The big story in 2024 was, no doubt politics both on the national and local scenes.

And for northwest Florida, the political intrigue and drama is still not over.

We have to elect ourselves a new congressman.

A special election will happen on April 1st, 2025.

That aside, there were plenty of other big stories capturing the attention of northwest Florida citizens.

And we're going to talk about them.

Welcome.

In our 20, 24 year end review program.

We'll look back at 2020 for the newsmakers, the stories and the personalities that made 2024 memorable.

Our guests are journalists who make it their mission to recover, or I should say, to cover and report on northwest Florida.

Rick Allison is a print and broadcast journalist and now a podcaster.

He recently launched his podcast, What We Don't Color on the Dog.

Additionally, he owns and publishes and weekly newspaper and the must read Rick's blog.

Lisa Nelson Savage is the executive editor of the Pensacola News Journal and penned JD.com.

Our journalism career spans over two decades.

The fresh face on our panel this year is T.S.

Strickland.

He is the Morning Edition host and producer on NPR member station WWF 88.1 FM.

He is an award winning writer whose work has been published in The Washington Post and USA Today.

Just to mention a few, I might add.

He is also either worked for or with both Lisa and Rick.

Nice to have you all here.

Lisa, Rick, have you back, too?

Yes.

Welcome.

Nice to be here.

Thank you.

Obviously, politics, huge story.

And I want to get into that and we'll get deep into that.

But before doing so, let me ask you and I'll begin with you, Rick.

Politics aside, what do you think was the biggest, most meaningful story for northwest Florida?

Well, I think the one that's going to have the most legs is American magic.

I think we talked a little bit about last year, but this year they inked the deal.

They have started the construction on the Center for Maritime Excellence.

We've got foiling week coming up.

We've got two regattas.

It's going to be we're going to be the sailing capital of the country, maybe the world.

But that is that's the biggest story.

I think that it's going to keep growing for us.

Yeah.

Lisa, what do you think?

Well, if we remove politics from it, because I do think that was the story of 2024.

I think affordable housing is just been in the forefront all year long.

Homelessness kind of goes hand in hand with that, doing a lot to try to combat it.

But there's a lot of things outside our control and it seems to just be getting more and more difficult to find affordable housing in our community.

Yeah.

Yes.

You know, I think a couple of things spring to mind with the benefit of looking back over the whole year of first would be public education.

You know, and debates over parental rights, you know, freedom of expression.

Obviously, Escambia County was at the center of a couple of very high profile lawsuits.

Still is.

Yeah.

You know, in addition to that, I think economic development and really kind of a philosophical debate about what that should look like in Escambia County, which we saw you know, manifested through debate over aerospace, R&D, engineering and their treatment of, you know, some of the immigrant workers here in Pensacola, as well as elevate and debate over the future of that property.

Yeah, you know, you take a look at the economy and it is kind of a I guess, a double edged sword because you talk about affordable housing truly a challenge.

But then, you know, conversely, you talk about the publicity and the, you know, the marquee that will be brought about because of American magic.

And, you know, how do we as a community start to kind of manage that and think about, you know, putting the good with the bad, so to speak?

I know that's kind of an odd question, but yeah, I mean, I think there's there's obviously different perspectives.

Going back to the discussion around, you know, city engineering and in eight, I think what you saw with both of those issues was, you know, on the one hand, I think a call for more transparency and accountability as well as just, you know, balancing the needs for short term job creation with, you know, concerns of poor quality of life, neighborhood impacts, and really just making sure that, you know, to the extent that we as a community are subsidizing some of these projects, that they're producing a return for the community that's that's equitable and sustainable.

Yeah, I agree with that.

And I do.

I do.

And sometimes the public pushback is large with some of these things, kind of a lack of understanding that you have to spend money in order to make money.

But to your point, I think accountability is huge.

If you're bringing in major employers, you have to understand that housing has to come with that, that the wages have to come with that.

And I think that's something that readers, community members now more than ever, they're they're more vocal about those quality of life things that you're talking about, and they want to see some action on that.

Yeah.

Well, I think the other piece is our state legislature has got to step up.

I mean, we've gone through all the anti-woke years and we've done very little to improve insurance.

That was one of Don Gates big platforms.

We're hearing some rumbling out of Tallahassee now.

But the only thing they did on the insurance was make it difficult to sue sue your insurer if they don't pay your claim that issues out there as well as they they did live local and it hasn't had any impact on housing.

So the legislature and state government has got to get back to the kitchen table type issues.

And I think local government struggling.

I mean, part of the issue with the homeless that we're dealing with is the state law that is forcing people out of out of camps, good or bad, but no funding came with that.

It's, you know, local governments struggling with how to do these things.

And the legislature just wants the publicity.

I think the live local actually slowed projects down.

You know, local government is afraid.

They don't want to just hand over land that they would have normally good developers, they're holding on to it and it means less inventory that's out there because you can't control it once, once it's in private hands.

They can do with it what they will.

Yeah, Yeah.

And that's the thing I hear talking with people.

You know, a lot of times, you know, I'm an optimist.

I like to see the growth, I like to see the vibrancy, I like to see what's going on.

And I always get, you know, kind of the feedback.

