City Administrator Eric Olson avoided the public by not showing up for the Pensacola City Council meeting until after the Boyd Forum. Several people in crowd, mostly supporters of the recently fired fire chiefs, made note of his absence during the forum and chuckled at his appearance when they could no longer speak at the microphone.
As has been his custom since last summer, Olson gave his report at the end of the nearly six-hour meeting.
He gave these project updates:
*The landing for the National Park Service’s ferry services is “on track to bring ferry services probably about this time next year.” He said the design is 30-percent complete.
*The fish hatchery planning committee will meet June 28th to reveal conceptual designs. The technical committee is going to meet in June as well to discuss approaches to the production and stocking strategies. The date for that meeting has not been set. The FWC and DEB, who are the leads on this, anticipate that 90% design work and construction documents will be ready by the end of the year.
*The Government Street storm water project has it a snag. “There has been higher than expected or more extensive ground water contamination than we anticipated. That’s related to the old county mosquito control facility that was just to the north. You’re going to see an item on the board of county commissioners meeting next week. We are asking for the county to also take on the remediation for the project. It’s their contamination, but it’s really a request for the county to fund that. We hope that they’ll move forward on that one for us.” Est. remediation cost $200K.
*City Hall is waiting for the Board of County Commissioners to approve the project list approved by the RESTORE advisory committee.
Olson explained the city’s motion for declaratory judgment regarding ECUA wells at the airport. “Really, this is not to be an adversarial thing. The city is really caught between FAA telling us to do one thing, ECUA questions what the FAA is saying. We just need a neutral third party to establish what our legal obligations are. The complaint is posted on the city’s webpage, the full complaint with all the exhibits. Beyond that, nobody’s really going to be able to comment on anything beyond that.”
He said that the city was served on Wednesday with a complaint any the Bayview Park cross. The city has 20 days to respond.
On Fire station 3, Olson said, “This is the tear down and construction of a new fire station 3. The field that responded to the RFQ has been narrowed to 4. The oral presentations are coming up soon, so we’re still expecting that a recommendation will come before a council. This is for architectural and engineering services at your June meeting. You did probably noted as well the personnel were moved from fire station 3 to fire station 6, Friday last week. That was so station 3 could be thoroughly cleaned and do some mold remediation work. We expect that all the fire crews will be back into fire station 3. The work should not last more than two weeks.”
On the new Bayview Community Center, the architectural and design services proposals were open May 3rd. “We had 13 responses and the start date for the selection committee to review those responses has not been set.”
He added, “Another thing, I always try to keep you up to date on what we’re doing with the WMBE program, and we will be having a workshop in June. The date has not been determined, but there will be a workshop. It really is how to do business with the city. The focus will be the WMBE program.”
He said that city might have its community rating for flood insurance lowered. “Something that’s probably of interest to everybody who has flood insurance, the community rating system, or CRS, which is part of the national flood insurance program, the city is currently rated as a 7, which qualifies all business and residences for a 15% discount on flood insurance. Our 5-year audit was conducted last year and the preliminary score that we got back a 7, but we’re only 93 points away from a 6. We’re going back. It looks very good for us. There were some things we just didn’t get credit for, but it’s well established, our programs that would apply to those. What that means is we hope to get to a 6. That’s another 5% discount on flood insurance premiums.”
Then Olson spoke in defense of Mayor Hayward’s choice for the new fire chief.
“The last thing I just want to mention tonight is you heard tonight and you will hear, probably until we are able to bring Chief Allen’s appointment to you for consent in June, a lot of rumors, myths, urban legends surrounding David Allen and surrounding a particular incident, a fire that occurred in November of 2000. I just want to add if anybody wants information about that, there is a federal report, the National Institutes of Occupational Safety and Health did a full investigation after that. I think Chief Allen will even volunteer himself to give information. What I want to say is please keep an open mind. Look for the truth. The truth is out there in the reports. You’re going to hear a lot of information that has probably not been substantiated. That’s the last thing I have.”
Then like Keyser Söze from the movie “Usual Suspects,” Olson vanished not to be seen or heard from again until June.
