The citizens of Pensacola only hear from their city administrator once a month at the Agenda Review. He doesn’t hold town hall meetings. He doesn’t answer questions. He doesn’t put things in writing.
Here is the report he gave on Jan. 9:
Airport
“I just want everybody to put this date down: Monday, March 13th. I believe Dan Flynn has put out an email, but that is the date that has been set for the Governor Askew terminal dedication. There will be more information to follow, but that is the date that was selected.”
Summit Boulevard Recycling Drop-off Location
“Some of you, if you were driving up in that area over the holidays, you noticed that the recycling place is just overflowing with – some of it’s recyclables, some of it’s just trash – that happens this time of year.
“Unfortunately it’s a site that we own, the county operates and we’re trying to – our city crews do get out there every day that they’re operating and they clean up. It just happens that over the holidays it’s gonna build up more.
“We have talked about closing that site. We are not going to do that because it serves a lot of multi-unit dwellings that don’t have curbside recycling, so we think it is something that citizens benefit from.
“We will continue to clean it up, work with the county to make sure it’s well policed, and we’re going to add some vegetative buffer to try and hide it more from the roadway so it’s not just the first thing you see as you drive along Summit Boulevard.”
Fire Department Cadet Program
“We had a 112 applicants, 60 completed the physical test. The top 30 were invited for more reviews last week and on January 23rd, six of those individuals will start work as a Fire Cadet. Those names are – I believe that Chief Allen will be notifying the top six sometime later this week. Again, a tremendous outpouring of applicants and I think we’re going to get some good quality people.”
Parking
“When you discuss at your joint session with the county when you start talking about Triumph money, talking about opportunities for that. One of the things that we will be talking about is parking garages, perhaps, for the city.
“The wrinkle in this is last year the city did its study, we got those results back, we talked about the three tiers of service:
“The first thing we would try and do is improve the signage, just directing people to where the parking is.
“The second thing is trying to change peoples behavior. You may not be able to park right in front of the business that you want to visit, but you can get close. Also to understand how you operate the meters or how do you park downtown.
“In order to do that, of course, you’d have to work closely with DIB, and we will be doing that as we move forward in this process, have DIB probably take on a leading role in finding immediate solutions for downtown parking and looking into the future. One of those things that we will be looking at is Triumph money.”
Stormwater Infrastructure
“That always remains a priority for us, I think if you saw after the last rain storm we had we had about six inches in a very short period of time. We did not have any significant problems. So I’m saying that the money that the city has brought in and put towards storm water improvements is starting to have a real impact.
“That doesn’t mean we’re going to stop. We’re continuing to work on that, but I think everybody whose involved in this needs to acknowledge that this city has made great strides in the last few years in the area of storm water infrastructure.
“There is one project that’s in Councilman Wingate’s district. This is an HMPG, a FEMA project, that’s at 12th and Cross, the Fisher Street Pond. It crested during the last rain event, but we were able to get out there, the city crews, and pump it down.
“We know it remains a problem. It’s in Phase 1 of this FEMA process. It is a long process, but we hope that we will eventually be able to acquire the four houses on the north side of the street tear those down and enlarge the storm water pond. That is in the works and we’re moving on that project.”
Hollis T. Williams Project
“My last item, I just want to publicly thank Commissioner May. He was going to put forward the city’s Hollis T. Williams project application as one of the items to be considered by the county commissioners when they allocate the restore money. There’s no timeline for that consideration, but it could, again, come up as one of your topics at the joint session.”
Missing: Explanation on why the City is not using the ECUA recycling facility.