Lessons Learned -- and Now Forgotten

From the description of Island Authority Buck Lee's actions and Dr. John Lanza's rationalizations over the past two weeks which appears in today's Christian Science Monitor ["After Gulf Swimmers Report Illness, Questions about Opening a Beach"] the county and Santa Rosa Island Authority have forgotten the hard lessons once learned on Pensacola Beach. (HT to Rick Outzen for pointing to the CSM.)

Santa Rosa Island officials flew the double-red flag – no swimming – over Pensacola Beach in Florida after a swath of thick oil washed ashore from the Gulf oil spill June 23.

Two days later, against the warnings of federal health officials and based on a visual survey of the beach, the local island authority director, Buck Lee, reopened the beaches for swimming, urging residents and tourists to come back to the beach. Officials left the ultimate decision on whether it was safe to swim to beachgoers.

Several hundred beach visitors took him at his word, and this is what happened:

This week, health officials in Escambia County, Fla., which includes Pensacola Beach, reported that about 400 people claimed they felt sick after visiting the beach and swimming in the Gulf.

What Buck Lee has done since the BP oil catastrophe reached Northwest Florida threatens to wipe out nearly a decade of laudable progress by the governing board in restoring the reputation of Pensacola Beach -- and the agency itself. What Dr. Lanza has offered as an excuse Lee could use ('the situation changes from one hour to the next") is equally contemptible.

Over a decade ago, beginning in the late 1990's and through the early years of the present decade, Pensacola Beach became known around the nation as "Death Beach." This wasn't because of oil. It was because of a series of tragic drownings of local and visiting swimmers over many years in the tricky rip-currents along the beach.

As the U.S. Life Guard Association notes in an older annual report, in those days Pensacola was known as a destination where "the hazards are many and lifeguards are few." There was a different head administrator of the Island Authority, then, and mostly a different board than we have today. But the lessons the agency came to learn are just as applicable to the oil catastrophe of today.

Beginning in the year 2000, thanks largely to the intrepid efforts of former SRIA board members Don Ayres and Chuck Emling, and now current board member Thomas Campanella, the SRIA agency was pushed, pulled, and dragged into budgeting substantial funds for a comprehensive public safety program on Pensacola Beach. Permanent life guard stations were built at all the major beaches. A professional, certified staff of skilled lifeguards was hired. State of the art life-saving equipment was purchased. Mobile beach vehicles for patrolling less frequently used beaches were put in service. And, equally important, an easy-to-understand and reliable public alert system candidly describing the daily swimming conditions was implemented.

It is no exaggeration to say that these efforts by those former board members not only saved countless lives, they also rescued the reputation of Pensacola Beach. And that kind of reputation is the best "tourist promotion" money can buy.

Over the past several weeks, however, Buck Lee has been throwing that restored good reputation away. We are now in danger of being known as Prevarication Beach -- the vacation destination that won't tell you the truth about current oil conditions affecting your health.

The danger of oil is different than the danger of rip currents, of course. But there are striking parallels, too. Both involve hidden dangers not readily recognizable by temporary tourists, as well as obvious ones. For some particularly vulnerable visitors, each of the hazards can be life-threatening. And, with both kinds of hazards the risk can be mitigated only if the authorities are honest and forthright in warning the public of the danger -- even to the point, when necessary, of closing the beach.

The lame excuses not to take any particular action, once offered by the former SRIA general manager and now offered by the present one, also are strikingly similar. Back then, now-retired general manager Monte Blews often was quoted as saying about the dangerous rip currents some of the very same things Buck Lee and his comrades-in-promotion are saying today about the oil on the beach. Things like:

• swimmers should use common sense;
• water hazards of the Gulf change from day to day and hour to hour;
• every person is unique and reacts to the hazard in unpredictable ways;
• we can't anticipate every dumb move some tourist might make;
• many more people aren't being injured;
• Y'all come on down and have some fun, ya' hear?

We like to think that ultimately the old SRIA board and Mr. Blews did the right thing for ethical reasons and they were justly rewarded with a restored -- even enhanced -- beach reputation. But a couple of board members, we suspect, never were much impressed by the argument that the agency had a moral responsibility to do everything reasonably possible to protect the lives and health of people whom they had encouraged to visit Pensacola Beach.

Even those heart-hardened ones eventually went along, however, for the sufficient reason that they came to realize all the advertising money in the world isn't worth a damn if a beach destination earns a reputation for being cavalier about the safety of its visitors or if it lies to the public about the condition of the beach.

That's a lesson Buck Lee and quite a few Escambia County officials need to re-learn, whatever their moral or political compass may direct. If they don't, you can be sure there will be more articles like today's in the Christian Science Monitor.

A Leader Just Like Us

Judith Warner wrote this week in the Times:

One of the worst poisons of the American political climate right now, the thing that time and again in recent years has led us to disaster, is the need people feel for leaders they can “relate” to. This need isn’t limited to women; it brought us after all, two terms of George W. Bush.

Jon Stewart's Daily Show makes the same point, hilariously:

A.G. Nixes Business Lease Fee Credit

UPDATED BELOW
The Pensacola News Journal is reporting tonight that state attorney general Bill McCollum last week issued an advisory opinion that it would be unconstitutional for county commissioners or the Santa Rosa Island Authority to credit Pensacola Beach commercial lease fees against newly-imposed real estate taxes. The newspaper explains:

Santa Rosa Island Authority attorney Mike Stebbins had requested the legal opinion in response to a move in January by county commissioners to work with a group of commercial leaseholders concerned with having to pay both lease fees and property taxes on their Pensacola Beach businesses.

