Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward on The Daily Brew


  • August 19, 2015
  • /   Shannon Nickinson
  • /   community-dashboard

Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward took tough questions on The Daily Brew Wednesday, August 19, 2015. Michael Spooneybarger/ Studer Community Institute

Lessons learned, mistakes made.

That was a theme that Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward III returned to several times in his interview with Mollye Barrows and Carly Borden on The Daily Brew on BlabTV today, Aug. 19.

The full interview will air Thursday (Aug. 20) morning at 7 a.m.

“What the public wanted (in a strong mayor) was someone to be accountable at the top,” Hayward said. “You’re going to take the wins and the losses, and the buck stops with you. (City Hall) is a political organization now. You need to have a team around you, and that gets challenging.

“I think the public knows I’m focused 100 percent on Pensacola being a winner,” Hayward said. “But I’m going to make mistakes.”

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Read Studer Community Institute Editor Shannon Nickinson’s Q-and-A with Hayward on these issues here.

Hayward talked about the headlines that have roiled City Hall in recent weeks, including:

— The resignation of chief operating officer Tamara Fountain.

— The criticism of City Administrator Eric Olson regarding an email he received from North Hill Neighborhood Association president Melanie Nichols about city issues from her military-hosted work email address.

— The public perception these and other recent headlines has stirred.

“One thing I’ve struggled with is people come and go with government,” Hayward said.”You want to get good people in there who are going to do great things for the community. It’s challenging. All the great things we’ve done in the last five years has surpassed my expectations.”

“I wish I had a lot of do-overs long before I was the mayor and as the mayor,” Hayward said. “I try to stay on the big things, on the 30,000 foot view, and sometimes you take your eye off the thing that is festering that may not be the story,” but that becomes the story.

Hayward said he did not know that Olson was going to contact Nichols’ supervisor, but he stands by Olson as city administrator.

“I don’t think the council made the right decision,” to move forward with a discussion Thursday of a no-confidence vote in Olson.

“A vote of no confidence, we’re just going to perpetuate the story,” Hayward said. “I think we could have hammered it out right then.”

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