Yes.

But we don't have the infrastructure in place for the growth, you know.

Well, which comes first.

Right, right, right.

You know, and I think that's a balancing act.

I mean, you know, I've said this a thousand times.

I used to go to the airport and if I would take a flight, hardly, rarely would I ever fly in or out of somewhere without recognizing somebody on the airplane right now.

Hardly ever.

Right.

You know, and parking place.

Forget about it.

And I know that's being addressed and whatnot.

But talk a little bit about that.

I mean, we I mean, the airport looks like we're going to see some expansion there.

And I mean, it's just amazing the amount of growth that's taking place there.

Yeah, the airport, I mean, it's phenomenal.

And it's we've we've shot past all the projections.

And it's difficult to know when it's real.

And I think now we know it is.

But in coming out of a pandemic, we're pre-pandemic, it's I think fortunately, the way the system works is is the federal government state government realized that that the growth that we need help to do this in the airlines are going to have to help pay for it.

And we as passengers.

But it's hard to get ahead of the infrastructure because you don't know for sure what the growth is.

And the and that's a challenge.

And I think when we started with downtown, I remember downtown well, you need retail downtown.

But, you know, well, we didn't have anybody living downtown.

So retail struggled.

We built a maritime park that was a big deal.

But the biggest infrastructure was getting rid of easy way.

You know, and that even though nothing's gone on that property yet, that clean up the air.

Yeah.

And so it's I think downtown's a good example of of having to kind of move on a lot of different things, not just one.

You know, you got to keep moving in a lot of different directions and hopefully they'll meet, but usually they don't.

But you have to do that.

Yeah, I think, you know, the stuff happening at the airport is really exciting.

But you kind of touched on something else, which is is just more generally, you know, keeping up with this this kind of growth and sprawl.

I thought it was really interesting that this year, you know, you saw the Escambia County Commission taking up discussion again of concurrency.

And I know there's been talk about focusing on that more in the coming year, which was my take away, which I always find to be funny because, you know, you look back a decade ago and a lot of those things that they're talking about bringing back into the land development code we had in the land development Code, you know, until they were stripped out back in 2014. but I think there's like two responses, right?

I mean, like there's, you know, can we impose more impact fees and, you know, hopefully try and keep up and there's like, can we develop in a way that's that's smarter and more compact, which seems to be what the city is moving towards with this overhaul of their land development code.

Right.

Well, you you look at what happened in Santa Rosa County this last year, they agreed that they would do the impact fees, but they were also doing a referendum to, you know, for infrastructure.

It failed.

I mean, the community overwhelmingly said if you give us impact fees, we will support these the infrastructure.

And they didn't.

And now in that counties, I mean, they're set up.

It's going to be scary to see what happens without that money.

Well, you know, in the old man.

But it was it took forever for Escambia County to develop any land development code.

They didn't want to do any planning in the eighties.

It was in the in the state had to come back and sue the county and force them to develop a plan.

They had the old DCA and they had to submit a plan and they did it, you know, dragging their feet to fight it.

It was it, it was a big during the eighties and a little bit of the nineties.

We were big that property rights said no one wanted to be told what they could do with their property, which is why you see a trailer park next to that, you know, a house with no road or or a small road, you know, it was allowed to happen and we paid a price for that.

Yeah.

Well, in Pensacola is about to do it and it's the the community discussion is going to be interesting.

People are going to push back.

I mean, they want more density.

They have to be able to change the land code to do that.

And you're already starting.

Yeah, especially like around Carpenter's Creek.

You know, they're talking about pushing for for that kind of, you know, development pattern and places that, you know, haven't really had that right.

So I imagine, yeah, it's going to be a tough fight for sure.

The height restrictions, that's going to be the thing.

And why do you think that's such a big deal?

I mean, I, I don't know.

I think it adds some flavor to a city that have some tall buildings.

You know, what I hear a lot is we like our quaint city.

We don't stop telling people, you know, whenever we write a story about Pensacola, you know, number one in this are number one in that they'll stop telling people that we don't want them to know.

They want to keep it exactly the way it is.

And yeah, and I think it's hard to have that conversation.

I mean, without acknowledging that issues of class and race are there to at least sometimes.

And I mean, you can debate about that.

Obviously people do debate about that.

I had a several months ago when when this review of the land development code first was was sort of announced had done a story and and spoken with some folks with the American Planning Association and their sort of equity in zoning project.

You know, they point to the fact that a lot of single use zoning, I mean really comes directly out of DNA segregation.

And so, you know, you can make an argument that there's a straight line there.

you know, others would, would make a different argument.

But I mean, I think that there's, you know, there are legitimate concerns that people have, you know, about wanting to preserve the character of their neighborhoods.

And then there are legitimate questions about what people mean when they say the character of their neighborhood Pensacola strategic plan that they just launched.

That is a huge part of it.

All of the things you just said, I think they had 1200 participants, which is more than Austin, Texas, had when when the same group did their strategic survey.

And that equity in repairing some of those things that happened back in the day was a big part of it.

So as they launch those things until I believe it's 2035, the plan goes through, We'll see.

I mean, you've got to be brave to push some of that stuff and stand up to the pushback.