Some of them they say [sic] the burden of paying both is cutting too deeply into their profit margin making it near impossible to continue doing business on the beach.

Beach business lease fees for island property rented from the Santa Rosa Island Authority are calculated as a percentage of monthly gross sales revenues. The percentage ranges from two to five percent of the gross, and occasionally more. Beach businesses say that when real estate taxes are added to that, "they pay significantly more than other non-beach commercial businesses in Escambia County," the News Journal reports.

County commissioners were considering granting a dollar-for-dollar credit against real estate taxes owing for all Pensacola Beach businesses that paid lease fees. But McCollum's advisory ruling casts a dark shadow over that possibility now. Concluded McCollum:

[I]t is my opinion that the Santa Rosa Island Authority has no authority to offset lease fees payable to the authority from commercial leaseholders equal to ad valorem taxes collected against commercial leaseholders as such action would amount to an exemption from taxes where the exemption has no constitutional basis.

Attorney General Bill McCollum's advisory opinion can be found here.

UPDATE
9-3 am

Jamie Paige harvests island quotes about the McCollum advisory ruling in today's updated print edition version of the same news.

• County commissioner Grover Robinson IV says he's "disappointed" and doesn't know "where we go from here."
  
• Fred Simmons proposes abolishing business lease fees.
  
• June Gerra says, "It's difficult to be positive about a government that is insensitive. It just kills your spirit."

Ten Questions for Peacock

Someone claiming to be John Peacock, a board member of the Santa Rosa Island Authority, has found his way to yesterday's article on this web site about the SRIA meeting that wasn't. "Please feel free to contact me," he writes, "if you want to really set the record straight." Then, he issues us instructions on how to do that privately.

We accept Mr. Peacock's generous invitation to "set the record straight." But in the interests of keeping things in the Sunshine, rather than do it privately we'd like to give him the opportunity to answer ten simple questions right here, for everyone to see.

Just use the message function, Mr. Peacock. You know how it works.

TEN QUESTIONS

1. Were you the decision-maker in calling a “special” SRIA board meeting for August 6 at 5 pm? If not, who was?

2. The Notice of Meeting bears the date of July 5 for a meeting scheduled for July 6. What day and time was the Notice of Meeting actually published?

3. Did you direct Jayne Bell to publish the Notice of Meeting; if not, who did?

4. How, when, and by whom was the decision made that “John Peacock will be acting chairman” as stated in the notice of meeting?

5. Did you or any other board member decide to make you, John Peacock, “acting chairman” of this "special meeting" before the notice was published; if so, when, where, why, and by whom was that decision made?

6. What was the agenda business to be considered at that “special meeting”?

7. It has been claimed on the Independent News web site blog that “the issue was an attempt by Mr. Peacock... to...squelch the investigation of the manager by numerous complaints of numerous ex-employees.” To your knowledge, is there an ongoing internal investigation of complaints from employees or ex-employees about Buck Lee? What is the specific nature of those complaints?

8. When you and other members of the board met on August 6, did SRIA attorney Stebbins advise that the meeting was improperly noticed to the public and might well violate the Sunshine Law?

9. On the Independent News' "Rick's Blog" a message by “robertonlamar” claims News Journal reporter Michael Stewart sent a letter to SRIA officials asking for comments and information about employee or ex-employee complaints. Is there such a letter and, if so, when does the SRIA intend to respond?

10. As an appointed SRIA board member, are you in favor or opposed to Mike Whitehead’s oft-expressed desire to abolish the SRIA and have county officials take over its functions?

Mystery of the Agenda that Didn't Bark

On his personal blog, Independent News publisher Rick Outzen broke the mysterious news story that a surprise meeting of the Santa Rosa Island Authority late yesterday was cut short by Dr. Thomas Campanella's fast thinking. Campanella is the only one of six board members who is not a political appointee of an Escambia County commissioner. He's elected by island residents and currently is chairman of the SRIA's governing board.

Reports Outzen:

The special meeting set for the Santa Rosa Island Authority yesterday was stopped before it began. Chairman Tom Campanella, vice chair John Peacock, Ed Guernsey and Vernon Prather were in attendance. Fred Gant was in route.

Peacock had called the meeting. Campenella struck the gavel and immediately asked Board attorney Mike Stebbins if the meeting had been properly noticed. Stebbins advised that the meeting - even though it was a special one - had to be noticed 48 hours prior.

According to what we've been able to piece together from multiple sources, the episode almost looks like an attempted coup. Perhaps less than 48 hours beforehand, we're told, someone at the SRIA authorized lower level staff to publish the "special meeting" notice which we have reproduced above. You can view it yourself on-line right here [pdf warning].

Who dunnit? We can't be sure, but our sources say the shadow of suspicion falls heavily over Buck Lee, John Peacock, and Mike Whitehead.

Lee is what used to be known as the "general manager" of the Island Authority, now retitled "executive director." He has close ties to county commissioner Mike Whitehead, as we've previously observed. Peacock is an SRIA board member. He was appointed by Whitehead and is widely regarded as the commissioner's personal sock puppet.

The curious thing is the meeting notice included this odd prediction:

"For the purpose of this meeting John Peacock will be acting as chairman and Fred Gant will be acting as vice-chairman."

