Mayor Reeves managed up the city’s police and firefighters for making Pensacola the nation’s fourth safest city, according to U.S. News World Report.
“We’re well over $2 million in investments in public safety since I’ve been in office,” he said. “The PPD substation at PSC (Pensacola State College) should be getting the technology set up there any day now. We’re adding two more officers to have a total of four in our CRA downtown.”
Mayor Reeves continued, “We’ve been thrilled with the progress so far with our mental health caseworkers and our non-responder model with the Pensacola Police Department in terms of how many interactions we’re seeing and helping people looking for opportunities to get off the street.”
He added that PPD should get its first Bearcat tactical vehicle for SWAT in the next two months and touted the addition of technology upgrades such as ShotSpotter. The mayor also touted the Pensacola firefighters.
“The Fire Department continues as they have been to be one of the top 1% fire departments in the United States,” Reeves said. “The protection classification of ISO 1 is not only great for your safety, but secondarily, it is great for the cost of your homeowner’s insurance and the reputation that you live in an area with such a good fire department. And also, we’ve handed over 600 smoke alarms out in the community in less than a year.”
Curbside Recycling
Adam’s Sanitation has been selected to negotiate an opt-in curbside recycling option to be launched in the city. However, the mayor was reluctant to mention any specifics until the negotiations were completed.
“Their proposal may not be exactly what we end up decide to do,” he said. His staff will look at several options, such as offering the option weekly or biweekly.
“I’m very excited to get a Recycling 2.0,” Reeves said. “You can be assured that whatever version the opt-in will be, one thing you can surmise is that it will be a much more limited scope of what you can put in that can. It’ll be more than likely very similar to what we’re doing in the drop-off right now.”
He outlined the next steps. “We will work out internally and externally with Adams on what the new 2.0 recycling will look like. And at that point, we will have at least 90 days and maybe more of onboarding.”
The onboarding process includes an information campaign explaining how the service will work and giving people time to sign up. Before the city returns recycling cans, stickers with the correct information about what can be recycled will need to be put up.
The onboarding process may take six months, and the launch date could be Dec. 1 or Jan. 1.
CRA Workshops
The City of Pensacola and its Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) are hosting three workshops this week to update the community redevelopment plans.
“This is us asking our citizens to help us understand what they want to see out of their community,” Mayor Reeves said.
The focus of the May workshops is “Listening + Information Gathering.” The schedule is as follows:
Westside Community Workshop: Tuesday, May 28, 6:00-7:30 p.m. at Sanders Beach-Corrine Jones Resource Center, 913 S. I St.
Urban Core Community Workshop: Wednesday, May 29, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m. AND 6-7:30 p.m. at Saenger Theater, 118 S. Palafox St.
Eastside Community Workshop: Thursday, May 30, 6:30-8 p.m. at the Pensacola Public Library, 239 N. Spring St.
Free downtown parking will be available on the top floor of the Jefferson Street garage, located at 53 S. Jefferson St. on a first come, first serve basis.