At his press conference yesterday, Mayor D.C. Reeves was excited about the city receiving over $12 million in Triumph and state grants to relocate American Magic’s headquarters to the Port of Pensacola. He also touched on homelessness and Operation Brownsville
Future Home of America’s Cup?
Wearing an American Magic polo, Mayor D.C. Reeves said the city is moving forward with design and engineering plans to renovate Port Warehouse 10 to become the sailing team’s headquarters.
The conversation quickly turned to the possibility of Pensacola hosting a future America’s Cup if American Magic wins in Barcelona in 2024.
“I was joking with someone today,” the mayor shared. “You know, the City of Pensacola’s chances to host an America’s Cup one day went from a one in a trillion to about one in four.”
Later he added, “It would be, no doubt about it, the largest event that the city’s ever seen. We are rooting them on.”
“The day after they win the cup. I can guarantee that I’d be over there cheering them on, and then probably on a plane the next morning back here to try to figure out how we can pull this thing off.”
What’s Next: Mayor Reeves said his staff will work at a Memorandum of Understanding with American Magic in the coming weeks. “Just so you know that we’ve got something on paper, certainly before we’re accepting dollars formally.”
He continued, “But we’ve been in conversations with them for a long, long time, and we feel very, that that is their intent (to relocate to Pensacola.). We’re not going to accept Triumph dollars or anything like that until all of those details are worked out.”
Next Step on Homelessness
Mayor Reeves doesn’t want the discussion of homelessness to end with Dr. Joe Savage’s visit to Pensacola.
“I think there’s a lot of exciting things to talk about, not only just tactics to reduce homelessness, but what does the CoC (Continuum of Care) look like moving forward,” he said. “We need to start having conversations about all these different services, including Opening Doors as our current CoC—who has done a noble job in trying to reduce homelessness.”
He continued, “Everybody is in it for the right reason, but how do we put our best foot forward as a community?”
Heading into last week’s presentations, the mayor talked about the need to get the city and county’s plans on dealing with homelessness align. He wants to push for a common strategy.
At the presser, Mayor Reeves said, “We will continue with urgency to try to figure out what that alignment is…We can’t just let it play and wait for months at a time and hope that something’s going to change.”
Operation Brownsville
Mayor Reeves reported that the police and fire departments are walking the city neighbors inside the zone Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmions designated for his initiative – an area bordered by Kirk, Avery, Jackson and A Streets. He added that the city is working with Florida Power & Light to improve street lighting in the neighborhood.
Statistics for last week:
- 24 code enforcement cases,
- 9 arrests made,
- 259 calls for service in that area and
- 44 offense reports up from 28, including a vehicle burglary, a residential burglary, and a theft.