACOLA, FL.) – Escambia County residents told commissioners that confusing rules and 8:30 a.m. Planning Board meetings are blocking public input on development.
At the July 23 meeting of the Escambia County Board of Commissioners, the earlier June Planning Board meeting regarding proposed changes to the Outlying Fields 8 (OLF-8) master plan and data centers became a point of contention.
Timing is the first issue. The Planning Board meets on the first Tuesday of each month at 8:30 a.m., and residents say the time makes it hard for working people to attend.
“Unfortunately, this is incredibly inconvenient for most Escambia County residents, making it difficult for the public to attend and participate in the process,” Marie Reid said.
Reid said the July 7 Planning Board meeting had an unusually large crowd and lasted unusually long, going up to five hours.
“One planning board member commented that they had had one meeting that lasted exactly 13 minutes,” Reid said. “Meetings that help shape the future of our community should never be just 13 minutes.”
Reid asked the board to hold evening meetings and to reconsider the rule requiring residents to speak at the Planning Board before addressing commissioners at their meeting.
Theresa Blackwell called the last Planning Board meeting a real fiasco. Residents repeatedly asked staff and commissioners when they could speak, and on which items. The confusion over speaking rules and last-minute changes made it hard to follow the process.
“The item itself was not explained well,” Blackwell said. “It was hard for me to understand it.”
Blackwell said after ten years of reviewing county documents, even she had a hard time understanding the agenda and "the board didn’t understand the agenda either."
“The whole thing was not advertised well,” Blackwell said. “It was not explained, and it was foggy as hell.”
Commissioner Steve Stroberger said at least two Planning Board members regretted their vote on the OLF-8 vote and the items should go back to the Planning Board.
(Photo: Commissioner Steve Stroberger said at least two planning board members regretted their votes regarding an earlier meeting in June)
Brooke Whitehurst asked for clarity from the dais.
Whitehurst told the commissioners that she was unable to attend the Planning Zone meeting, noting that she would now be barred from speaking on the Jack’s Branch Road agenda item on the county commission agenda.
(Photo: Brooke Whitehurst addresses commissioners regarding the rules that only allow a resident to speak on a Planning Board agenda item if they spoke at the Planning Board meeting)
The fact that Planning Board members themselves have publicly expressed regret about their votes, saying they did not fully understand the OLF-8 changes before voting, really highlights the extreme confusion in how agendas and amendments are being written for the Planning Board.
Agendas at both the Planning Board and the Board of Commissioners often run dozens of pages and use legal and zoning jargon. The OLF-8 item alone had a 94-page data and analysis attachment, a two-page undated staff summary, and a design code filed 13 days before the vote.
Florida’s plain language law requires government documents to be clear and understandable to the public. The consistent confusion calls into question whether that standard is being met.
The 8:30 a.m. The Planning Board start time adds another barrier to residents engaging, which is ultimately an accessibility issue.
The back-to-back problems. morning meetings, last-minute rewrites, dense legal language, and rules that limit when residents can speak raise questions about transparency and accessibility.
When the process isn’t clear to the people it affects or even to the officials voting on them, it becomes difficult to trust the outcome.
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