Santa Rosa Commission Chair Colten Wright let his fellow commissioners know May 21 that they had some explaining to do.
Wright was in Washington D.C. on May 13, traveling with Escambia County Commissioners Mike Kohler and Steve Stroberger as delegates of the Northwest Florida Defense Coalition, when things went a little wonky at the bimonthly meeting of the regional Florida-Alabama Transportation Planning Organization.
Milton Mayor Heather Lindsay, her city’s TPO representative, motioned to move the widening of U.S. Highway 90 through downtown Milton up two spots on the TPO’s five-year priority list, from seven to five.
To get there, the downtown Milton widening project had to leapfrog two Escambia County projects: The widening of the U.S. 29 connector from Nine Mile Road and Muscogee Road, and Nine Mile Road improvements between Mobile Highway and Pine Forest Road.
The move was met with what appeared to be general consensus, no doubt abetted by the fact that four Santa Rosa County Commissioners were in the room to vote in favor of the widening, while Escambia was poorly represented, with just Escambia County District 5 Commissioner Steve Barry, the TPO board chair, present.
Santa Rosa County Commissioner Kerry Smith, serving as TPO board vice chair for 2025-26, turned things up a notch when, seeing his numerical advantage, he leaned in for more than just the two project jump. He requested Lindsay amend her motion to put the U.S. 90 widening at priority No. 4, ahead of a third Escambia project, four-laning Sorrento Road between Innerarity Point Road and Blue Angel Parkway.
The Sorrento Road upgrades, it was noted, were near and dear to the hearts of commissioners Kohler and Stroberger.
Barry agreed to go along with the majority, though, and the U.S. 90 four-laning from State Road 87 north (Stewart Street) across two bridges to Ward Basin Road passed by a 10-0 vote.
In his remarks at the May 21 regular meeting of the County Commission, Wright said he’d heard some grumbling from some Escambia County leaders about what had transpired.
“I’m worried actions taken at the meeting have jeopardized relationships with Escambia County and the region,” he told his fellow commissioners.
When asked later, Wright declined to specify who in Escambia County had launched protests. Stroberger did not return phone calls seeking comment for this article.
Wright reminded his fellow commissioners that Santa Rosa County works with Escambia County on a number of issues, including promoting the region’s bases through the Defense Coalition and its environment through the Pensacola and Perdido Bays Estuary Program.
“I’m afraid actions taken at the TPO meeting have greatly strained those other relationships with those other organizations,” he said.
Eddington sounded somewhat apologetic when called to the carpet for following Smith’s lead and seconding the motion to move the U.S. 90 project from seven to four. He defended it by saying he has seen first hand how hard Smith has worked in his four years in office to move the four-laning project from way down on the list of priorities into the top 10 and now into the top five.
As for Smith, who remained quiet during the Commission discussion of what had transpired at the PTO meeting, he had no regrets about taking advantage of numbers to push his pet project forward.
“I’m not really upset about pissing off the Escambia side. The brunt of the projects go to Escambia,” he said. “I saw an opportunity. I’m really happy our board showed up.”
Wright made it clear following the meeting that while he didn’t like the “optics” of the vote to move the U.S. 90 widening up the project priority list, he was tickled to see it given the status it now has.
“I think it absolutely had to be moved up,” he said. “It was the right thing to do.”
The new priority list will be forwarded to the Florida Department of Transportation, which will weigh the Florida-Alabama TPO priorities against the state’s other six transportation districts as it revises its 2020-2025 five-year work program.
Once a new list is created, FDOT will conduct a statewide public hearing before forwarding the new work program on to the Governor’s Office. Agency spokesman Ian Satter said having the U.S. 90 widening moved to fourth on the Florida-Alabama TPO plan is “a good first step” toward getting design work for the project completed and funding for right-of-way acquisition.
But as it turned out, Wright’s frustration, that which he vented at the County Commission meeting as the only place he can confront his fellow board members without violating state Sunshine Law, might have had more to do with the “political positioning” he’d seen taking place at the TPO meeting.
This was because at the same meeting Lindsay, the Milton mayor, rushed to re-nominate Barry to serve another year as TPO board chair.
It was an odd strategy because Smith, her ally in moving the U.S. 90 project forward, was set to move up to the chairman’s seat as part of an unspoken agreement that annually alternates board leadership between Santa Rosa and Escambia counties.
To make matters worse from a Santa Rosa County perspective, one of its own, Commissioner Bobby Burkett, seconded the motion to reinstate Barry. The Escambia County commissioner agreed without hesitation to return as chair, with Smith relegated to a second year as vice chairman.
“Why would we put ourselves in position where we have less ability to get things done from a transportation standpoint?” Wright asked. “Why would we give up the driver’s seat driving the TPO for the next 365 days?”
Called out to explain his “thought process,” Burkett conceded he’d simply screwed up and made the motion because he felt like the TPO board had run smoothly in 2025-26 with Barry at the helm.
“I make mistakes. I made one, and I have to live with it,” he said. “If I had it to do over again I’d have changed it.”
It was Lindsay, who did not return phone calls for this article, who took the brunt of Wright’s wrath.
“This was pushed and it looked like it was pushed for a reason,” Wright said. “What I can’t understand is why. There’s got to be a reason why Lindsay wanted to throw that out there.”
He pointed out that it was Lindsay and the city of Milton that had, for many years, opposed the U.S. 90 widening project through the historic downtown and had worked to move the project down the TPO priority list.
Smith, who is seeking re-election to his commission seat this year, also saw politics written all over the move to keep him out of the TPO chairman’s seat.
“Of course I think it’s political. I think I’ve hurt some feelings. It is what it is,” he said. “That’s unfortunate, because this is not about individuals, it’s about Santa Rosa County and getting things done for Santa Rosa County.”
Wright said any and all angst created by the events of May 13 could have been avoided if, rather than delaying the start of the meeting and scrambling to find enough members of the TPO Board to create a quorum, Kandase Lee, the CEO of the Emerald Coast Regional Council, had simply postponed the meeting knowing several members were scheduled to be out of town.
“It was already a lopsided situation, and they were scrambling to get a quorum,” Wright said. “People looked like they were playing into this agenda that was there.”
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: ‘Politics’ around U.S. 90 widening create Santa Rosa/Escambia tensions
Reporting by Tom McLaughlin, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
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