Viewpoint: Mayor put paving his street ahead of others

by Mark Taylor

Mayor Hayward Has Shown Poor Judgement In Dealing With City of Pensacola Streets.

This recent controversy over the 6-cent gas tax allocation from the county to the city has brought back unpleasant memories of my first major disappointment in Mayor Hayward. In his second year as our mayor his “2012 Street Reconstruction Project” included five streets, four of which were on the east side, and one on the west side.

At the 11th hour, Mayor Hayward “omitted” the west side street and “added” his very own 1 block “dead end” street on Bayou Texar, Osceola Blvd. Osceola Blvd had recently been repaved and looked better than most streets in the City of Pensacola.

1) The plans showing Osceola Blvd were not included in the original online RFP. I had to go to the downtown public library and dig through sets of blue prints to find where it was added at the 11th hour.

2) Special “Notes” were added to the Mayor’s street that demanded hours of construction to only be from 8 a.m. till 4 p.m. on Monday-Friday and added “contractor shall expedite construction”. None of these special notes were added to the other four street documents.

I have always been taught to be a “servant leader” and to “put others ahead of myself”. These documents saddened me when I realized that we had elected a leader that appeared to be in office simply for his own personal gain.

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Mark Taylor is a lifelong resident of the City of Pensacola and a Sixth Generation Pensacolian.