At last night’s debate on the proposed new city charter, Mayor Mike Wiggins committed to placing the Pensacola Promise on the council agenda. Pensacola Promise is a scholarship program that guarantees a college education at PJC and/or UWF for Pensacola high school graduates. It’s modeled after very successful programs in other parts of the country ( What Can We Promise Our Kids?).
Councilwoman Maren DeWeese has been working on it since April. She has asked City Manager Al Coby today to place on the agenda in January 2010:
——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Pensacola’s Promise
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 08:42:35 -0600
From: Maren Deweese
Good Morning,
Last night the Charter debate turned to examples of the need for change and the Pensacola’s Promise plan was discussed. Mayor Wiggins made a commitment to finally have the plan on our City Council agenda. I am requesting that the Pensacola’s Promise be on the first agenda of the New Year. January 2010 will be a great time to refocus ourselves and discuss this transformative plan.
Thanks for your time and attention to this matter.
Maren DeWeese
City Councilwoman District 3
Popularity: 29% [?]
Anon-don’t hold your breath, the repayment on the CMP will be $90M
This approach may have worked in other cities but I bet no city ever started one in the midst of a severe economic downturn with 10%+ national unemployment. I’d rather see some first responders added to the workforce with that money.
Hey Rick, did you word your last post like that on purpose or does it just read like the below to only me?
is the “novel approach for Pensacola” to make it work? LOLOLOLOLLLLOOLOL
I’ll keep an open mind, but from what I’ve seen, almost every community that offers this has private sector funding. When DeWeese originally proposed this idea, I think she wanted to use money from the sale of city property to the airport. In the interim, the city counci has spent that money on parades & other “stuff” that the community pressured them to approve. If the city manager can find new money to make this work, great. But if other services have to be cut, I will remain skeptical.
I also want to add. Let’s do this plan differently. Instead of figuring out how we can’t do it, let’s figure out how to make it work. It’s a novel approach for Pensacola.
Let’s see the presentation before we close our minds. This could be a catalyst to draw people to move within the city limits. It’s not a new idea, but one that has worked in other cities.
Jeff, unless Maren has found a new funding source and she’s not going to consider reaching out to younger children first, I’ll pass. The original funding source as I understood from her original proposal was a one-time transfer of funds from the airport to the city, correct? Also, read my post above. We’d be wasting our money sending other family’s children to college if they have to go off to work somewhere else. Wait….I just got it. We are Mexico in this whole arrangement, aren’t we? The underlying goal is to send all of our younger citizens off to other, more wealthy cities and they’ll send us a percentage of their paychecks. I can’t believe I was so blinded by my principles of free market economics to see the bigger picture.
Before you jumpt to conclusions, the plan will not take $1 from any current operations. Wait and see before you slam it
Jeeperman, you made my point. We’re putting the cart before the horse with a college payment plan for students in our area. The intentions are good, but it isn’t rational.
Another new program for education while we fund a huge budget for the school board.
Why is the school board not making this proposal with their budget?
Meanwhile the council and mayor remind us to expect cuts to current city services.
Does Ms. DeWeese still believe after reviewing the recent budget that this city can afford to fund education benefits?
There is a Florida prepaid college fund that I paid since my child was an infant. It’s a good plan, if one budgets for their childs education and plans.
“let’s focus on a 10-year plan to establish 20-30 new employers in addition to what we have currently.”
Won’t happen. Look at who runs, gets elected and appointed to city and county offices. Then look at who gets appointed to the various organizations that have anything to do with growth of any sort.
98% of all are business people. They are in office to protect what they have and to make any competition either set up elsewhere or wish they had. Do not tell outsiders NO because that would be too blatantly obvious. Just make it difficult as hell to get thru the red tape in order to open the doors.
Bringing in any new employers will lower their profits because they might have to pay more to retain or to get the employees they need.
The county can’t even get a townhouse rebuilt or demolished after sitting vacant and decrepit for five years on Perdido Key. Then when the owners want to get a building permit to rebuild, county staff refuses to issue a building permit. After five years, county staff classifies the townhouse as a commercial building thus requiring a different set of rules to build by.
The mayor is hoping that the city and county governments will merge and the county $$$ will bail him out. Vote NO on consolidation!
How are we (taxpayers) paying for this? I don’t have any children & paid my own way through college. I gladly support K-12 education & with both my time, taxes & monetary donations. That’s all I’m willing to do.
Reality-Check, whats new? Everything is ALWAYS decided behind closed doors. Sunshine laws have been de-clawed, just thank Billy boy Eddins, Florida’s finest POS GOB public official.
Moose, I think you make some valid points. From a purely economic perspective, the city will only realize any benefits from this program if the program helps to retain graduates. If a kid goes to school in Pensacola for free and then moves off to Atlanta to work, well, we don’t really get the full benefit of that person’s education. And I’m in full agreement that there should be a larger focus on development at the Pre-K ages. I did a little bit of research on this when I was in school, and the general consensus is that the money spent on Pre-K is returned to the community at about $4 for every $1 spent. The dropout rate is significantly lower in areas that offer pre-k programs, the juvenile crime rates are almost always lower as well. If we could develop a world class Pre-K education program, I honestly believe that many of our other education related problems would soon begin to disappear.
I would rather Pensacola spend time on reaching out to families with children ages 1-5 to start up reading programs. At the same time, let’s focus on a 10-year plan to establish 20-30 new employers in addition to what we have currently. Ten years from now, we can revisit the college program when the youth we started with are starting to graduate from high school. The program would be an absolute waste if we’re paying for people to go to college if there is no where for them to work when they get out of school.
[...] Pensacola Promise promise? During last night’s charter debate, pro-charter speaker Rick Outzen gave Maren DeWeese’s Pensacola Promise idea as an example of a Council idea that staff won’t put on the agenda. Mayor Mike Wiggins assured Mr. Outzen that it would be no problem to get it on the agenda. This morning, Rick’s Blog is reporting that Councilwoman DeWeese has asked it to be placed on the agenda in January. [...]
Good thinking, reality. Lets see how many of them take that bait. My guess would be NONE
Is it just me or did it seem like Wiggins’ constantly referencing “We” and “This Council” implied that he was speaking for the entire council AGAINST the Charter?
Still waiting to hear from Mayor Wiggins and others who have opposed the new charter if they are planning to step down at the next election if it passes…kind of hard to be the mayor or a council member under a system that you don’t believe in…right?