That, apparently, was news to current SRIA board chairman Campanella and his board colleague, Vernon Prather. (Two other commissioners were either out of town or on the road.)

There was a brief but unsuccessful effort to get to the bottom of the mysteries -- Who called the supposed "special" meeting? and How is it Peacock was determined in advance to be the "acting chair"? Then, Island Authority attorney Mike Stebbins warned the remaining board members that the meeting notice was likely in violation of Florida's Sunshine in Government Act.

Chairman Campanella dutifully declared the meeting adjourned and he and Prather walked out.

You'd think Whitehead and his hand-picked buddy, Peacock, would be more sensitive to Sunshine Act violations than this. After all, a number of Whitehead's former colleagues lost their jobs, faced jail, and incurred stiff fines for violating that same law back in 2002.

The mystery of the meeting notice, however, is wrapped inside a larger enigma: What was the substance of this abortive meeting supposed to involve? Outzen says on his blog, "Campenalla has had Stebbins investigate complaints about SRIA manager Buck Lee without informing his fellow board members. " And a following comment posted under the screen name "robertonlamar" adds:

the issues are outlined in a letter from the penscola [sic] news journal which is a public record for anyone to see in the SRIA office.

That letter, it turns out, is from investigative reporter Michael Stewart. (Stewart is all over the place these days, isn't he?) What he's probing are employee complaints of abusive management practices by none other than Buck Lee himself.

Some time ago, Whitehead announced his intention to engineer a county take over of the SRIA and ample evidence suggested Lee was behind him. Now, Whitehead's own appointee has been caught trying to muscle in on SRIA board meeting schedules to run the show and bury the employee complaints about Buck Lee.

Campanella, Prather, and Stebbins deserve praise for stopping the SRIA board coup in its tracks and, in effect, insisting that personnel complaints proceed in a systematic and balanced manner. For that matter, Peacock owes thanks to Campanella for keeping him off the criminal court docket.

But you know we haven't heard the last of the matter. Not as long as Buck Lee is where he is and Whitehead remains a county commissioner.

Further Amplification Dept.

Ten Questions for Peacock
SRIA board member John Peacock has offered in the comment below to "set the record straight." He's invited to answer ten simple questions, right here on this blog for everyone to see.

Asking the Help

Jamie Page offers an interesting perspective on the upcoming Island Authority proposal to force employees of Quietwater area businesses "to park elsewhere, freeing up an estimated 100 of the 485 ... spaces for patrons." He talked to the bartenders, waitresses, and shop clerks.

How novel! Ask the people who will bear the burden. Turns out, the people who actually work on the beach have a point.

"If they are going to ask us to park elsewhere, they need to have a covered area for us and a trolley to shuttle us from another parking lot to make sure we get to our shift safely," says bartender Tracy Porterfield. "And they need some kind of security to ensure our safety."

Island Authority general manager Buck Lee claims "several owners" of boardwalk businesses favor the proposal. Don't hold your breath expecting him to name them. Lee is deluded -- or hopes you are.

Here's a better idea: Before doing anything, remove the signs that "reserve" parking places 24/7 for Lee, himself, and all the Island Authority board members. Open up those spaces for the workers who actually make the beach work.

Then, on the six or seven days a year when parking actually is tight on Pensacola Beach, make them carry the cash as they walk through the midnight darkness of Casino Beach.

Bridge Toll, Noise Issues Postponed

Following its age old custom, last evening the Santa Rosa Island Authority glanced into the pot of simmering issues on Pensacola Beach and shoved it onto a back burner. No change in the noise ordinance for now. No increase in the bridge toll, for the time being.

O'Brien made the "easy" prediction there would be no toll increase because county pols are running for reelection. We say it was easy because it's the SRIA's way of life.

An Extravagance We Cannot Afford

If, as it has been observed, military generals are always preparing to fight the "last" war with outmoded technology and tactics that have been superceded by new conditions, can we say that those who govern Pensacola Beach now seem to be planning to fight for a type of tourist business that is rapidly disappearing with the changing times and economy?

Doubling the Bob Sikes Bridge toll to the equivalent of half a gallon of gas is not the problem. Building an $8 million to $10 million parking ramp in the center of Pensacola Beach is.

Beach businessman Bruce Ferris has it right when he told the News Journal's Kris Wernowsky, "The money could be utilized on a better shuttle system."

The best ECAT has been able to manage for access to Pensacola Beach is a miserably bare bones bus schedule that runs between the beach and downtown Pensacola only twice a day, six days a week. The scheduled times and stops are abysmal. You could move an artillery regiment faster -- and they'd probably have more fun while sight-seeing along the way.

Nothing but highways built for individual automobiles directly links Pensacola Beach to the airport; the I-10 corridor; East-West coastal highway 98; popular scenic, historic, museum, or recreational sites on the mainland; and all the other beach communities from Fort Walton to Perdido Key.

For once, how about meeting the future instead of lagging behind it? Rather than committing to build a multi-million parking lot as if we are still in the 1980s, the Santa Rosa Island Authority can lead the way in getting everyone together throughout the Greater Pensacola area; all the little fiefdoms from Perdido Key to Fort Walton Beach. Start planning now for an imaginative, convenient, and enjoyable area mass transit system that integrates and expands tourist (and local resident) travel options throughout the Northwest Florida coastal area.