Yes.

So we're two years in with DC.

Reeves got a job.

You think he's doing fabulous?

I mean, I. I think that he has an energy level that we haven't seen.

He doesn't he thinks through his decisions, gets does his homework, looks, gets the data, and he doesn't he listens and asks for public input, probably more than any government that we've seen aggressively, just like you mentioned on the strategic plan, you know, a lot of effort to get input.

But once he decides what it is and he he's able to convince the captain and the city council to go with him, he'll stick with it.

He's not somebody.

And, you know, push back and listen, bring better evidence to the table.

He's not going to change.

And I think that's, I think he's getting a little bit touchy about it, but I think that which is natural.

But I think that it's given us a different kind of leader.

And I think this is kind of what we thought.

We got a strong man.

This is what we expected.

What he's been able to pull on the city council.

I'm not aware of any real other after that first couple of months.

It's it's you see them walking in step together on different things.

And I do think a lot of that to your point, is he does the research right and he knows the answer to the question before you even ask it.

And when you have the data to back it up, it's hard to look at that and then say, no, we still don't want it.

So I agree.

I think it's been a fantastic couple of years.

Yeah, I would agree.

I think that, you know, he's he's shown himself to have a lot of strategic focus, you know, that he's brought to the job and also worked really hard to engage, I think, all corners of the community.

I mean, I think the, you know, the Sierra, you know, project in particular in a lot of the community engagement that's happened there has been really, really heartening to see.

Yeah.

You know, and it's been really accessible to the media.

You know, we you know, with with Ashton Ashton, he'd had a really good time, but he was not very comfortable with the media.

Grover started the press conferences and which was great.

Grover was always prepared when he came to a press conference, it would speak off the cuff.

You know, he got better at it.

And that's what happens when you do a lot of press conferences.

But DC coming from a journalist background, he's been in a press conference with Nick Saban, with Jimbo Fisher.

He's had to, you know, he understands that that it's give and take in a press conference, right?

Yeah, at a press conference.

I'm not necessarily your friend, Right.

I'm trying to get information.

You're going to try not to give me information and I've got to figure out how to still get the answer.

And, you know, so he doesn't get upset, you know, which is good.

I mean, that you know, I appreciate that.

Yeah.

I think it's a journalism journalist's background that he anticipates what we're coming in there with.

Right.

You know, he's prepared.

He's got the police chief right there or the fire chief, and he's able to oftentimes right.

Be there with the data that we're going to ask.

I mean, and we're not tipping him off, you know, and ask.

And he's very savvy also with following social media and, you know, comments on our websites and he knows what the community's talking about.

And I think the other thing we're seeing with DC, too, is now getting his team in.

He's got he's got to administrator that he wanted.

Yeah and I think that can tell us is it's still early as far as but behind the scenes that's working he's got his own strategic communications person that is working in his favor.

You know he didn't go in and clean house and which was tempting to do and he's worked well with the people that he's had.

But now he's starting to get his team together.

I'm really interested to see how that that works out.

Were you surprised to see the kid selling move?

No.

You know, he did his transition team.

I think that, I'm not so sure that Tim was, you know, overly excited about being in an academic environment.

UW If they wouldn't, what he thought it was going to be either.

So it's, you know, military people can go really good, right, in a leadership position outside of the military or it can be really bad, you know, So, so far, so good.

He's a sharp guy.

If you sit down and talk to him for a few minutes.

He's very he's very sharp, I think, thoughtful.

Well, I asked that question when he announced it.

I mean, Tim's a great guy.

I mean, look what he did.

You know it.

And he as principal, he took us through that very traumatic time.

But I was confused at first is what can he bring to a city government that's two totally different genres in D.C. His response was that he's he's used to leading departments, holding people accountable, bringing them to the table constantly, always moving the needle and being on top of that.

And in DC, Hope was that he could step away from some of that because he would have someone always with his thumb on that needle and know what progress is being made.

It's still early, but DC seems to be happy, you know.

So will next year be the test we come back?

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

Well, you know, great CEOs know how to make the trains run on time.

And you know, you can you can take a look at some of them.

They may jump from one industry to another, you know, but those leadership skills and knowing how to come up with a plan and execute that plan and hold people accountable is important.

And clearly that's what Captain Kinsella, I would think brings to the brings to the table from that standpoint.

Let's talk a little bit about you mentioned Dawn Gates a few minutes ago.

Obviously, Dawn is back in back in politics.

I mean, that was kind of you were a little bit instrumental in that, Right?

So I get the blame the you know, dawn is comes with it.

You know, definitely when he was in the legislature before was a powerhouse.

He was Senate president.

He carries a lot of swagger in Tallahassee.

Still.

It's going to be interesting to see is you know, do old lions do well when they come back, you know, to the den, He's in charge of the chairman of the Ethics Committee and which is his strong suit.

You know, I think we needed a strong leader in the mix here because, Don, Doug Brock's in going out, Doug being appropriations chair.

We could not have done better in Appropriations that we've gotten his time up there.

So he's leaving really big shoes to fill.

It's going to be interesting to see.

I think Don's up to the challenge, though.

You'll work hard.

Yeah, for sure.

