If Jim Hizer had known what he was getting into, he might have stayed in Bowling Green, Ky.

That’s the tale from a lawsuit filed by lawyer Bob Kerrigan on Aug. 29 on behalf of Hizer against the Pensacola Bay Area Chamber of Commerce.

It alleges breach of contract, tortious interference with a contract and fraud in the inducement by the behavior of the chamber and some members of its leadership.

“Had Hizer known of the internal control conflict between the ‘senior management’ and the newer progressive members with the PBACC existing at the time of his employment he would not have accepted employment by (the chamber),” court filing reads.

The suit also names 10 John Doe’s it claims were involved in the “tortious conduct” by the Chamber’s executive committee and “senior management” of the chamber related to Hizer’s ouster last year.

This group, the suit alleges, had no authority on the chamber’s organizational chart, but they worked to influence personnel decisions and management of the chamber’s business.

Things that Hizer was being paid an annual salary of $205,000 to do.

Jerry Maygarden, the current chamber president, said he has not seen a copy of the suit first-hand, but that he has heard about it. Maygarden says the chamber “remains baffled” by Hizer’s efforts in court.

“He fulfilled his contract. The chamber fulfilled its obligations to him financially and professionally, and the contract expired,” Maygarden said.

As for Hizer’s insistence that he was fired, Maygarden says, “that was not the case.”

Hizer, Chamber dispute

The chamber’s business, back then, was to act as economic development and tourism marketing entity for the community. That business carried prestige and a sizable budget —funded significantly by taxpayer dollars.

That public funding became the fulcrum for citizens and news agencies to insist that the chamber do business under Sunshine Laws. Some in the chamber disagreed. Ultimately, State Attorney Bill Eddins told the chamber that it had to comply with state open meetings laws because it received a substantial amount of public funding.

Hizer was hired as person with an outstanding national reputation in his field to help run and revitalize an entity that was facing declining membership and support.

Hizer left the chamber last August when his contract was not renewed. Hizer says he was effectively fired, as the first inkling he got that his contract wasn’t going to be renewed was from a reporter calling to track down a news tip.

The news was finalized for Hizer five hours later at a meeting of the Irish Politicians Club, a group of business and civic leaders who meet in a special room at McGuire’s Irish Pub, presumably to do stuff civic and business leaders prefer to do behind closed doors.

Among friends, if you will.

But that May 29 dinner didn’t turn out to be so friendly.

Hizer was met there by then chairman of the chamber board Sandy Sansing and six members of the executive committee of the chamber board and told his contract would not be renewed.

Because, in part, of concerns about “perceived deficiencies in maintaining adequate communications with senior chamber leadership.”

Hizer had successfully managed the chamber’s Vision 2015 fundraising effort, exceeding the goal of $6.3 million by $2.6 million. Some of those pledgees, the suit alleges, were given specifically because donors had faith in Hizer and his reputation.

Vision 2015’s goal was to create 3,000 jobs by 2015, something that was met two years early thanks to a major expansion of Navy Federal Credit Union.

But that, according to the lawsuit, was not enough.

Not even among friends.

Moving forward

The level of dysfunction alleged in the suit does not generate the kind of headlines any chamber of commerce will want to put on a brochure.

It does reflect a perception that many people have of how things are done — and undone — in Pensacola.

The idea of “shadow cabinet” of people working behind the scenes to keep things just so.

The idea that some progress is OK, but too much progress upsets the apple cart.

The idea that the real deals go down behind closed doors.

All of these things are the way many people believe business is conducted in our fair community, in part because we have a history of public business being conducted among friends and sometimes out of public view.

The chamber has since spun off tourism marketing to another entity. This July, under Maygarden’s leadership, the chamber also spun off economic development into a separate agency that will work with government agencies on job creation.

The chamber’s new incarnation, Maygarden has said, will focus on community building.

And that’s exactly what the chamber needs to do.

But it won’t be easy as the ripples from the chamber’s past life, in the form of the Hizer lawsuit, continue to radiate out.

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