Mayor Ashton Hayward’s Pensacola Community Survey was skewed towards the city’s least diverse, more affluent eastern districts. Using the survey produced by the UWF Haas Center, the mayor touts that 69.3 percent of his constituents believe the city is in the right direction and grade most of the city services highly.
However, an analysis of the methodology has revealed that if you lived on the east of Pensacola in Districts 1, 3 and 4, you were twice as likely to be included in the survey than if you lived on the west side in Districts 5, 6 and 7.
The survey tracked the answers of 444 respondents. Districts 1, 3 and 4 comprised 252 of the respondents; Districts 5, 6 and 7 only 123.
However, Districts 5, 6 and 7 have more residents than Districts 1, 3 and 4 – 43.3 percent of city residents vs. 41.1 percent, according to the Haas study.
The population of Pensacola is 30.4 African-American and other minorities. Districts 1, 3 and 4 are 89.4 percent white.
Mayor Hayward’s survey doesn’t reflect the views of all the City of Pensacola. It fails to include the voices of the people who have had the most issues with his administration, such as Long Hollow radio tower, Parole & Probation office, firing of fire chiefs, and ECUA storage tank.
The west side of Pensacola isn’t the same as the east side. It’s why Mayor Hayward partnered with Escambia County, University of West Florida, Pensacola State College, Escambia County School District, Escambia Community Clinics and United Way on a Promise Zone application earlier this year. The Promise Zone included much of Districts 5, 6 and 7.
In the application submitted by the mayor, he detailed the problems facing the west side:
* Average poverty rate is 35.42% with poverty blocks as high as 62.6%.
* Unemployment rates run as high as 19% in some neighborhoods.
* Some families spend as much as 90% of their income on rent.
* There are four public housing projects in the zone.
* Only a third of residents attained only a High School degree and nearly 22.3% attained less.
* Violent crime rate for the Promise Zone is more than double the rate for the entire City of Pensacola—1816.6 compared to 894—and nearly four times the state rate of 487.1
* Murder/manslaughter rate is 27.4 in the Promise Zone, while the Pensacola and Florida rates are 13.2 and 5.2 respectively. Drug arrests in the Promise Zone numbered 534 in 2015.
Inweekly believes the west side of Pensacola deserves to be heard, too. We will conduct a phone survey of west Pensacola, asking the same questions that are in the Haas Center survey.
The results may be the same as the mayor’s survey. Whatever they are, we will share them with you, Mayor Hayward and Pensacola City Council.
Speaking of crime, as of a few days ago, the “per capita” murder rate in the City of Pensacola for 2016 is on track to be about 4.5 times the New York City rate. That is an increase from the 2.5 rate in 2012. I am waiting for WEAR TV Channel 3 to discover that fact and report it. I recently reviewed the Florida Department of Law Enforcement crime statistics for 2001 to 2015. During those years, the per “capita” crime rate in Florida went down 40% and in Santa Rosa County by a stunning 45%. In the City of Pensacola, the per capita crime rate went up 1%. In each year from 2001 to 2015, there were more crimes in the tiny City of Pensacola than in “all” of Santa Rosa County that covers 1.012 square miles. Perhaps we need to bring Santa Rosa County Sheriff Hall out of retirement to appoint him or better yet elect him the Pensacola Police Chief.
On the LOST issue, I have been telling Council members for years how to fix the problem. State law gives them the power to do so but not if they continue to cover in fear of this and all future Mayors. The Council needs to adopt an ordinance that limits the expenditure of LOST dollars to capital improvement projects that will benefit not just current residents but future generations. If you look at the projected LOST budget for 2018-2028, you immediately see that much of the money is going to be squandered to include being spent to purchase vehicles that should all be purchased within each department’s budget. Second, the LOST dollars should be divided up into seven trust funds one per Council district. The Council could do something similar with the Stormwater fees and Local Option Gas Tax revenues dividing them up into seven funds. Long-term, it is a more equitable and effective approach because there would be more stability in the LOST budget process and it would better improve the quality of life in the city’s neighborhoods.
I would take any work done by the UWF Haas Center with a grain of salt and skepticism.
They are paid to produce the results desired by the customer.
If the results did not please the customer, they soon would run out of clients.
The north end of the city was ignored, too. District 2 residents, while most are satisfied with basic services such as police, fire and sanitation, have for the most part been ignored. Residents of the Burgess Rd. area have been asking for sidewalks for kids for 30 years. It is the most dangerous street for pedestrians in the City limit, yet many school kids have to walk, ride bikes and even skate board down this road. District 2 doesn’t have a community center or athletic park. Storm water issues, infrastructure issues , creation of green spaces have pretty much been ignored. In spite of the fact that the City’s primary commercial core is in District 2, generating the district with the highest property values from commercial businesses and generating a lot of LOST funds for the City and the County, district 2 gets very little in return. We are at the very bottom when it comes to receiving LOST funds. Furthermore, the north east end of the City needs upgrades to the only community center in the north end – Gull Point in District 1. As far as I am concerned the survey result is of no use to me – it is a lot of fluff.