And again, we mentioned kind of just briefly about insurance, and I know that's something he's already kind of talking about and that's something the state of Florida is really going to have to get down to the to the nitty gritty in a drive in address and I think is as we move forward and I don't know what the short answer, the easy answer is, I don't think anybody does.

Right.

So we'll see what happens with that.

Will stay in the in the Gates family for a second.

So talk about Matt Gates and were you surprised that he resigned from the from the house?

US know.

I mean, I was in I think it was a ticking time bomb that, you know, at some point something something had to give.

Clearly, I think, you know, for him when he went back, you know, the capital and he wasn't getting the support that that he had hoped he would get.

I mean, you need that same support, right, in your role as a congressman.

And without that, you know, what's the point in you know, there's still so many things up in the air with, you know, the ethics investigation and what will be released from that.

Not I mean, it's clear they don't want it released.

So I think I wasn't surprised that that happened.

I think I was surprised that he got nominated or, you know, for to be the attorney general.

That's that's the story that I wanted to figure out what the backstory was to that.

The best I could get on that was that that Matt within the sessions where they were pitching different names for different people and that this is the story I've been told.

But it so I'll tell it here.

But it was that basically that he had objections to everybody that was coming in and except there was one state attorney general that he liked.

And then at some point, Don said, you know, President elect Trump said, why don't you you're going to be my pick.

And I do think that the resigning squashed the ethics, who they thought would squash the ethics report coming out.

He was pretty much told to stay out of the media and let this run, and it just became too heavy a lift.

I think they've got other challenges with other nominations.

And the and I think resigning he they thought would stop everything on the ethics and but and he was pretty emphatic he resigned not only the term now but he would not take the seat in that set of like you said in the very in the opening that that has set up a whole nother political because congressional seats don't come open often.

You know.

Yeah, not here.

No, no.

So what do you think about it?

What do you think about the players who have stepped up and said, hey, it's a clown car, hit the dumpster fire that's put it.

It is a use a phrase about Fredric Wilson.

It is.

It is going to be a you know, it's you've got some candidates that have no chance.

You've got candidates that have put their names in so many different races and barely made any impression on anybody.

You've got Jimmy Petrovna, who lives a couple of miles outside the district, who's going to be moving in.

He's got the endorsement of the president elect.

But then you've got, you know, a couple of millionaires in there.

They've got plenty of money themselves.

So I think they're all gambling on you know, I think Matt got elected in 2016, got the Republican nomination with less somewhere around 30% of the vote.

Yeah, narrowly, you know, less than ten points to him.

And Greg Evers, who was a state senator at the time.

Right.

And that field had eight people, I think, in it.

So it appears, you know, if Trump comes in heavy right before, I think Petronas definitely gets it.

If if Petronas if if if the president elect doesn't get strong behind him, it might be a toss up.

Yeah, well, in such a short right time frame, it doesn't give you a lot of time to really, on their part, get their message out and delineate themselves from everyone else.

But it doesn't give us much time either.

I mean, we're trying to plan how do you really appropriately cover 16 candidates in any meaningful way.

And it's it's very difficult.

I mean, that concerns me a lot, that we're not going to be able to do the job right.

That that, you know, the community needs.

I do think it's frustrating for a lot of people that Petronius isn't in this district.

You know, they want to know why aren't you running, you know, for your own district.

I do think they under they the powers that be might have underestimated the impact that that could have.

But again, you only need, what, 11% of the vote to win.

Right?

Right.

I mean, I guess, you know, Petronas has deep roots over in Bay County and that sort of area.

But, yeah, I mean, most most people that I've spoken with, you know, who don't follow politics really closely, I've heard a lot of folks express some some reservations about someone coming in.

Well, we don't even know what the turnout's going to be.

I mean, early voting is less than a month away.

Yeah, And it's going to you know, it's going to sneak up on everybody.

I just think that in your your point, Lisa's right.

We've been wrestling with that, too.

We were coming back from the holidays.

We got a very short time frame.

How do we you know, where people how do we get them to the table to think about it and and hopefully the candidates, they help us do this or mailers.

But but I think the turnout could be abysmal.

It's not clear to me that any of the the contenders have really successfully started to position themselves against Petronas either.

I mean, maybe you'll have a different perspective.

But, you know, they went on the attack against Petronas kind of together, several of them, you know, claim one and they did that whole You're not from here.

Why aren't you at the Nevada GOP debate that the pay to play a GOP debate.

So but it's clear that that they're willing to work together on that message.

But you still have to set yourself apart, right?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, Petronas has said that Trump called him.

Right.

And and so one would presume that Trump would probably come in strong and support him of the folks who are in the race.

I mean, I guess the one that I'm seeing probably more from a publicity standpoint thus far is Jane Valentino, the former Escambia County commissioner.

So what do you think, a jump jumping in the race?

It's interesting.

I mean, he's he's created a podcast world for himself, big with Newsmax.

A lot of those operators, the you know and I think he's but he's detached from the public here and he's you know, he's not someone who's been overly involved in any charitable events in town or been part since he left or lost the Republican primary.

And I think it was 2014.

You know, he's he has you know, he's developed his wealth.

He sold his company.

He's got you know, but he hasn't been a presence in the community.

