Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves held his weekly press conference this morning. Here are my takeaways:
1. Police Chief Eric Randall discussed how his officers walked the neighborhoods during Operation Brownsville. Mayor Reeves tacked on that he has placed in the proposed city budget starting a co-responder model for policing.
“I appreciate the chief and everyone working towards that and bringing on someone in a social worker role that we’ve seen be successful in other communities. It may not take two sworn officers to go to a situation that might be more of a need of that skillset than it is for two people that are armed. And whether that’s dealing with children or some kind of mental health situation, situations with homeless and homeless protection, it’s this more refined touch to some of these things that, and I think the police officers will tell you and what I sympathize with so much, is the vast majority of phone calls that come into the police department are not necessarily the requirement of having a gun on your hip.”
Dig Deeper: International Association of Chiefs of Police & University of Cincinnati Center for Police Research and Policy Practice Guide: “The co-responder team model for behavioral health crisis response is a police-based intervention that pairs trained police officers with mental health professionals to respond to incidents involving individuals experiencing behavioral health crises. This collaborative crisis response model aims to improve the experiences and outcomes of persons in crisis by providing effective crisis de-escalation, diversion from the criminal justice system, and connection to appropriate behavioral health services.”
2. The City is dropping mandatory recycling and will add a second weekly garbage pick-up, effective Oct. 1.
Why? Nearly half of the recycling loads are contaminated and wind up in the landfill, and ECUA is nearly doubling its rate. The mayor said, “Right now we’re paying $35 a ton, and we’ve been notified the new rate will be anywhere from 60 to $75 a ton….In addition to that, when it’s too contaminated, there’s a $250 fine.”
“We’ll attempt to come up with something that actually brings recycling value to our community. And whether that’s certain items that actually can be recycled now that have enough value. However, many things that you recycle that you put in the correct can, if they don’t bring enough value to the recycling industry, they end up in a landfill. So that’s why I’m saying it’s time to get our feet under us and really understand where we’re going in recycling as well as to provide increased improved service for our citizens.”
3. The City is hiring a parking consultant to review the public and private parking areas and the overall parking experience in downtown Pensacola.
“As we’ve talked about many times, we’ve got to do better than what we have right now. And I mean as a community that what we know is when someone has a poor parking experience, whether it’s in a blue space or in a red space – that we have no control over that matter, ao one goes back home and says, ‘Well, let me tell you about this, but let me preface by saying that this happened in a private lot.’ What they’re saying is, ‘My car got booted. And I’m not sure if I would go back there.'”
Recycling: Before the city council makes a decision, the mayor should present it a range of options. (He won’t. He can’t even prepare a proper annual budget document.) I can think of 5-6 alternatives just off the top of my head. Of note, the city’s overall cost of recycling collection and processing has actually declined from $216.21/ton (2021) to $154.60/to (2023) with the recycling rate (percentage by tonnage of the total) increasing from 12.20% (2021) to 25.00% (2023). With some more effort at educating households, and random inspections, I think we can solve the contamination problem but city hall does not seem interested in even trying. I’m old school. When I lived in Berkeley, we put our cans and glass in boxes by the curbside. That’s how it was done in the stone age (1970s). Moving forward, the best option would likely be for the City to contract by interlocal agreement with ECUA for sanitation services. I recall ECUA making this offer in 2009. ECUA was offering to give the wastewater treatment plant land on Main Street to the city in exchange for agreeing to a contract of a certain term, I think five years as I recall. I recall being told that city staff rejected the offer without telling the city council. That might be true. I soon raised the matter with Mayor Mike Wiggins who told me he didn’t know anything about it. Starting in October, ECUA is proposing to provide sanitation service for $29.88 a month with an optional trash or recycling can at no extra cost. It the ECUA service area expanded to include the city, the economy of scale might save money. Right now, I have both city and ECUA garbage trucks driving near my house in Scenic Heights. The proposed ECUA rate is still cheaper than what city residents are paying now. My most recent city bill was for $33.31. The city cleverly charges for sanitation service “and” then tacks on an additional sanitation disposal charge and a sanitation equipment surcharge and a sanitation fuel charge. Two will increase on October 1 bringing my new bill to $35.41. (The city council is proposing to increase the total cost of the sanitation function from $7.022 million to $7.342 million next year.) If the City contracted with ECUA to provide the city’s sanitation services, and also contracted with Escambia County to provide fleet management services, it could eliminate the Sanitation & Fleet Management Division reducing city staff positions by 57. With Mayor Reeves initial increases the regular city staff is now bloated up to 895. That doesn’t account for other positions not described on Appendix Q of the budget. 57 positions may seem like much but it’s a step in the right direction back towards the city staff level of 770 in 2016. City politicians habitually say that the city should be “run like a business” and that they make “data-driven” and “fact-based decisions” but they do not. In sum, going with ECUA will provide city residents with a higher level of service at a lower cost. Mayor Reeves claims that he and his staff have studied this issue for months. How about a televised public debate between Reeves and the ECUA Executive Director? City residents can call in to vote deciding if they want the City or ECUA to pick up their trash next year “and” if they want to recycle: Reeves (NO), ECUA (YES).
While visiting Washington DC we used a parking app called ParkWhiz, and it was so easy to figure out and use. We need a single, standardized solution for all of downtown and not a hodge pdge. For recycling I think they should put recycling stations at the larger area parks, like Optimist, and just collect a few things like aluminum cans and glass. Plastics are too confusing, paper and cardboard are not in demand. Curbside is a failed experiment in many communities not just here. And Gary, you can hug me any time.
just a follow up….I understand my comment were about No. 3 on the list…..No. 2, is such a winner, I will still hug them regardless whether they fix parking or not…..Just make 2 happen.
If number two is true, The Mayor and the city get two thumbs up! Congrats on rational thinking!!!! Returning to what we had 20 years ago, and it worked.
I am a member of the YMCA, and I drive an oversized vehicle when I have my bike rack and swinging hitch on it…..so Y garage is unfit for my vehicle. I go early and park on the street…..if I am late, I have to figure out how to pay for it, and its hard to make it work. They need to fix parking, I am down there 4 or 5 days a week and its a mess. I don’t mind paying….slipping a few coins in a meter was simple but now, its complex as heck.