Pensacola News Journal: Santa Rosa dismantles TEAM
After a five-year fight, TEAM Santa Rosa, an organization working without a contract, operating outside of the sunshine and allotting members grants, is being dismantled and a new entity will be formed to take its place — evidence of how citizen activism works.
BY LOUIS COOPER
Pensacola News Journal
The group charged with designing an organization to replace TEAM Santa Rosa will consist both of people who served on TEAM’s board and some of the most ardent critics of the organization.
The Santa Rosa County Commission today voted unanimously to form a 15-member Economic Development Transition Committee that would meet in the next 45 days to draft a plan for economic development that will replace the TEAM Santa Rosa Economic Development Council.
Each county commissioner appointed three people to the committee. One appointee each was that commissioner’s representative to the old TEAM board.
The other two were up to the commissioner’s discretion.
Other current board members appointed to the new committee include Phillip Wright, the chief executive officer of Santa Rosa Medical Center, who was appointed by Commissioner Don Salter; and Claude Duvall, who was tapped by Commissioner Lane Lynchard.
Commissioner Jim Melvin, however, appointed Jerry Couey, a Milton resident who has hounded the commission about needs to reform economic development. Commissioner Jim Williamson appointed Pace resident Alan Isaacson, another frequent critic of TEAM.
Here is a full list of the members of the Economic Development Transition Committee and which commissioner appointed them:
Commissioner Jim Williamson
• Ed Fortune, Pace businessman/former legislator (Williamson’s current appointee to TEAM)
• Alan Isaacson, Pace minister
• Don Richardson, Gulf Breeze resident and president of the United Peninsula Association
Commissioner Bob Cole
• Jerry Goldstein, partner with Salomon-Goldstein Properties in Gulf Breese (Cole’s current appointee to TEAM)
• Rick Paschall, owner of Ameriprise in Milton
• Kim Macarthy, owner of the Copper Possum
Commissioner Don Salter
• Ferd Salomon, partner with Salomon-Goldstein Properties in Gulf Breese (Cole’s current appointee to TEAM)
• Phillip Wright, chief executive officer of Santa Rosa Medical Center in Milton (current corporate member of TEAM’s board.)
• Josh Durst, Pace accountant
Commissioner Jim Melvin
• Carol Boston, Navarre resident
• Jerry Couey, Milton resident
• Laurie Gallup, owner of Navarre Properties
(Melvin’s current appointee to the TEAM board, Steve Hering, declined due to other commitments)
Commissioner Lane Lynchard
• Beverly Zimmern, mayor of Gulf Breeze (Lynchard’s current appointee to TEAM)
• Claude Duvall, East Milton business owner (current corporate member of TEAM’s board).
• Jeff Helms, vice president of Atkins engineering former chairman of Florida’s Great Northwest (former member of TEAM’s board)