Since May, the City of Pensacola has worked on building a huge stormwater pond on West Government Street, two blocks from City Hall next to the closed Corrine Jones Park. Residents have complained to Inweekly, city officials and County Commissioner Lumon May about the dump trucks driving through their neighborhoods on weekends, the diesel pumps loudly running 24 hours a day, and the lack of fencing around the huge holes being dug.
The stormwater pond is being built in a historic African-American neighborhood, The Tanyard. Dr. Gloria Horning, who helped organized the Wedgewood effort against the Rolling Hills dump, lives in the neighborhood.
She wrote Inweekly, “There are so many regulations being ignored – humm.. black neighborhood again?”
Horning is concerned that children in the neighbor might fall into the holes and possibly drown.
Mayor Ashton Hayward, City Administrator Eric Olson, and Pensacola City Council may be seeing Horning and her neighbors soon at a council meeting. I would suggest Constituent Services go door-to-door and talk with the residents. Public works should check to see if the contractor is following state regulations.
Of course, the mayor hosting a town hall meeting at City Hall with his staff present would also be helpful.