So I think I think that's going to be a challenge for him.

When you hear people talk about him, it's remember when he did this right in there.

To your point, he's not been here.

He's been behind the scenes to the average person.

And I don't know they'll have the name recognition, right, that he would have had ten years ago and certainly would be limited in name recognition.

As we get farther to the east in the eastern counties.

Right.

And and with it being such a short time period, that's going to be a challenging hill to climb, I would think.

You know, Santa Rosa and Okaloosa are very important in winning the congressional district, and Escambia usually splits its vote.

Yeah, yeah.

But so and I don't see I mean maybe that's part of Rudman not to Rudman state rep part of his analysis if he does such a thing would maybe that he's on that border of Okaloosa and Santa Rosa and he won Santa Rosa handily that maybe that he thinks he will have that name recognition in those two counties.

It's you know, it'll be interesting to see what they tell us when we start interviewing them.

Yeah.

If they will do interviews.

Yeah, well, Redmon, were you a little surprised that he jumped in?

Because he's going to have to give up his state House seat.

Obviously, that was a thing for anyone that, you know, I was shocked when Michelle said she was going to Salsman throw her name in because it also would mean giving up her current seat.

So I don't know.

I mean, that was the big surprise to me.

I mean, he does have I mean, Santa Rosa was the he won it handily.

Certainly did.

And he's had in his practice, I believe was in Okaloosa.

So he has some reach there as well.

He might have the most name recognition besides Petronas.

I have to ask myself, do we know Petronius because we're in the media?

But if we were to walk up to the average person on the street, I don't know that that that name recognition is as big as it is, you know, And I think that Rudman over here doesn't mean as much.

I mean, he hasn't been that involved in this area.

The Michelle Salzman was interesting because she had been talking so long about running for Congress and had talked about having, you know, what, half a million dollars in pledges and that she was, you know, and then but I do think at the end when when Trump said they endorse somebody, I think everyone had to rethink, recalibrate.

Is this the time to do it or not?

Right.

Well, and not just the candidates, but the donors.

I mean, I think that was huge.

You know, she had half a million dollars pledged.

Did she still have half a million dollars once Trump came out and endorsed Petronas?

I mean, that that's the part that, you know, we don't like if it's not way politics should work, but you have to follow the money.

And there is a lot of money behind him right now, behind Petronas.

Yeah, because he had been quietly money for quite some time.

Right, for a PAC.

I mean, he was he was seen as a potential for governor.

For governor.

He was, you know, and that that field can narrow.

I mean, you know, because Gates was definitely considered a candidate.

You've got a very young cabinet and all of them were considered people that would be running for governor in two years.

So that was definitely seen as a viable candidate.

And Petronius and Moody are definitely there.

So it it was going to be a crowded field.

So I think this narrows it down.

So yeah, I mean, yeah, Jimmy's personable.

He's been here a lot, you know.

But you're right, We've had so many people move into this county that it's changed.

I mean, it's so name recognition from 20 years ago, you know, is, you know, or ten years ago for like Jane Valentino.

People don't quite remember.

Yeah, he was a commissioner.

Maybe.

Yeah.

Excellent.

Excellent point.

It's not as meaningful because we have had such an influx of population and growth that if you haven't consistently had your brand out there, it's easy for people to forget.

You know, speaking of that, you know, some of the people who ultimately did not get in, but it was talk that they might, you know, for example, you know, her former Mayor Hayward's name mentioned some Frank White was another one that came up where you kind of surprised either one of those didn't ultimately decide to give it a shot.

Not not once, you know, the endorsement came down.

I think, Frank, it seems like he was playing his cards very close to his chest.

I know he had been sort of talked about for quite some time, but it seems like he was a lot more conservative and putting his name out there publicly early than other folks.

Well, he's put it out and withdrawn it.

Put it out, withdrawn it enough times.

I think that it was hard to take him seriously.

Yeah.

yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I think in this day and age, it's kind of hard to be too surprised that anyone would would think twice about going up against someone who had been endorsed by the president elect in this district.

And it takes money.

And, you know, you mentioned with Michelle, you know, a state rep, it can raise money pretty quickly as long as they're in office.

But they don't people don't necessarily want to give money to a candidate running for Congress, You know, for the same people that want a piece of legislation passed in Tallahassee or need help with a regulator or, you know, there's lobbyists are willing to put up money for that.

But it's a whole nother level of lobbyists that are concerned about Congress.

And that's not is, you know, the locals that give money here aren't is enthused about giving money to a to a congressman.

Right.

Yeah.

You think Matt Gaetz has done with politics?

You think he's he's he's going into television, which didn't really surprise me.

You think he's done with politics?

You think he takes the Joe Scarborough out and tries to be a prime media personality?

Let's see what the ratings are.

Yeah, what about that stuff?

That'll tell us a lot.

Well, it's you know, it it could you you know, it's hard to me.

He's such a political animal.

It's hard for me to see him out of politics.

But, you know.

SCARBOROUGH And in 2000, you know, when he 2001, when he walked away, you know, he was a political animal, it it it a pretty high level, too.

I mean, he'd been involved in the vote recount and all that.

So this could be this could be a swansong.

