Daily Outtakes: The Mythical Town of Beulah

News Journal columnist Theresa Blackwell delivered another dram of her wisdom on Sunday, blasting the Escambia County Commission, praising DPZ CoDesign and waxing poetically for a town center for Beulah’s “downtown” to complete her community.

  • Why should taxpayers in the City of Pensacola, Perdido Key, Cantonment, Molino, Navy Point, Ferry Pass, Warrington, Brownsville and Pensacola Beach pay for her town center?

If Blackwell’s neighbors want a town center, they should go to the Florida Legislature and ask for a referendum to actually create the Town of Beulah. If the referendum passed, they would have plenty of tax revenue to buy land and work with a single developer to create the downtown of her dreams, especially if she included the Navy Federal Credit Union campus within the town limits.

  • The Escambia County Property Appraiser has valued the Navy Federal Credit Campus at over $95 million – a solid foundation to build a municipal tax base.

BACKGROUND: Commissioner Robert Bender created the hybrid plan that the News Journal columnist loves. When he chaired the county commission in 2021, he got all parties to agree to a mixed-use plan that DPZ CoDesign was instructed to complete.

At the Committee of the Whole on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021, Bender introduced a new compromise that DPZ CoDesign had drawn for Outlying Landing Field 8 (OLF-8).

“After last week’s discussion, I decided to try and pull together some stakeholders that were part of the overall master plan,” Commission Chairman Robert Bender said. “So yesterday morning, I asked for Navy Federal, who was represented by Keith Hoskins, DPZ, and then FloridaWest with Scott Luth and the PEDC chair, Lewis Bear.”

He continued, “We had a meeting to discuss the plan that was presented last Thursday and how we could move forward. I think we were able to have a good discussion. I think some of the why things were where they were, and we got to hear from everybody involved.”

Read more.

DIG DEEPER: There wasn’t strong support for the town center back in 2020. DPZ CoDesign and Blackwell based their arguments for a town center at OLF-8 on just 97 surveys, of which 70 were from the Nature Trail subdivision.

The residents were asked: What percentage of OLF-8 did they want planned for commercial development and employment initiative?

Over half (56 surveys, 56%) said they wanted 50% or more of the OLF-8 devoted to commercial development and job creation. Of those 56 pro-job replies, 30% wanted 70% or more devoted to commercial development.

Read What did the community tell DPZ CoDesign that it wanted at OLF-8.

Does the News Journal do any fact-checking of its columnists?

 

Photo licensed under the Unsplash+ License

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4 thoughts on “Daily Outtakes: The Mythical Town of Beulah

  1. Is that the COW she yelled out “I have cancer” and pushed her way to the podium while the stunned chairman allowed her to speak (against normal policy for speakers) ?
    Check the video, I kid you not.
    She’s obsessed.

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