Pensacola is an exciting place to live. Downtown Pensacola is booming and more development is on the way.
The YMCA of Northwest Florida this morning held a groundbreaking for its new downtown facility that is being built in the parking lot behind Seville Quarter. The construction on the expansion of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition is well underway. Later this year, the Studers will begin construction on their apartment complex on the site of the old News Journal building.
Plus, there’s a hotel planned for Main Street next to Beggs & Lane law offices. The Switzers are working on their plans for the renovation of the Brent building and the first block of Palafox Place. Bubba Watson’s candy store is on the horizon.
And we still don’t know the Studers’ plans for the city block that once was the site for ECUA’s Main Street Sewage Plant.
Visit Pensacola is clicking on all cylinders. Florida West is getting off the ground and is poised to take economic development to another level. We are hearing the VT-MAE and DeepFlex are about to take off at the Pensacola International Airport and Port of Pensacola, respectively.
This is a good time to live in the greater Pensacola area.
The one hiccup, the one wobbly wheel on the grocery cart is Pensacola City Hall.
Mayor Ashton Hayward needs to surround himself with a senior leadership that has the knowledge and experience to run the city. With all due respect to Olson and Fountain, neither would be hired to run any other city in this country. Their predecessors – both pre- and post-new charter – had decades more experience in city government, and the city ran smoother under their leadership.
City taxpayers are paying a lot of money for people to learn their jobs as they do them. And the mistakes and cover-ups keep piling up:
1) Hiding FAA rejecting $3 million grant for VT-MAE project,
2) Staff misinterpreting Land Use code re: Manna warehouse
3) New city attorney sent an employment contract that didn’t conform with the city charter,
4) Hiding May 1 letter from CBRE that said a Miami developer was cutting back its proposal,
5) Delay in Corrine Jones stormwater project,
6) Losing out on federal grants for stormwater projects,
7) Fish Hatchery delayed to 2018,
8) Blaming Ed Spears for CBRE “success fee” switch,
9) Losing Center for Entrepreneurship for the maritime park,
10) Planning Board member told he could vote for his client’s project,
11) OHM being allowed to charge high food prices at the airport,
12) Hiding July 23 CBRE letter that Miami developer dropped out again,
13) Confusion over what CBRE is marketing,
14) Replacing departments heads with administrators so they aren’t approved by council,
15) No job performance evaluations in personnel files,
16) Constituent Services staff sent on trips to NYC and D.C.,
17) Long delays on food trucks, homelessness and other issues,
18) Not returning the call of a prospect for the airport (Sky Warrior),
19) Failure to defend COO until after she resigned,
20) City administrator targeting a homeowners’ association president.
Until substantial changes are made at city hall, the miscues will continue to happen.
Fortunately, the city’s success isn’t dependent on city government.