Be interesting.

That's for sure.

Speaking of, you know, we were talking about Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Do you think that's a good choice for Trump?

You know, I've been amazed at how many Florida people are getting appointments.

It's like it is it's like he looks down and looks in the dining room and says, okay, you're going to you know, it's amazing.

Yeah, I wrote a column about it because, you know, DeSantis run ran on we're going to make the country Florida.

You know, we got to Florida, you know, make the US Florida.

And that was sort of his his message.

He played poorly.

He never got out of the never won a primary.

But here we're going to be I mean, Florida is going to be in so many key positions in D.C.

It's going to be it can be good or it could be bad.

But we're seeing that.

I mean, we're seeing the Trump is has really put a lot of Floridians in high positions.

Yeah.

I mean, Bondi should one would think would probably have a pretty good chance of getting confirmed.

I would think it's I would think so.

There's not any real.

Yeah yeah.

I mean I guess pushback correct me if you all think differently, but I mean a lot of the reporting that I've seen, you know, from folks close to her suggests that even though rhetorically she's aligned herself more with the president elect in recent years, you know, that she still is somebody who has a fair bit of respect for law and order.

and, you know, it seemed like a lot of the signaling was that, you know, as opposed to maybe someone like a matt Gaetz that she wouldn't come in and completely upturn the applecart.

At least that's been my perception from a lot of the, the reporting that's, that's come out.

You know, in the weeks since the announcement of You think.

Go ahead.

I'm sorry.

No.

Well, as Attorney General Bondi was pretty stiff, always stayed in step with Rick Scott as governor.

Rick Scott was the governor.

She was attorney general.

So I assume that Pam will be similar as the US attorney general, that she will stay in step with the executive branch, you know, with the with the with the president.

So, you know, I think that's I think we'll see that.

But we don't know what that's going to be.

I mean, that's still that's that's the scary part.

You think at any point.

I mean, there's been some some talk about it.

You know, if Hegseth doesn't it doesn't pan out that maybe DeSantis gets the call.

You think that's just talk or do you think there's some some real traction there?

And it's time for me to wrap my mind around knowing how contentious the relationship was during the presidential race.

And Trump doesn't forgive easily.

So I was surprised in that vein when when that name came up.

I don't know if if President Trump has actually said it or if it's just us in the media who write.

I think The New York Times reported that that they don't think that was there was no real discussion about DeSantis, that maybe The Washington Post might have jumped the gun on that.

But I agree with you.

It I guess the trade would be if his daughter in law got to be a US senator, that might be a trade off, that they may be the bait that's being dangled.

That was my next question.

What are your thoughts on the whole transaction?

Where was that and where does that go?

You know, I've been hearing that for weeks, that that that she will be desantis's choice.

And with that same line of thought that then he would have it in with President elect Trump.

It's just conjecture.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know.

It's going to be interesting who else is floating around out there If it's not her, who else is floating around, do you think, to to fill that Rubio seat?

DeSantis There's a possibility.

I mean, you take some, you know, machinations would have to happen, but that's a possibility.

I mean, back when Martinez resigned and Charlie Crist had an opportunity, he appointed a guy who was close to him, Lemieux and Lemieux was supposed to step aside and then he would, Rod Rubio, end up winning the seat.

There was some thought that maybe Crist should have stepped down and let the lieutenant governor appoint him as senator, and then he would have gone in as an incumbent.

So, you know, I think DeSantis still wants to be a presidential candidate.

So what's going to keep him in the limelight?

The best?

Yeah.

Good point.

What about local politics?

I mean, we saw, you know, I think back, you know, in Escambia County, Escambia County Commission District four race, there was a bit of a crowded field there.

Were you guys surprised that actually won that race?

Okay.

I think a lot of surprise in some ways, because, you know, there was a lot of movement behind the scenes, some some ugly mailers.

A lot of money was in that race, too, to have other candidates in there.

And so the fact that she did win, I it did surprise me not that she wouldn't be qualified in any means.

I think she's very qualified.

But it's it's hard sometimes in Escambia County to rise above the behind the scenes politics.

And we're still waiting to see if if she has any ties to any particular direction.

I think we might find that out this month with with the decisions being made at the commissioners.

Very interesting to watch.

I think what helped her as she was of the candidates in the race, she had a definite reason why she was running.

I think that that she had a simple message on the things that she was going to be focused on public safety, economy, tourism.

And she I think she had and she tapped into I think and there's a very good argument that we needed we needed a female on that board was could be a really good thing to happen.

And she was, you know, had experience as an entrepreneur.

I think she just tapped in at the right time and the other candidates were good.

We were not going to be in bad shape in District four, but I think she tapped into that need.

If people want to see a change in seeing maybe we got too many too many males here, let's look at it doing something a little bit different.

And I think that that all tapped into it.

Now, the question is, can this commission work?

And we watched them go past midnight just a week ago.

We spent a whole day talking about Elevate and nobody could come up with three votes.

And that and that takes time.

I mean, you've got to be able you you don't negotiate.

Everything's in public like it should be.

So they have to weigh everybody and listen and they've got to be able to learn how to persuade each other in the Sunshine meeting.

And that made for a very long meeting.

