I also ran across this speech given on July 12, 1988 by City Manager Rod Kendig to the North Pensacola Optimist Club. Annexation was an issue then, too. The first goal of the City was to be the “City of Choice in which to live, work, and play” so that people want to be annexed into the city limits. At the time, citizens were voting whether to annex Cordova Mall and the Washington High School area.
Kendig described the city has “basically built out” with less than 5 percent of the land mass available for development. At the time the City had a 12 percent population growth for the decade. “The market area is full.”
“We have begun to reach some limits there, not only in terms of the area to serve, but the capacity to serve that area.”
In budgeting, his goal was to have $2 million carry-forward plus 10 percent in reserves. Today, the City reserves 15 percent of its annual General Fund budget—$7.616 million. Under the Kendig administration, the reserve would be $4.854 million (City has maintained $2 million in unrestricted fund reserves)-which would have made available $2,762,000 for city services. That’s a tremendous amount that could be returned to the citizens —either in improved services and infrastructure or reduced taxes, especially in these tough economic times.
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Text of speech
North Pensacola Optimist Club Speech
By City Manager Rod Kendig
July 12, 1988
We have given you not only our Annual Report, but something additional in the way of communicating to the public dollar payers of Pensacola about what we are doing; and that is a six (6) month report on the status of an activity entitled “Go Pensacola.” You, perhaps, have heard about it. It’s a process, or it’s the name of the goals and objectives for the City of Pensacola.
The City Council sat down about a year ago and spent over 20 hours deciding what the goals and objectives of the City of Pensacola would be and what we have provided you with is a report on our progress in achieving the objectives identified in those particular goals. Three of them, in particular. And it’s a report card that you can use to judge the City of Pensacola and the progress that we have made and the distance that we still have to cover, the challenges that are in front of us.
And in particular, what I would like to do is talk to you this morning as the Chief Executive Officer of the City of Pensacola and report to you as our stockholders. Those of you that are residents of the City of Pensacola, I am confident, are active stockholders and exercise your right to vote as stockholders by going to the polls and electing the board of directors for the corporation called the City of Pensacola.
What I am wanting to do this morning is to give a progress report on one of the major objectives identified under the first goal.
That first goal is to be the City of Choice in which to live, work, and play. The City of Choice from the standpoint of the opportunity for people to become a part of the City of Pensacola, not only by moving within the City limits, but also by choosing to become a part of the City through the process called annexation.
That is something that you are going to be hearing more and more about as election day approaches and what I want to focus on this morning.
Choice and Annexation go together because you vote. The people in the City vote on whether or not they want additional areas brought into the City and the people within those areas vote on whether they want to become a part of the City of Pensacola.
The two areas that we have identified to extend the invitation to for annexation are this area right around here, Cordova Mall and Washington High School, and the area in the northeastern portion of the City along Scenic Highway south of I-10. And, in fact, I would commend you for occupying and meeting in the newest part of the City of Pensacola. This building, this area, was annexed by the City Council because the property owners were optimistic about the City of Pensacola, and the Methodist Church requested that this area become annexed to the City. Well, because it was cheek-by-jowl with existing property and so forth, and they owned the land totally, nobody else did, that kind of annexation can be done very quickly and it was, and we are delighted that you are a part of the City of Pensacola and eligible for our police services and our fire services and all the rest of the services of the City of Pensacola.
But for the most part, annexation takes place by the ballot box. And when we extend the invitation to choose the City of Pensacola, we are talking about a City that has determined by its board of directors, the City Council, to be a City that is not only a place where you work (industry, if you will), not only a place where you reside (a bedroom kind of community, if you will), but also a place in which to relax (Leisure Services)-a City in which to play.
And for everyone, one of the major jewels that we have is that marvelous facility called Hitzman Park, one of 88 in the City of Pensacola.
But under that goal of being the City of Choice in which to live, work, and play, the Council also established two objectives, among others under that goal, and those were to take a look at what we should be about in the 21st century, what kind of services should we be providing. -Not only being optimistic, but being realistic about what the future holds and this evening at 5:00 and for the next five weeks, the City Council and the staff will be about a very exciting and challenging process, and that is answering those questions -about the level of service and how we provide those levels of service.
Those recommendations that I am making to the City Council, starting with the ones this afternoon on sanitation services, I would share with you and they come against the background of certain realities. The first one is the City is basically “built out.” Less than 5% of the land mass that is in the current City limits of Pensacola are available for any kind of development. Obviously, those of you in the business world know that when your market has been saturated, that creates certain kinds of pressures and 40″, if there is an opportunity to expand that market, that’s also one of the options that you look at. Not only from the standpoint of revenue, but broadening the base, broadening the per unit cost, if you will, for the delivering of those services.
Well, the City of Pensacola in the last eight years enjoyed a 12% population growth, almost a reverse of what happened in the ’70’s when we lost population, about 14%. But that 12% population growth has basically filled up the territory, if you will. The market area is full.
