Bay Bluff Park
Mayor Reeves has talked with Conversation Florida.
“They are very excited about this idea. Obviously this is our initial meeting, nothing formalized yet, but we are providing surveys and all of our property information of what the city owns along Scenic Highway Conservation Florida.”
The mayor is committed to keep Bay Bluffs in the public realm forever. “That’s what they do for a living, and they’re very excited about this idea. Where I can see this going down the road is that we can serve this property at the state level with a partnership with Conservation Florida and that we go find funding with that partnership.”
Friendly Airport Towing
The Pensacola International Airport has parking garage maintenance in progress.
“We’re phasing shutdowns in the parking garage for resealing joints,” Reeves said, “The work will stop before Thanksgiving, and it’ll start back up in January.”
The work areas have been coned off, but people have been moving to the cones and parking in the spaces. It’s been captured on security cameras.
“So in case a complaint is out there in the public realm that a car got friendly, towed for free to another location and they can’t find their car, there’s more than likely a chance that we have them on video moving a cone to go into an area that’s closed as a parking garage. So keep that in mind.”
Stoplight Cameras
Next week, Mayor Reeves will present the Police Department’s analysis of city intersections that have had the most crashes and most vehicles running red lights. He said the city has been averaging eight or nine auto crashes a day. The data will help build his case from stoplight cameras at the intersections with most issues.
Later when pressed by the media, he identified the most troublesome intersections over the past 10 years:
- Ninth Avenue and Bayou Boulevard
- NinthAvenue and Airport Boulevard
- Fairfield Drive and Davis Highway
“Those are the three, year in and year out have the most crashes,” he said.
Bay Bluffs Park: I wrote Conservation Florida and recommended that it buy up parcels on the bluffs now in private hands to protect them from future development. I described the future possibilities of the Bluffline project. I also confirmed in great detail that the city has plenty of money to replace the boardwalk but it is not important to Mayor Reeves or the Council so firmly under his heel. Page 40 in the city budget describes that the city’s LOST IV Series Plan revenues for FY 2024 will be about $9,745,200. Yet, of that amount, Mayor Reeves requested and the Council meekly rubberstamped just $272,100 “total” to improve the city’s parks, athletic facilities and community centers. Mayor Reeves and the Council even zeroed out the $200,000 that has been in the budget for the boardwalk project since 2018, up from $100,000 in 2016. Over on the General Fund side, the city projects to get $70,292,600 this year, an increase of $6.4 million from last year. Any of that $70.2 million could be spent to replace the boardwalk, repair the Malcolm Yonge Gym and fix everything else that is broken in city parks & recreation facilities to include the many broken and rusted park water fountains. Instead, Mayor Reeves asked for $0 dollars for the improvements. The Council agreed. What did Mayor Reeves and the Council think is more important then the boardwalk? For starters, they gave a $200,000 subsidy to the city’s golf course run for so many years at a big loss. Mayor Reeves also made up a city job for one of his two campaign managers, one of 11 new positions with the city staff now at 895, up from 770. The total position cost is above $125,000. During a recent BCC meeting, Chairman May formally acknowledged the campaign manager’s presence addressing him as “Mayor Alex.” How many mayors does a city need?