Hundreds of other communities in the U.S. and around the world -- many of them with widely dispersed populations no bigger than ours -- are doing it with a mix of buses and trams, light rail cars, and a variety of other people-moving systems. You can be sure thousands more are planning to join them soon as we are compelled, at last, to wean ourselves from our oil addiction.

In four months, a $2 toll is going to look cheap when gas is selling for $7 a gallon. Only some "new" multi-million dollar parking ramp will seem like an extravagance that we cannot afford.

Survival of the Fitful

The Darwinian competition between the Fitful Sleeping Crabs and the Deaf Bar Flies continues on Pensacola Beach. It seems the two subspecies cannot survive together in the narrow ecological niche along the shores of Little Sabine Bay. One or the other is destined to become an endangered species.

The SRIA looks like it's about to weigh in on the side of the bar flies. Under a proposal that goes before the full board in June, SRIA general manager Buck Lee would change county law to allow them to enjoy unlimited musical noise until "midnight between Sunday and Wednesday, and 2 a.m. Thursday through Saturday."

The crabs will just have to adapt. Get night jobs, maybe, or learn to live without sleep.

Mobile's WALA-TV has a news clip:

The Sound of Beach Music

Pensacola News Journal reporter Jamie Paige is relatively new, so perhaps he can be forgiven for not knowing that the brouhaha over loud bar music disturbing nearby Pensacola Beach residents is merely the latest iteration in a continuing war over noise that goes back over ten years.

Remember Banana Bob's on the banks of Little Sabine Bay? Back in the day, South Harbor condo unit owners and home owners across the bay were complaining about raucous music into the wee hours then, too. What they were saying then could have served as today's script:

Lys St. Aubin, 40, lives in South Harbor condominiums, in the beach's core business area. She runs her washing machine and clothes dryer at night to help buffer the live bands.

"It is very loud, and on the weekends they play until 2 a.m.," said St. Aubin. "You can feel vibrations when you're lying in bed. My nerves are fried. We can't sleep because of it."

The difference is, back then the Escambia County sheriff's substation trained a decibel meter on the problem, enforced the law, and the bands at Banana Bob's were made to quiet down. Today, the sheriff's office (with the apparent complicity of SRIA general manager Buck Lee) is refusing to enforce the law.

The reasons articulated in today's newspaper are laughable. According to reporter Paige:

The Sheriff's Office hasn't actively enforced the ordinance, which would require expensive decibel meters, training and certification to use them, said sheriff's Sgt. Ted Roy, who works at the beach substation.

In other words, Sgt. Roy is saying, 'we can't afford decibel meters and, anyway,we've grown too stupid and untrained to use them as we once did.'

This is patently ridiculous, of course. Is the sheriff's office going technologically backward? Someone there should google enforcing noise ordinances. It's a serious medical problem.

Indeed, someone is even inviting noise pollution stories for a planned book on the subject. South Harbor residents -- use those sleepless hours to send in your tales!

We suspect one of two things is really going on here. Either the sheriff's substation is refusing to enforce the law because beach businesses are more generous campaign contributors than residents, or someone in law enforcement is angling for the dough to attend a noise pollution conference.

We just happened to notice that the Acoustical Society of America is gathering in Paris, France the end of next month. Do you suppose beach residents pay enough in MSBU law enforcement fees to send a deputy there?

Deceit Beach: Reply to a Critic

CLICK TO READ

We don't visit message boards much, not even our own. So, as it happens, we learned of an anonymous comment about William L. Post's new book, Deceit Beach, from a loyal reader who keeps one eye on this blog and another on the message boards of the Pensacola News Journal.

Essentially, the message board commentator grumbles that because Post is not a lawyer he shouldn't be writing a book "which claims the government deceived leaseholders." This is quite frivolous, as we will show in a moment. First, however, let's give the anonymous critic his moment in the sun:

To claim that advertisements or other parol evidence somehow carries any weight in a legal lease is naive and wrong. The merger doctrine basically... says that ads, verbal promises, merge into the deed or lease, which requires specific language in those conveyance documents to reserve rights set forth in other documents or representations. If the leaseholds were never to be taxed, the lease should have had specific language stating the same.

The short answer to this is that Post has written a history of the Pensacola Beach "tax free" leasehold policy, not a legal brief. His history is written for a general audience, not a lawyers' seminar. As he explains in the book, Post sets out to describe the applicable main legal principles, both for and against taxation of Pensacola Beach leasehold interests, to give context to the historical facts he has uncovered.

It's completely appropriate that in Deceit Beach Mr. Post declines to go into excruciating, lawyer-like detail. For every legal doctrine like "merger" that someone can point to, you can be sure there will be exceptions, and exceptions to the exceptions, and exceptions to those exceptions, ad nauseum.

And, after all, the market for densely written legal writing is confined mostly to the handful of appellate judges who are paid big bucks by the taxpayers to read the turgid tomes of attorneys. It's a nasty job, but someone has to do it.

It also needs to be said that Post gets the general legal principles right. Lawyers are not the only scholars who can write a history of governmental policy.

Take the message board writer's "merger doctrine." Perhaps the leading case in Florida on the so-called "merger doctrine" is Milu v. Duke, 204 So.2d 31 (3d DCA 1967). Although not from the highest court in the state, in real estate cases where the issue is raised Duke continues to be the most-cited precedent in modern Florida appellate court decisions for this proposition:

It is a general rule that preliminary agreements and understandings relative to the sale of property usually merge in the deed executed pursuant thereto. * * *

However, there are exceptions to the merger rule. The rule that acceptance of a deed tendered in performance of a contract to convey land merges or extinguishes the covenants and stipulations contained in the contract does not apply to those provisions of the antecedent contract which the parties do not intend to be incorporated in the deed, or which are not necessarily performed or satisfied by the execution and delivery of the stipulated conveyance.

