New Parking App
Mayor D.C. Reeves announced the city would move to the ParkMobile App for its parking spaces on Jan. 1.
“The app is one of the largest in the country,” he said. “It’s used by more than 600 cities and has 8 million users in Florida, far and away exponentially the largest, most often used parking app in Florida—Jacksonville, Orlando, Boca, Tampa, Miami Beach and I know Tallahassee uses it. So you take the outcome here is a much easier user experience in terms of finding where you’re parking to do the transaction itself.”
The ParkPensacola app will still be available during the transition, and city parking staff will get track of both.
Malcolm Yonge Gym
The 60-year-old gym that was closed last spring due to public safety concerns has gotten a brief reprieve. The Community Redevelopment Agency, which consists of the seven council members, voted to put off a demolition contract recommended by the mayor. The Council asked for the mayor’s office to seek more expert analysis of what it would cost to repair the structure.
Mayor Reeves told the media that he thinks bids for structural engineers do to a more in-depth analysis would cost more than the demolition, about $49,000. His team will first get the price for the assessment to make the CRA wants to spend the money.
“We’re going to get a price tag on that, and it’s going to be significantly more expensive than the demolition itself,” Reeves said. “And we’ll take a look at it from there. Personally, I think it’s going to be quite a heavy lift.”
He later added that CRA needs to “make a decision as a 62-year-old basketball gym or a minimum of 14 affordable homes, maybe up to 30, which one of those is more valuable?”
Co-Responder Model Active
This past summer, Mayor D.C. Reeves announced that the Pensacola Police Department would adopt the co-responder policing model by hiring two social workers to accompany police officers when they deal with homeless individuals who appear to have mental health issues and other similar calls.
The mayor announced the second social worker began work on Monday. He estimated the initial social worker has been on 30-35 calls as of the end of November.
“The vast, vast majority of comments have been very positive about his contribution,” said Mayor Reeves. “And I’m glad that the city’s taken an active role in trying to be helpful in this and not just hoping other people do it, but we continue to be as collaborative as we can.”