Yeah.

And it we, you know, one of our best read stories of the year which surprised me because typically the government stories you know they do well but they don't go viral was the after the election and I think our headline was something like earthquake because it was I mean, we are going to see a completely different board of county commissioners right now with Jeff for, gosh, being out in October or coming in combined with Ashley.

It's going to take a while for them to figure out how to work together.

But I think it absolutely disrupted the last few years.

I think there's you know, I mean, District four kind of is the linchpin right now, right, in terms of how the balance of power on the board is likely to shake out over the long term.

Well, I think it hurt them only having four commissioners.

They really did.

You know, I think that having five you have to get two votes.

You're in for four, then you still have to get two votes.

But then it a commission that might have some doubts on an issue might still go with the majority because he's going to need those guys for something else.

And in a five.

Okay, I can go out.

I'll work with these two on this one and still be able.

It just really made it difficult.

And I think DeSantis did a disservice, least not to even put an interim in there that would be willing not to take the office.

I think it really hurt their effectiveness this last year.

And I think, you know, I think and I think that was part of what we were seeing with Scrubbers campaign that was so effective is well, I mean, gosh, he realigned district in half the district, you know, where people didn't want to vote for him to begin with.

So pretty you put himself in a bad spot.

But for commissioners was difficult.

They didn't operate as well as they could have.

Yeah, well, Santa Rosa County, James Coggins lost the race over there.

He was, I guess, for lack of a better description, relatively high profile, shall we say.

I think he had people who loved him and also not so much.

Were you surprised that I guess he finished third when it was all said and done in the Republican primary?

If I remember correctly, I wasn't surprised at all.

It had gotten very contentious.

Very little work was being done.

I mean, you had other commissioners who were leaving the meetings because the majority of their time was being spent on things that had absolutely nothing to do with Santa Rosa Tony.

And I think, you know, you can only do that for so long, particularly when you have candidates who have the same political viewpoints, but less contentious, less national topics versus local.

So I think they thought Sam Parker was a big surprise in many ways that the board shook up more than they thought it would.

But so far, it seems to be that coming on a breath of fresh air.

But they're normal meetings again.

I mean, at one point I had actually made the comment to one of my editors that you almost have to give combat pay to the reporters who have to cover these meetings because they were ugly, they were just vicious.

And, you know, and that spurs community members to stand up and you'd have hours of that.

And it had gotten pretty, pretty contentious over there.

So and then Melton City Council, I mean, that sale that was chocolate bath as well.

Yeah.

Yeah, that flipped entirely.

Yeah.

San Jose County has a history of electing one term people.

You know that if you if you do the right kind of mailer and push the right kind of red meat out there you can get elected and Caulkins I think he came in with at the end of Don Salter's term Bob Coles you know and you had and he was able to come in and he did the thing with the gun and, you know, you know, and yeah, he was welcome out and but we've had a history in Santa Rosa County of electing people without a whole lot of knowledge about who they are.

And we still don't know a lot about Jim Hawkins.

We don't I mean, he and his wife, you know, they came out of nowhere, spent a lot of money, you know, I you know, no one's going to even think about it.

I think they exist.

Yeah, that's what I hear, you know.

Okay.

They found a new, new place to be.

Unknown to the story.

Yeah.

Lisa, you said that your most read story, so obviously you're able to track that online.

So politics aside, what was the most read story this year?

You know, I just we did a presentation for the chamber and I was looking at that.

Dr. Ben Brown, probably the allegations around that incident.

He was arrested eventually for I believe it.

I don't want to misspeak, but I believe it was like a manslaughter charge with when his wife passed away.

He was performing some procedures on her when she started seizing and later died at the hospital.

That story probably among among the largest that we had anything with Pam Childers.

That was a big, big story.

People wanted to know what was happening in that regard.

Those were those are the two biggies that that stood up.

I mean, there was like a cliff after those two and then Escambia County crime typically really?

Well, it didn't you know, people were I was impressed that people were going after, you know, meaty journalism stories versus the low hanging fruit this year.

Rick, what kind of response what do you think the biggest stories from?

Because you're you're kind of on several platforms.

Yeah.

You know, I think the one that got a lot of attention while it was going on and unfolding was the the Bruce Childers and Robert Bender.

Could Bruce get his way on the you know, on the ballot?

That got a lot of attention.

The because it all, you know, had a lot of melodrama and where was it laptop and why did a car blow up and you know had a lot of contingent stories to it that was huge.

The other two that were ones that weren't big stories, but they got a lot of traffic on the blog.

Was the Wahoos given away Taylor Swift tickets had had the the story that we got that Hobby Lobby was closing that someone had bought it, a church had bought it.

And we had we verified the story, but then the seller, the buyer came back and said, no, they've got a long term lease.

They're going to be staying, you know, with that.

Got Yeah.

He's yeah.

One of those stories where the story in the correction were huge but yeah the Taylor Swift it just, you know just the idea of Joe Czar giving away tickets it just every time we posted anything on that on the blog it was big so the one I forgot parking or parking stories and the changes that were happening there, not just in terms of sheer page views, but the engagement with the stories, the the commentary, the amount of time they spent absorbing it.