[emphasis added]

In other words, if there is a promise made which is to be performed after the deed has been issued the merger doctrine will not apply. As the late, great contracts expert, Prof. Charles Corbin, wrote in his seminal treatise, with all of the exceptions that have been endorsed by the courts the merger doctrine has become "merely a 'handy' phrase, of convenient uncertainty and obscurity, that is used so as to avoid the necessity of clear thinking and accurate analysis.” 6 Corbin On Contracts § 1319 (1962).

Moreover, as Post also points out in his book, the law is not so blind to common sense as to endorse outright fraud every time a con man is clever enough to include a merger clause in his sales (or lease) forms.

To be sure, the purely legal discussion in Post's book may appear to the eye of some lawyers to be the least satisfactory part of the book. The main reason for this is that Post intentionally doesn't spend a lot of time or ink delving into complex legal doctrines or fashioning endless lawyer-like arguments, counter-arguments, and surrebuttals about the nuances of prior legal precedents or why they might or might not be applicable to the Pensacola Beach situation.

Quite evidently, that was not his purpose in writing the book. Even so, the purely legal argument passages of Post's book, in themselves, add something valuable to the debate. In those passages Post shows fairly conclusively how his historical research undermines key factual premises adopted by, or openly assumed to be true in, the Florida court opinions he criticizes.

And that, manifestly, is the main purpose of his book: to document the true history and chronology of Escambia County's Pensacola Beach lease tax policy, which he has done meticulously, and to counter-pose the historical facts with the erroneous gloss Florida courts have slapped on that history in their published opinions.

Thus, Post's book does something more subtle -- and far more valuable -- than repeat stale legal arguments. At several key points in his book he adverts to the over-arching legal arguments on the other side, briefly describes their main theme, and then argues that, regardless, given the historical facts he has laid out one truth is ineluctable: for twenty years Escambia County and the SRIA deliberately advertised tax-free leaseholds -- in some instances (like the one illustrated at the top of this article) expressly avowing the exemption would be "permanent policy" -- without disclosing that the county had actual or constructive knowledge that those leaseholds could be taxed at any time the county decided to change its mind.

Escambia County and the SRIA never mentioned this to the potential public of leasehold purchasers (hence the title, "Deceit Beach"). Indeed, during the formative 20 year period from 1949 to 1969 in a number of instances that Post documents, county officials went so far as to claim that taxes were "included" in the lease fees.

This is not a legal point; it is a fact of history. Post is writing a history here, not a lawyer's legal brief. And, thank goodness for that. It so happens, as he ably points out in the book, this history exposes critical factual errors in the Florida supreme court's prior tax case decisions.

As any lawyer should acknowledge, one of the greatest frustrations practicing lawyers experience is to see an appeals court fudge, or ignore, or completely distort key facts of a case, and then use that erroneous recitation of facts to justify application of a legal principle which becomes decisive of the case.

Lawyer or not, in his book William L. Post has exposed just that sort of key factual error in the Florida Supreme Court case of Straughn v. Camp, 293 So.2d 689 (Fla.1974) and others that followed. As the author admits, there is no way to prove conclusively that the Straughn case would have come out in favor of leaseholders had the court gotten the facts right. But it certainly raises serious questions about the validity of the holding in that case and its progeny as guiding precedent.

Assuredly, Mr. Post could have happily collaborated with a lawyer if it had been his intent to write something other than a history of the tax exempt leasehold. But it wasn't. It seems to us a ridiculous criticism to complain that he didn't write the book someone else wants.

For that matter, if he had intended to write a different book, Post might have collaborated with an economist to analyze the historical and contemporary market forces and policy considerations behind leasing beach property versus assessing ad valorem taxes on a beach deed. Certainly, the market dynamics have changed dramatically on Pensacola Beach in the past fifty years. They assuredly will be changing again, thanks to global warming, increased hurricane intensity, and ever-rising property insurance premiums. But it's no accident that some of the more recent residential single family dwelling lease fees on Pensacola Beach are equal to, or even exceed, what mainlanders pay in ad valorem taxes for comparable property.

We also can envision yet another very different book, a sociological study. Why is it, for example, that there seems to be such a disproportionate number of aging trust fund babies who own Pensacola Beach leases? How does it happen that school enrollment at the top-rated Pensacola Beach Elementary School each year seems to include an ever-rising number of students who commute from off the island? What accounts for the manifest trend of diminishing family residences and increasing numbers of non-residential rental spaces replacing them, a trend well documented in detailed U.S. census numbers for Pensacola Beach over the last three decades?

For that matter, why not a book about the environmental and public health issues that led Escambia County to offer tax-free leases in the first place? After all, one substantial reason the island was not attractive to any but a handful of pioneers in the '50s and '60s was fear of polio, the intractable mosquito infestation problem, the primitive condition of water, sewers, and roads, and the slower-than-most-folk-remember adoption of home air conditioning.

The short canal-like area now overgrown with vegetation along the Sound (still visible from the tallest dunes east of Portofino) remains a monument to the fear, greed, and despair of Escambia County officials in the '50s and '60s as they tried everything they could think of to make Pensacola Beach into a viable economic asset. Those man-made rectangular water canals were dug, so informed sources have told us, to be a "mosquito attractor" in hopes of reducing the insect infestation so the island could be developed.