And with that, has also come a leveling of the staffing of the City of Pensacola. For the last five years, the number of employees of the City of Pensacola, despite this continuing and marvelous and needed growth, has been flat.
So we have continued to stretch our resources to absorb the growth. We have not added to our workforce to match the growth because we felt that we had the capacity to do that. But we also know that we have begun to reach some limits
there, not only in terms of the area to serve, but the capacity to serve that area.
The second reality against which these recommendations are coming forward is
annexation, which we have touched upon. Not only annexation in 1988, but annexation in 1990 and annexation in 1992, as long as there are people who want to become a part of the City of Pensacola, and which the board of directors that you, the stockholders, elect also determine that the opportunity to let the City be the City make some sense.
A third background element is that our governmental units in the area -City,
County, School Board -and other special groups, like the Island Authority and the Utilities Authority, are finally coming up against the reality of unionization. They exist in the school system, they exist in the Utilities Authority. We have one in the City. They are coming in the County, and there are more coming for the rest of the governmental units. Whether unions like it or not, a reality of unionization is it brings additional costs, just in terms of the negotiation costs alone.
And the fourth reality is obviously the compensation of the employees -unions or
no unions. Because our employees have been very, very cooperative in partnering with the City in working within an environment of increased productivity and a compensation package that has matched that.
But the most significant reality is that if we are going to maintain our ability to serve our existing residents and those that we’re inviting to become a part of the City of Pensacola, we clearly need to maintain the level and quality of services.
And, therefore, for example, this afternoon the Council is going to be acting on my recommendations that we continue with twice a week residential garbage pickup for the City today, and for the City to be annexed in November. That we improve our yard trash collection and commit at a minimum of once a week yard trash pickup 35 weeks a year, and that in the peak seasons we at least seek to maintain an every 10-12 day pickup.
And thirdly, that we privatize and get out of the business of commercial garbage
collection and sell that off to the private sector. Let the private sector do one of those functions that they particularly have the ability to do. Get out of that business, take those resources and reinforce our ability to maintain quality sanitation services in both garbage and yard trash collection.
There is the ability for the City to go to once a week, in terms of residential garbage collection. But not only do you have the perception of cutting the service level in half, which any of you know is difficult to sell somebody because it also doesn’t mean the cost gets cut in half, we are also aware of what those wonderful people in Tallahassee did -they laid on us a bunch of requirements in terms of solid waste management, that for the next three years though they are going to clean up our environment, and that is to be applauded, it is going to be with a price tag attached. Price tag in terms of your sweat, because we’re talking about trash separation, source separation, but also bagging things that we now put out loose. Governments are being challenged over the next three years to reduce by 35% the volume of garbage.
In addition, we have found as a result of the City-wide management study that caused us to crystallize and focus, that we can expand our services. We don’t need to add the scores of employees and expend the hundreds of thousands of dollars that was first thought. And, therefore, annexation will provide to those who come in the quality of service that the City currently enjoys and broaden the revenue base so that we have the capacity to maintain it.
The budget that I submitted, indeed, will be a budget that is workable and approvable. A budget that I know has no property tax increase and no other service fee increase. It’s a budget that has the City of Pensacola finishing the year in the black; we are achieving our goal of a $2 million fund balance forward -plus 10%. But that’s the kind of stewardship the City of Pensacola has positioned itself to provide. Our goal of being the City of Choice in which to live, work, and play, not just be a bedroom community, not just be an industry town, not just be the playground of northwest Florida, but that goal of being the City of Choice in which to live, work, and play is motivated by the reality that the City ought to be the City and the County ought to be the County. We were organized, we were created, we were chartered to provide urban services, full time fire protection.
You hear no ads from the City of Pensacola saying we’re short firefighters, would ya’ll ring us up and sign up. We have a backlog of the people who want to be firefighters. You don’t see the City of Pensacola going out to borrow because it can’t even meet its payroll.
We have a Police Department that is able to respond. The Police Department that moves in and out of this area around Cordova Mall; it’s just common sense for this area to be a part of the City of Pensacola. Most people think that this area ought to be a part of the City of Pensacola.
But we are not taking the opportunity of extending that invitation lightly. We are not being smug about this. We’re never going to stop looking for ways to improve the delivery of services, whether it’s automation as we did 5 or 7 years ago with the one-man trash collection, or whether it’s looking at our Police backup system and making certain that we backup when appropriate, but that we don’t find ourselves swarming like a colony of honeybees in a clover field in the spring.
Because we want to maintain that 3 minute response time for our Police
Department and that 4 minute response time for our Fire Department and that rating that reflects itself in your residential fire insurance rate.
And what I would like to do is not only thank you for that, but thank you for your attention in spending some time talking about the future of the City of Pensacola.
Thank you, Mr. President.