We did some videos on how to use the app, how to download the app right in those in those videos got incredible full amount of traffic.

Like what about what about WWF?

You know I, I did not look this morning but I can say you know over the last year there always odd stories that get a lot of traction that you don't expect.

But I think the the Gates drama, the stories that we ran about that got a lot of traffic.

Also the the school, the book removal, you know the lawsuits anything to that our our listeners and readers really, really follow that closely and respond to that.

Tell me a little bit about about the media business today, particularly the local media business.

I know, Rick, you've started your own podcast.

You were you were doing the radio thing and that was a national change on behalf of Cumulus.

But talk a little bit about the industry.

Well, I think we're we're we're all having to pay attention to how people consume news.

And it it is it's multimedia and it it's you know, I still believe in a print edition, but I also realize is is that you're going to have to reach I mean, it's not necessarily going to be on your website.

You're going to have to reach them through all the different platforms and be able to bring them to your website or bring them to your paper.

But it is, I think as I wrestled with it all summer, I've watched it, I've played with it and, you know, and we saw it in the presidential election where we saw, you know, the major news outlets saw the election go in a certain way.

And it did.

And you saw, you know, President candidate Trump going on Joe Rogan.

You saw things, people reaching to people on Non-regular or type formats that had a huge impact on the election.

So I think our challenges is harder than ever in trying to figure out I can stay in this box or I can keep looking yet can I take this story and how many different ways can we push it out?

Y'all do a great job of it with with Gannett, but it's just it is a challenge and it's it's the podcast is fun.

We're playing with it.

But and then you then the the only thing saving grace in this is air is going to be could be a big help in doing some of this and as long as you double check your air sources but it can be huge.

Yeah.

I mean I think that that makes it levels the playing field so a lot of people access your new podcast I think they're on Spotify or we got a YouTube version of it you know go through the blog.

Lisa what are you seeing?

I mean, much the same.

You have to diversify.

You know, how you're reaching the audience.

They don't want the same way.

This was the year that we really broke free in terms of completely turning the tables on digital versus print.

We had a record year, we had the end of November.

We were at 59 million page views by then.

It's been a fantastic year, but it's that constant fight for us with the Googles of the world.

The Facebook of the world Air is actually a detriment for us because they're taking our conte other stories, you know that that people are writing whatever they may be.

So it's just you constantly have to be, you know, on your on your best game because the Google will change.

Right?

As soon as you've got it figured out, then they're going to change that algorithm on you.

And it makes it it makes it very difficult for us because really, when I say JD.com, I mean you've kind of become a multi-media platform, right?

So, I mean, you're you're putting out a fair amount of video on there.

I know.

You know, Molly Barrows, for example, does sort of kind of like a daily video, if you will.

And of course, she, you know, a television background.

And so bringing that as well as the as the written word is, you know, important stories, I should say as well.

Yeah, hiring Molly was very strategic.

We wanted someone that could not just do video, but teach everyone else to do meaningful video.

And she's been incredible there.

But livestreaming has been huge for us.

You know, the partnership with Silicon and that platform has really been very successful.

The written word in various formats.

You know, the difference between a long story format and kind of a to the point, which is what we call it, which is just question and answer, question, answer.

I mean, not that literally, but why has this been really successful for them to start getting your input on it?

I mean, NPR has been cutting edge on some of the podcasts and things of that nature.

Where do you guys stand?

What's your approach now?

Yes, of course.

I have a little bit of a different perspective than these folks because I'm, you know, on air talent.

So I don't control a lot of that decision making.

But I will say, I mean, you know, fewer and fewer people listen to the radio.

I'm on the radio every morning on weekdays at least.

And I like to tune in to I like the immediacy of of live live radio.

But a lot of people, even in my age group, you know, most of my social circle in my age group are big NPR fans, but most of them don't listen to me on the radio.

You know, they they tune in to their favorite podcasts on their their phone.

Right.

So I think, you know, there's been a lot of discussion certainly about about that and about trying to reach new audiences and, you know, build relationships there.

Because, I mean, I don't have to tell you, you know, public media, a lot of our funding comes from members.

We're fortunate to have a really engaged membership base, but you've always got to be bringing in new members.

And that means you don't only have to get them to listen, you have to get them to build enough of a relationship with you that they actually want to, you know, reach into their pocket every month and and give you give you some money.

So in the coming year, we're we're talking about doing some more longer form podcasts on those kinds of things.

But I think we've been, you know, a little bit late adopting that.

But that's that's the sort of stuff that that we spend time talking about.

It's an interesting world, no doubt.

And, you know, just like you said, radio, same thing with television.

You know, we we get a lot of hits, you know, from from the you know, what we put on the PBS video app or YouTube.

That being said, thank you so very much.

I appreciate you guys coming in, as always.

You know.

Thank you, Rick Allison, Lisa and Alison Savage, Tess Stricklin, thank you for joining us.

And kind of being the new face on the on the program this time around.

Thanks for having me.

I enjoyed it.

You bet.

As I mentioned, you can see this program on the PBS video app and also on YouTube.

I'm Jeff Weeks.

Thank you so very much for watching.

Hope you enjoyed the program.

Take wonderful care of yourself and we'll see you soon.