None of these, of course, was the book Post wanted to write. So what? Let those who come after build on his work, be they economists, sociologists, public health specialists, urban planners -- or lawyers for that matter.

First, however, they need to get the facts right. William L. Post has done that. His book will be, as we have said, a must-have for anyone who lives on Pensacola Beach or wants to really know or write about this most unique island community.

Must-Have Pensacola Beach Book

Title: Deceit Beach: The True Story of Deception
Author: William L. Post
Publisher: Trent's Prints & Publishing (Chumuckla, FL)
ISBN: 10:: 1-934035-42-4 / 13: 978-1-934035-42-9
130 81/2" x 11" pp. (incl. 40 pages of historic illustrations and 33 pp. of appendices and an index)
Price: $29.95 $24.95 (plus shipping)

Pensacola Beach resident William L. Post has just published "Deceit Beach," a 92-page (not counting appendices) historical analysis of the "tax-free" promises made, nationwide, by Escambia County officials to encourage development of Santa Rosa island. The book arrived from the publisher today and it should be hitting the shelves of bookstores and beach shopping venues in the coming weeks.

It will be a brisk seller. We'll have more, much more, to say about Deceit Beach in the coming days and weeks. Judging from a quick skim, however, it's undeniable that with this book Mr. Post has made a vital contribution to the historical record of the greater Pensacola area.

The book is both a narrative history of the tax-free promise that made development of Pensacola Beach possible and a compilation of reproduced historical documents from 1949 to 1969. It belongs in every area library, on the shelf of every Pensacola Beach resident, and in the hands of every mainlander who may be wondering what the ad valorem tax lawsuit is all about. It would serve the public well, too, if Escambia County commissioners and other officials gave it a read.

Post, who is 56 years old, holds an advanced degree in chemistry from Auburn University. He has been a Pensacola Beach resident since 1993 when he retired from the oil industry. His interest in beach history was piqued eleven years later when, as he writes, "Chris Jones, the Property Appraiser for Escambia County... and Janet Holley, the Tax Collector... decided it was time in 2004 to tax the [Pensacola Beach] leaseholders as if the leaseholds were deeded real property."

What ensued for Mr. Post was a sixteen month odyssey through the dusty archives of the Santa Rosa Island Authority, the records of the Escambia County Commission, local public libraries, law libraries, university "special" collections usually not available to the general public, and countless other repositories of historical documents. He has compiled much, though far from all, of what he discovered in Deceit Beach.

The book provides the reader with a clear chronological time line of how, why, when, and which public officials at the federal, state and local levels engineered, and then widely promoted, the express promise that beach leaseholds would remain free from ad valorem taxation for the duration of their renewable leases. Included in Chapter 7 are fifteen pages indexing key documents from governmental files -- and obvious clues to where even more can be found.

Beach readers are likely to find most compelling 41 pages of reproductions of merely some among the hundreds of newspaper and magazine ads, pamphlets, tourist brochures, and other printed media showing how explicitly the Island Authority, Escambia County itself, and even the State of Florida put the governmental imprimatur on their "tax free" promises, from coast to coast in order to attract individuals and families to settle on Pensacola Beach and contribute to its development.

The reproductions in Post's book, although in black and white, are the clearest, cleanest, and most easily readable we have ever seen. In some cases, we recognized ads from the SRIA's muddy archives of reproductions which we and select other residents have seen before; but Post appears to have tracked down the originals, or as close to them as one can get, and the results are stunning. The assembly of documents in itself is compelling evidence that somewhere, someone has been deceiving the public about Pensacola Beach.

"The county flat-out did twenty years of advertising promising no taxation, ever," Post told us today. Those promises were unequivocal, he adds:

These days, I see some county politicians and even state judges trying to say that the ads only described the 'present' condition, as it was back then, of no taxation -- as if no one promised that the tax free exemption would remain that way. But you can't read these advertisements or the minutes of governmental meetings at the time without concluding that is simply wrong. Repeatedly, Escambia County and the SRIA made the explicit promise that the exemption would be binding on the government in the future, too.

Post spares no one who has engaged in the latter-day gloss-over of history. He is especially critical of the state Supreme Court's ruling in Straughn v. Camp, a 1974 ruling which, in Post's words, "ruled that the leaseholds are not [a] public purpose, therefore, no exemption."

Writes Post:

Newly revealed historical facts support the claim that the imposition of ad valorem taxation on plaintiff's leaseholds does impair the obligation of contract. Possibly because of their ignorance of the historical facts, the Florida Supreme Court made illogical statements and ruled there was no impairment of contract.
* * *
The perpetuated error of the Straughn v. Camp ruling is the reason for all litigation which has followed.

Post told us today that while the Straughn v. Camp court was mistaken about the nature and duration of local governmental promises for tax exemption on beach leaseholds, he suspects it was the fault of lawyers who argued the case at the time.

"They didn't have the historical documents that have since come to light," he says. "It's little wonder. It took me over a year to unearth them."

Just one of the surprises Post has dug up from the historical record are minutes from a May 29, 1946 "special joint meeting" of the Santa Rosa Island Authority board and Escambia county commissioners. Those minutes show that the federal government's original intention actually was to deed Santa Rosa Island over to the county without restrictions.

