Escambia County crews cleaned up commissioner's private property. Who sent them to do it?

Last November, Escambia County District 3 Commissioner Lumon May said he hired people to trim trees and clear overgrowth on two vacant, family-owned lots on W. Yonge Street in Pensacola, something he does periodically when they become overgrown or overrun with trash and debris. He owns the lot at 1624 W. Yonge St. and his mother, Mary May, owns the one next door at 1628 W. Yonge St. Although the tree trimming and cleanup was routine, according to May, the fallout from it was not.

Not long after private crews cleared the properties, someone made an anonymous tip to the Escambia County Clerk and Comptroller’s Office that the commissioner had used county employees and inmate work crews to pick up and haul off the mounds of yard debris left behind from the cleanup off his private, family-owned properties. An auditor for the clerk’s office reviewed the information, then referred it to the State Attorney’s Office for further review.

A grand jury was convened in April to hear the matter and they determined “there is insufficient evidence to establish that probable cause exists that a crime was committed,” and returned a No True Bill, meaning no indictment should be filed.

While the decision may have put the matter of possible criminal activity to rest, questions are still swirling over why the county took part in the cleanup at all and who is going to foot the bill for it.

Why did Escambia Clerk bill commissioner for private property clean-up?

As far as Escambia County Clerk Pam Childers is concerned May owes taxpayers for picking up and disposing of all the yard waste and substantial amount of tree trimmings. She sent him a bill this month for $4,253.74 to cover the government’s costs.

“Public records obtained by my office reflect county equipment and jail inmates were used to complete this work on your property. If a private entity had contracted the job, the cost for work performed would have been substantially higher,” Childers wrote in a letter accompanying the invoice as well as copies of the county work orders listing the 1624 W. Yonge St. address.

Grand jurors also recommended that May should reimburse Escambia County for the cost of the work done on his property, but May is pushing back on the final bill saying through his attorney, Eric Stevenson, that the work orders for the cleanup are “fraudulent” because the crews didn’t spend as much time on the cleanup as they claim according to county records tracking the equipment and crews involved.

“Lumon never intended for people to go on his property and pick anything up, but he also doesn't want there to be an appearance that he had received any public benefit,” said Stevenson. “It's frustrating to me that these guys who were driving the trucks put down that they worked like 120 hours when one of them was at a shoe store, another was at McDonald's. One of them was at Whataburger. Another one went and watched the (football) game that Lumon was coaching and put that down as time that he was out there picking up debris, so I don't know what we can believe from anybody involved with anything like this. I mean, as far as the county employees are concerned.”

Why did county crews work on commissioner’s private property?

So how did Escambia County employees and inmates with the road crew wind up cleaning up all that debris on May’s property ? According to the grand jury report, it’s a case of confusion and miscommunication compounded by a version of the telephone game. May said that on Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023, he was coaching a youth football game when he was told people were complaining tree debris from his Yonge Street property was in the street and blocking the road.

May testified he called Escambia County Administrator Wes Moreno, who works for the commissioners and is responsible for day-to-day county operations, and told him about the problem, but May never mentioned he owned the property. County staff is allowed to clear debris that is blocking a roadway.

According to the report, Moreno then called Escambia Public Works Director James Higdon “to look into the problem.” Higdon then called the on-call field supervisor who called a grapple truck operator to meet him at the site. There they found “several large piles” of freshly cut tree debris mostly on the private lot and not blocking the road.

County crews don’t work on private property, so the field supervisor called Higdon looking for guidance, who in turn called Moreno. The report said Moreno essentially told Higdon to “use his best judgment” in taking care of it, instructions that were passed on to the field supervisor who believed he was directed to remove the debris. The crews removed one large truck full of debris and left the rest for the following Monday.

On Monday, seven county employees and three inmate work crews, each consisting of a corrections officer and four inmates, arrived to clean up the property . A different county field supervisor was also there and according to the grand jury report, the field supervisor “assumed” the work was being done on county-owned property because most of the debris was on the private lots. Over the two-day period, eight truck loads of material was removed. Soon after the clerk’s office received an anonymous complaint about county resources being illegally used to clean up the commissioner’s private property, which ultimately lead to the grand jury hearing the case.

What did grand jurors recommend after hearing case?

Although grand jurors found insufficient evidence of a crime, they did make six recommendations including that May reimburse the county for the expense of cleaning up his property. The other recommendations are as follows:

• May should have been transparent and disclosed in his first call to Moreno that it was his property, that had he done so “this entire situation could have been avoided.”
• Escambia County should update its Code of Ethics policy, which hasn’t been revised or updated since it was adopted in 2008, as well as require annual training on the ethics policy for all employees and elected officials.
• Escambia County should train employees and elected officials on the availability of the county’s Fraud, Waste, and Abuse hotline operated by an outside agency and everyone’s responsibility in reporting waste and abuse.
• Escambia leadership should do a more thorough review before work crews are assigned including verification of property ownership.
• And lastly, grand jurors said they were “concerned” about Moreno telling an employee to “use his best judgment” because that was not an appropriate answer. They said when the issue of working on private property was raised, Moreno or Higdon should have visited the site in person and had they done so, “this situation could have been avoided.”

What happens now?

May’s attorney said he is asking Escambia County Attorney Alison Rogers to review the bill Childers sent and adjust it because they don’t believe it’s accurate.

“Those first work orders that came through we know are incorrect,” said Stevenson, “so I'm going to ask Alison to tell us what the actual amount is. How much is the county actually out? Not the inflated numbers.”

Childers said she won’t accept an adjusted bill without supporting documentation. Not only does she still question why county employees and inmate work crews were sent to work on private property at all, much less on a Saturday, she said the results of the investigation raise more questions than answers.

“I want to see the inmate report and if you've adjusted work orders, if people have been paid on those work orders, then their pay should be deducted,” Childers said. “You've paid people, right? You can't just change it. Somebody has been paid some money to do that and it's come from the county budget, apparently. I will ask the assistance of the Public Corruption Unit in Tallahassee to assist in the review of any billing invoice adjustments that the county wants to make to the bill that I sent.”

Childers also questions why the county did not conduct an independent review on their own of the situation before the State Attorney’s Office got involved, which is also pointed out in the grand jury report. Grand jurors said the only review county leaders did was on the accuracy of the work orders, not how the work orders came to be in the first place.

“If what May says is accurate, then these workers messed up and cleared this lot and there was a conspiracy by two county employees to create work orders to clean May's lot that also happened to be ‘accidentally cleaned up’ on the same day as these work orders say?” Childers asked.

Childers said she has also received another complaint about county crews being sent to clean up a different lot privately owned by May in November of 2020 that she is currently investigating. Typically “fraud” accusations of this nature center around using parks and recreation resources, she said.

Stevenson said he is “suspicious” about the timing of the years’ old complaint that is just now surfacing and as far as the most recent lot cleaning incident, he said May only wanted the debris removed from the road and county grapple trucks were purchased for that purpose to help keep the county clean.

“I just want to be clear that Lumon never asked anybody to pick anything up off of this property,” said Stevenson. “Lumon is constantly keeping that lot clean. He has rented hauler containers to take off debris. He just hadn't gotten to that point yet. He was like, ‘OK, push it up to the road, and then that way I can get a container.”

Childers said she is determined to follow the law and be accountable for use of taxpayers’ money and resources.

“Compliance with laws and policies as well as accountability for the use of public funds is of utmost importance to government,” Childers wrote in her letter to May. “My office will not tolerate fraud, waste, corruption and abuse; therefore, payment must be made by you for this improper use of government labor and resources.”

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Escambia County crews cleaned up commissioner's private property. Who sent them to do it?