At his weekly press conference on May 7, Mayor D. C. Reeves announced that Adam Sanitation and Waste Pro had submitted proposals for curbside recycling. They will give oral presentations to the selection committee on Wednesday, May 22.
“We will continue to move in the process of looking internally as to what they would provide and what our service would look like afterwards and what our options would be to the customer,” he said. “We continue to move forward with getting some new and improved version of curbside recycling back to the citizens or at least that option to do so.”
The city’s community response specialists began working with the Pensacola Police Department late last year. The social workers interact with the homeless and others who may need access to area medical and social services. During the first quarter of this year, the specialists had 395 interactions across the community. From those interactions, 133 accepted direct service, whether it was food, water, temporary shelter or housing, or other information about where to go.
The mayor said, “The second quarter is already beating those numbers with 253 total interactions in April alone, 91 accepting direct service.”
City council members have expressed concerns about noise nuisances in the downtown area.
“Let’s talk philosophy first. I don’t disagree. I think we’re trying to promote walkability, outdoor dining and entertainment that bring vibrancy to a city. And I don’t know that a lot of people travel to Pensacola to hear loud mufflers deafening their ears,” Reeves said.
However, he doesn’t want a new ordinance that is difficult for police to enforce. “It’s one thing to say we don’t want it, but it’s another thing to say it: How do we enforce it correctly? So, what I normally do in these situations is I look for best practices around the country and find, who is not just identifying that there’s noise, but that we’ve got the infrastructure in place to enforce it.”
That conversation led the mayor to discuss his Reimagining Palafox initiative. When he took office, Florida Power & Light was about to complete moving its lines underground. Reeves asked them to stall repaving the Palafox from Garden Street to the Plaza Ferdinand crosswalk until his administration could talk with stakeholders about other aspects of downtown infrastructure, such as widening sidewalks and adding more parking.
FPL delayed the completion of its work and is ready to repave Palafox and the blocks east and west of the street. The city has begun discussing with the utility whether they will contribute their portion of the project and who will manage it.
“What I can tell you is there’s no such thing as 100% agreement downtown on whether you do the work during the day or at night. Do we take a couple of parking spaces away to create more sidewalks or not?” Mayor Reeves said. “I can bring 10 downtown business owners in here; five of them will like one, and five will like the other. That’s part of this job. And I appreciate very much our downtown business owners’ investment in the city.”
His staff is working on multiple options for Palafox’s visionary plan. The mayor said, “Maybe ones are a good, better, best type of situation. My goal is to present that back to downtown business owners, the public, and the community and get some feedback about what we want Palafox to look like.”