It was at the request of the SRIA and Escambia County commissioners that language was added to the federal legislation, and eventually the deed itself, stipulating that Santa Rosa Island could be "leased or not leased but [was] never to be otherwise disposed of or conveyed by it." That language was drafted at the joint SRIA-County commission meeting and sent off to then-U.S. Congressman Bob Sikes. The congressman then amended his draft bill, as requested, and it became law shortly thereafter.

What effect this long-forgotten fact may have on the current deeds-for-taxes debate is any one's guess. But at least we can say, thanks to William Post's thorough research, that the pretense is over: 'poor little Escambia County' didn't have the deed restriction against re-selling beach property imposed on it by the big, bad wolf of the United States government. The county asked for the restriction so it could lease the land but not sell it.

Like a mugger with a conscience who fears he can't stop himself, maybe the commissioners of that time were, in effect, scrawling a note in bright red lipstick on the deed: "Stop us before we kill the environment again."

It's a good thing the feds listened. It's also good that William Post is here to record what happened afterwards.

To order an advance copy of Deceit Beach, until distribution begins, at the moment you have to email the author: WilliamLPost@hotmail.com

Happy reading!

Amplification Dept.

Deceit Beach: Reply to a Critic

Reprint Dept.

Gulf Breeze News, May 15, 2008

A Different Drummer

Sometimes it's appropriate for a newspaper columnist to look at the world from an easy chair, within arm's reach of his bookcase. Other times, he needs to get out of that chair and stick his head out the door to see for himself what's what.

The trick is to know when to do which.

Reginald Dogan of the Pensacola News Journal does both, from time to time. But today he really blew it. He leaned back in his chair and reached for a book when he should have headed out the door for Pensacola Beach to take a look at the SRIA's EEO-1 hiring records.

The apparent burden of Dogan's column is to publicly agonize over the recent fracas at the Ft. Pickens parking lot. As he sums up the evidence, which happens to be available to the whole world on Youtube:

The Escambia County Sheriff's Office called the gathering of mostly black teenagers and young adults a "mob scene" that sparked a "near-riot."

The young folks at the beach said the Sheriff's Office sent a cavalry of "aggressive" and "nasty" deputies to prevent them from having a good time on a public beach.

The truth lies somewhere in the muddled middle of this mess.
* * *
Did deputies overact? Probably. Did the crowd intimidate and incite them? Most likely.

After a lot more 'on-the-one-hand-this, on-the-other-hand-that' stuff, the PNJ columnist reaches the startling conclusion, "[W]hen it comes to resisting authority and disobeying police instructions, I have to stand on the side of the law."

Now, there is a waste of ink. But wait! He goes further. He abruptly elevates the Pensacola Beach incident to nose-bleed heights by addressing weighty issues of morality and social reform:

Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" advocated the need to prioritize one's conscience over the dictates of laws. In it, Thoreau introduces the idea of civil disobedience that was used later by Mohandas Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

But the difference between civil disobedience and mob revolts and rebellions is as different as a rose and its thorns.

Civil disobedience is orderly and nonviolent. Rebellions are unruly and violent.

I will, in a heartbeat, disobey and protest an unjust or immoral law. But what took place Saturday on Pensacola Beach was not civil disobedience. It was anti-social behavior that could have led to serious injuries and even death.

Good god. From a couple of misbehaving street punks to Mahatma Ghandi?

Here's the tragedy: incidents like that of last Sunday have happened before on Pensacola Beach. Many times. At the same location. For nearly identical reasons. And they always seem to take island authorities by surprise.

And the response, as we saw in Michael Stewart's follow-up article yesterday, is always the same: "Beach To Get More Deputies..." a week after the surprise.

Year in and year out several thousand predominantly minority high schoolers and older companions from Mobile descend on the beach in May to celebrate the end of the school year and the start of summer. Year in and year out, word spreads within the local minority community, aided by local radio stations or indy record studios or some hot new music group or another, and a crowd predominantly composed of young people of color appears on the beach "suddenly."

Such crowd surges always seem "sudden" -- but are they really? Only to those who don't happen to listen to the same radio stations, read the same neighborhood newspapers, attend the same schools and churches, or move in the same social circles.

Unfortunately, that includes nearly everyone who works at the Santa Rosa Island Authority and the Escambia County sheriff's substation.

Dogan's half right when he notes, in passing, that the SRIA "requires a permit to hold an organized party or event on the beach." What he doesn't realize is that for others -- mostly others who are Caucasian, by the way -- it's always possible to streamline the SRIA permitting process or even avoid it altogether.

We've seen it happen almost instantly for everyone from antique car clubs to UFO nut cases; from visiting soccer tournament teams to legions of military recruits released for a weekend of revelry; from island resident association picnics to last-minute stock car races; and, of course, for vast crowds of gay and lesbian visitors who once made the whole island their own over Memorial Day weekend -- and may yet do so again.

Indeed, many times the SRIA solicits groups who are known to have a potential interest in visiting Pensacola Beach.

The ugly truth is that in Northwest Florida the races coexist in almost entirely separate universes. Each community knows almost nothing about what's happening in the other. In one instance we witnessed not that many years ago, for nearly two weeks in advance a Pensacola 'rap' radio station was broadcasting invitations to gather at Pensacola Beach. Yet, when a crowd showed up (one much larger than that of last Sunday), the SRIA and sheriff's deputies said they were "surprised" and overwhelmed.

