Tough choice for Democrats voting in August 28, 2018 primary. What say you?
From Tallahassee Democrat.
When Mayor Andrew Gillum left his longtime job with the People for the American Way Foundation ahead of his run for Florida governor, he didn’t have to go far to find a new gig and office.
He joined P&P Communications, a boutique public relations firm in Tallahassee founded by Sharon Lettman-Hicks, one of his oldest and closest advisers.
The company has strong ties to Gillum, his gubernatorial campaign and the PFAW Foundation. It's located in an office building on Melvin Street near Florida A&M University that's owned by Lettman-Hicks.
The building was home to the PFAW Foundation for years until its lease expired in February 2017, just as Gillum was about to launch his gubernatorial campaign. After PFAW moved out, Gillum's campaign moved in the following month, Lettman-Hicks said.
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Gillum’s second job with P&P Communications hasn’t exactly been high profile. He took the job with little fanfare in early 2017 after stepping away from the PFAW Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization that under tax law can’t participate in partisan politics.
Gillum and his campaign have been reluctant to talk about his work with P&P in detail; in a recent interview with The Huffington Post, Gillum declined to reveal his clients. Behind the scenes, his political opponents have questioned his role with the company.
The Democrat in June asked Gillum's campaign manager, Geoff Burgan, about Gillum's work for P&P and who its clients are. His response lacked detail.
"P&P Communications is a private company that does leadership consulting," Burgan said. "I don't have a client list for you though."
Lettman-Hicks, in an interview with the Democrat, said Gillum has one client: herself. She said Gillum advises her on strategies for key projects, coalition building and the selection of other clientele.
“He’s a brilliant, brilliant thinker,” she said. “And especially as someone who has served on the City Commission and as mayor for 15 years, he knows people. He’s connected to the ground. He’s not sitting in an ivory tower. He brings the human aspect to everything we work on.”
Gillum earned $71,680 in 2017 working for her firm, according to financial disclosure forms filed in June. He was listed in corporate records that same year as the company’s vice president. He stepped down from that post late last year so he could focus more on his campaign, Lettman-Hicks said. She said he's on hiatus through the Aug. 28 primary.
Gillum himself was asked by the Democrat in late June about his work with P&P. He mentioned TV producer Norman Lear, who founded People for the American Way, and his purchase in 2000 of a copy of the Declaration of Independence. Lear put the document on a more than three-year "road trip" around the country to inspire young people.
"P&P Communications is our own leadership development training cohort," he said. "I have from since 2003 (written) leadership training curriculum. When Norman Lear purchased one of the original copies of the Declaration of Independence, our firm was partially secured to write a civic engagement curriculum that accompanied those treasured documents moving around the country."
A Democrat reporter asked whether his work with P&P was full time.
"Truncated," Gillum responded. "Full time as parent, mayor, candidate for governor, consultant."
'A worthy investment'
Lettman-Hicks got to know Gillum in the early 2000s when he was still a student at FAMU. She admired his work as student body president and efforts to organize protests against Gov. Jeb Bush and his push to end affirmative action in state government and the universities.
“When he was student body president ... he was a standout,” she said. “But he didn’t realize at the time he was playing real hard politics — he was taking on Jeb Bush. And I believed then as I believe now that he was a worthy investment.”
Lettman-Hicks took Gillum under her wing. She helped him get a job in 2002 with the PFAW Foundation, the charitable branch of People for the American Way, an organization founded by Lear to fight the far right.
“We recruited him because of his advocacy and tenacity as a student leader,” she said.
Not long after that, Lettman-Hicks, a FAMU alum herself, was running Gillum’s first campaign for the Tallahassee City Commission. In 2003, he won the seat against candidates with deeper local roots and more name recognition and money.
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Gillum and Lettman-Hicks collaborated on a number of campaigns, including Arrive With Five, a PFAW Foundation program designed to get more people of color to the polls, and the constitutional amendment drive to cap school class sizes, led by PFAW and the NAACP. P&P Communications worked on the class-size amendment and other PFAW efforts.
“Whenever there was a consulting firm that People for the American Way needed to use, we were always one of the firms (considered),” she said.
Gillum took over the foundation’s office in Tallahassee in 2005, when Lettman-Hicks moved to Washington and became the foundation’s executive vice president for leadership programs. Gillum created the Young Elected Officials Network, which supports progressive leaders under 35. She said Gillum grew the program from dozens of members to hundreds.
“When he developed the Young Officials Network, he was part of my division,” she said. “So I supported him a great deal. I worked very closely with him as he created it.”
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She left the PFAW Foundation in 2009 and became executive director and CEO of the National Black Justice Coalition, which advocates for black lesbians and gays. Later, in 2014, she was appointed by President Barack Obama to the President’s Advisory Commission On Educational Excellence for African Americans.
As the Obama years were ending, Lettman-Hicks decided to return to Tallahassee and came back in 2016. That same year, Gillum passed on running for Congress, became a campaign surrogate for Hillary Clinton and set his sights on the governor’s race.
When Gillum stepped down from the PFAW Foundation, Lettman-Hicks was all too happy to hire him.
Low profile but operating since 1993
P&P doesn't maintain a high profile like other PR houses in Tallahassee. It has no website or office line. Lettman-Hicks said the company has no website because she has no reason to advertise. She added she has a "boutique set of clients" who work directly with her.
She said she uses contractors rather than traditional full-time employees to help with projects.
"We have 20 years of relationships of being able to staff up as needed and scale back as needed," she said. "There's no need to have a desk with someone answering a phone if you're not trying to bring in new clients."
The company has had a roster of high-profile clients, including the NAACP, the National Education Association, the National Bar Association, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, FAMU and the FAMU Credit Union.
When civil rights icon Rosa Parks died in 2005, P&P was tapped to design the programs for her memorial service in Montgomery, Alabama. When the FAMU Credit Union opened its new building on South Monroe Street, Lettman-Hicks managed the grand opening and got former Attorney General Janet Reno to cut the ribbon.
Lettman-Hicks said she started the company in 1993 as P&P Design. State corporate records show P&P Communications was founded several years later, in 2000. The company also specializes in leadership development, event management and business management, she said. P&P is short for Pacheco & Pacheco, her former married name. Gillum has no ownership in the business, she said.
The company is located in a 3,800-square-foot building that used to be home to the FAMU Credit Union. Lettman-Hicks bought the 1950s-era building in 2003 with the help of the Northwest Florida Black Business Investment Corporation, one of several BBICs set up to help black business owners get started.
The Northwest Florida BBIC gave her the mortgage to buy the building, and additional funds to renovate it and replace the air conditioning.
From March 2017 through last month, Gillum’s campaign paid P&P Communications $35,937 in rent, according to campaign finance reports. P&P contributed $5,000 to Gillum's political committee, Forward Florida in March 2017, but the PAC returned $3,000 a month later.
Lettman-Hicks said Gillum has taken a smaller role with P&P because of his campaign. She’s hoping he’ll move on entirely after the election.
“I expect him to be in the Governor’s Mansion working for all the people in the state of Florida,” she said. “I think we’re just going to have to give him a sabbatical for four years and hopefully eight years.”
Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or follow @JeffBurlew on Twitter.
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