Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves held a two-hour meeting with ST Engineering last Thursday morning. While he plans to share details at his weekly press conference on Monday, the mayor did share some details when we talked over the weekend.
ST had about 10 officials attend the meeting in person and online from Singapore, Washington, D.C., and Mobile, Ala. The mayor focused on “communications, community engagement, and increased levels of accountability and accounting for the jobs created.”
- Reeves said the company has been reporting its employment numbers to the Florida Department of Commerce and has met their job goal for 2024.
“But I told them Thursday was my last PR meeting, and I was resigning as their pro bono PR person,” Reeves shared. “We are urging more transparency, more community engagement and better communication, and we’ve demanded a higher level of job tracking accountability.”
The mayor also requested the company have more leadership here in Pensacola.
- He expects ST Engineering to be more visible in the community and better communicate their achievements. The officials also discussed the need for more transparency and detailed reporting on job tracking.
City of Pensacola and Escambia Children’s Trust
- The annual bill is estimated at $450,000 starting with the 2024-25 fiscal year. The commissioners supported levying the tax and using the money for infrastructure projects, such as new sidewalks, lighting and security cameras, improving safety and the neighborhoods where children live.
- As of July 31, ECT had $24.65 million in its bank accounts.
Mayor Reeves said that he is working on a Memorandum of Understanding that would allow ECT to keep the CRA revenues if they agreed to spend the funds on schools inside the city limits.
“There’re a few different items in this world that you’ll never have enough money to fix; One is infrastructure and the other is education,” he shared. ” Could we take those funds and spend them on sidewalks and other things? Of course, we have an endless list of infrastructure needs. However, I believe that if we can get even more specific in detail on how we inject these dollars and ensure that they’re helping the children in need city inside these city limits, this would be a unique opportunity for these found dollars to do what we voted on – helping education.”