As Dogan consults the Transcendentalists to better understand the problems that periodically pop up at the Ft. Pickens parking lot, he could do worse than read Henry David Thoreau's Walden. In a concluding chapter there, the sage observes, "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."

Minority youths in the Pensacola area hear drummers unknown to the SRIA. This is largely because, aside from the occasional clerical worker, the SRIA's affirmative action hiring record is as dismal as they come. The agency has never hired an African-American manager, supervisor, tourism specialist, hospitality coordinator, or anyone else in a position to reach out and work with minority communities, near or far.

Not that such a position necessarily should be filled by a minority applicant. We would guess there are plenty of others who bridge the divide. But they, too, will remain unknown to the SRIA until the agency finally awakens to this reality:

The greater Pensacola area is multi-racial. The beach belongs to everyone, regardless of race. Just as much effort should be expended to anticipate, accommodate, and even invite racial minority visitors to the beach as the Island Authority now spends attracting others.

If no one on the SRIA staff today marches to that drummer, then additional personnel who can do so need to be recruited.

Commissioners Vote for Deeds

"Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer— except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs."

-- George Orwell, Animal Farm

At the special two-county commissioners meeting we mentioned the other day, Escambia and Santa Rosa county commissioners approved a formal resolution asking U.S. Representative Jeff Miller to sponsor legislation authorizing the issuance of fee simple deeds to Santa Rosa Island beach property. Presently, owing to restrictions in the original federal deed of Santa Rosa Island to Escambia County, all property on Pensacola Beach is held under leases, most of them for a renewable term of 99 years.

Jamie Page had the early afternoon story yesterday ("Commissioners Push Beach Ownership") on the PNJ web site. This morning's PNJ repeats much, but not all, of that earlier dispatch ("Lease Fight Heads to D.C.").

Among all ten combined commissioners, the lone dissenters were two from Escambia County. One of them was Kevin White from the northern section of the county. White has been outspoken in wanting to preserve public access on the beach.

The other dissenter was Grover C. Robinson IV. Robinson represents District 4, which includes Pensacola Beach. He, too, has expressed concern about maintaining open public spaces on the beach. Robinson also has been popular with, and trusted by, a large majority of beach residents.

Commissioner Robinson voiced objections that not enough was known about the details of any deed-for-taxes proposition. Until the specifics are known, he said, it would be imprudent to support such a move; it could turn out to the disadvantage of both beach residents and mainlanders.

Also speaking against the resolution was long-time SRIA board member Dr. Thomas Campanella. Campanella has been a reliable voice for Pensacola Beach residents since first being elected by them in 2002. In brief remarks to the commissioners during the open forum, he expressed concern that opening the beach to unrestricted deeds of beach lots could lead directly to over-development on the beach.

After the meeting, Campanella told us that he fears "greed is behind" the resolution. He explained that the SRIA has been under pressure from the county for years to allow more intense development, greater densities, and higher revenues from residents and businesses. If the county persists, he said, "they're going to ruin the very resource that we need."

Voting in favor of the deeds resolution, among others, were Escambia County Commissioners Mike Whitehead and Gene Valentino. Whitehead has a long history of opposing beach resident intiatives and advocating for abolition of the Santa Rosa Island Authority. Valentino pretty much votes as if he were Whitehead's sock puppet.

So, what's going on here? Beach residents who want the guarantee of a deed if they're ordered to pay real estate taxes have to be nervous when natural predators like Whitehead and Valentino claim to be "helping" them and proven allies like Robinson and Campanella are on the other side.

The short answer is that we'll just have to wait and see. Much depends on the exact wording of any legislation congressman Miller is able to shepherd through Congress. It seems unlikely that any legislation Miller sponsors can be approved by Congress before it recesses for the year. So, equally important will be the composition of the Board of Commissioners if and when the time finally arrives to implement any deed-exchange.

As always, the future of the beach is in the grip of those we elect to run county government. Among a list of horribles one can foresee is the distinct possibility -- one which was advocated by former SRIA board member Bill Griffith about a dozen years ago, although he later renounced the idea as having been inspired by Mr. Whitehead -- that any residents seeking a deed in lieu of a long-term lease should be required to make a one time payment equal to 65 percent or more of the assessed value of the land and improvements.

Another IED that could be hidden along the roadway is Whitehead's long-held ambition to abolish the Santa Rosa Island Authority altogether. The SRIA has directly governed the beach for nearly sixty years. While its efforts to preserve the beach from unsustainable development have not been an unalloyed success, on the whole the island's governing authority has been far more eco-friendly and attuned to island residents' and business needs than Escambia County commissioners.

Congressman Miller, himself, could allay many of these fears if he makes a sincere effort to enlist knowledgeable beach residents and their representatives, like Campanella and Robinson, in the process of drafting the legislation. There are at hand on the beach a number of knowledgeable people -- lawyers, judges, real property finance experts, former legislators, urban growth experts, public administration specialists, environmentalists, and others -- who could be of service to the congressman as he drafts the legislation.

We will soon see if Congressman Miller calls on them, or instead takes his marching orders from our new-found beach "friends" like commissioners Whitehead and Valentino.

Dept. of Amplification

Must-Have Pensacola Beach Book: William L. Post's "Deceit Beach"

Hodos and Contels

Rick Outzen, publisher of Pensacola's weekly, The Independent News, asked a good question on his blog the other day: "Whatever Happened to Condo-Hotels?"

The answer may surprise you, unless you're familiar with Escambia County government.