Coffee with a Commissioner this Coming Wednesday, June 26th-Town Hall July 15th

I'll be having my 24th "Coffee with the Commissioner" event this coming Wednesday morning, June 26th from 6:30-7:30 at the Hardees at Wilde Lake and Pine Forest Road.

These meetings are very informal and allow citizens to interact with me directly, with staff members present to take concerns and address issues.

And in three weeks I'll be holding a town hall meeting in Beulah to discuss an upcoming climate survey that will be coming in the mail to residents of Beulah and the northwest portion of District 1.

This town hall will be at 6:00 PM at Beulah Middle School on 9-Mile Road at Beulah Road.

We will be giving an update on multiple topics of interest at the town hall, but the main topic will be rapid growth and finding the best, most intelligent way to manage this growth in this part of the county.

We will also be talking about OLF 8 and the work to master plan that land for the benefit of the community.

I encourage ALL interested citizens to attend one or both of these upcoming meeting so that you can give me your ideas thoughts on how the county can serve you better!

Big Night Last Night in Beulah for the NW District 1 Advisory Committee

The NW Section of District 1--indicated above-- is the fastest growing area of Escambia County

Last night a very significant meeting was held in Beulah related to the growth of the NW portion of District 1.

The NW District 1 Advisory Committee has been meeting since last September-- and last night this committee took the next steps toward formulating a plan to address the rapid growth out here.

The PNJ attended last night's meeting and did a good write-up that will probably appear in tomorrow's print edition.

With Navy Federal Credit Union experiencing rapid growth of employment--the surrounding area has also exploded with growth in residential housing development.

The committee developed a list of questions over the last several months in order to ask residents directly what they want to see out here with respect to a plan for managing growth intelligently.

The Board of County Commissioners approved a $4,700.00 expenditure from D1 discretionary funds this past Thursday to engage UWF's Haas Center to take the list of questions and disseminate these to the community over the next several months.  UWF will conduct the survey and evaluate the data, reporting back to the NW District 1 Advisory Committee in late September or early October.

Members of the NW District 1 Advisory Committee discuss growth in Beulah at an April, 2019 meeting.  (r to l, Dr. Laura Bryant,chair., Joey Poitevin, David Liechty, and Paul Flores)

On September 9th--the NW District 1 Advisory Committee will meet to begin the building of an RFP for the planning, and the committee will also vote in a new chairman and vice-chairman for the committee. (The committee will take the months of July and August off to allow UWF to conduct the survey).

This data from the UWF survey will inform the construction of an RFP which will be utilized to engage a professional firm to create a plan for this area of Escambia County--either a traditional master plan or an overlay district--whichever makes more sense according to the survey and as determined by the advisory committee in conjunction with county staff.

I will hold a town hall in Beulah, at Beulah Middle School, on Monday, July 15th to hear from the residents and to encourage their participation in this entire process.

NW District 1 Advisory Committee Meeting Next Monday

The next meeting of the NW District 1 Advisory Committee will be happening next Monday evening, at 6:00 PM in the cafeteria of Beulah Middle School.

The agenda, backup, and other information has been placed on the MyEscambia website, and can be accessed here.

As is always the case, interested members of the public are encouraged to attend, this meeting is open to the public!

Northwest District 1 Advisory Committee Holds First Regular Meeting in Beulah

The Northwest Section of District 1, which includes Beulah, is illustrated in the map above.  This is the fastest growing area of District 1--and the most impacted by growth.

The nine members of the Northwest District 1 Advisory Committee held their first regular meeting this week in Beulah.  The meeting was held Monday night in the cafeteria of the newly-opened Beulah Middle School.

Joining the group for this meeting were several members of County Staff, myself, and several local residents.

The meeting went well, the discussions were good, and the comments from the public were mostly positive.

Staff and committee members prepare for the first regular meeting of the Northwest District 1 Advisory Committee

The committee hammered out the meeting dates/times for the next four meetings, as well as the location for these meetings.  Committee Vice Chair, Mr. Wilson Taylor, Principal of Beulah Middle School, has graciously offered up his school's cafeteria for these meetings going forward, which the committee felt was a great location.

Staff and committee members hear from residents during the first regular meeting of the Northwest District 1 Advisory Committee

Beulah resident Chester Holland spoke to the committee  "I've lived out here since 1974, and I don't want to lose what we have out here--people out here like it the way it is."

Beulah resident Christine Rogers also weighed in  "I live behind the [OLF 8] helicopter field and I am here tonight because I am concerned and I want to know what is happening.  I also like the fact that you are having the meetings here in a location that I can attend."

Several members of one family attended but indicated they just wanted to observe and listen.

Several committee housekeeping items were handled as well:

--Handouts on Robert's Rules of Order were distributed

--Staff gave a presentation on planning acronyms

--Staff gave a presentation on current area traffic projects and completion timelines

--the agendas for these meetings will be published on the County website, along with backup materials, at least one week before the meetings going forward.

--a public forum section will be on the agenda going forward so citizens can speak

--promotion of the meeting will be done via the county's regular meeting schedule advertisement, along with social media that citizens present said they would post.  Additionally, Kim Adderholt (a committee member that works for NFCU) said she would look into advertising these meetings internally at Navy Federal Credit Union.

the committee set goals for the next four meetings as well.

Next month, at the December 3rd meeting--the committee will hear from staff on the lessons learned from a previous county planning effort, the Perdido Key Master Plan.

At the January 14th meeting--the committee will discuss the work previously completed by the Beulah Community Master Plan citizens.

February's meeting will be a session for synthesizing the initial plans into a working rough draft, and the March meeting--tentatively and hopefully--will be promoted as an opportunity for the general public to come and add their voices for the effort.

Discussion of current area conditions at the first regular meeting of the Northwest District 1 Advisory Committee

This is an aggressive schedule for the next four months, but this committee is comprised of impressive folks who seem genuinely interested in moving forward with plans to make this community better.  I look forward to watching them work and seeing the product of their work come to fruition.

Learn more about Escambia County's NW District 1 Advisory Committee  here, here, and here.

NW District 1 Advisory Committee will Launch Next Thursday

I am looking forward to the launch of our Northwest District 1 Advisory Committee next Thursday at 6:00 PM.

We were supposed to start up and organize this committee earlier this month, on the 10th, however TS Gordon forced us to reschedule our 1st Budget Hearing for that time so our meeting got postponed.

But we will start it this Thursday.  The public is welcome to attend, and I look forward to going to work on several pressing issues in this area.  See the agenda below

Doing the Master Planning the Right Way....

I'm looking forward to having our first meeting of the Northwest District 1 Advisory Committee on Monday, September 10^th.

  

After the organizational meeting and a brief tutorial on the Sunshine Law—I look forward to having this group work together with the community to assist with organizing a Master Plan for the Northwest Portion of District 1 (Precincts 43, 5, and 68 as indicated above).

This area of District 1 is the fastest growing—and with this growth has come pain. 

Our infrastructure is catching up, but currently it is inadequate and this is problematic. 

But the 9-Mile road 4-Lane project will be completed next year, safety enhancements are being made at the intersection of Mobile Highway at Beulah Road, and we are working toward the interchange with I-10 at Beulah road to alleviate traffic congestion for Beulah. 

Other projects at Wilde Lake, Klondike, and 8-Mile Creek are being planned.

A library is coming and the Beulah fire station will be renovated, modernized, and appropriately equipped.  It all takes time, it takes patience, it takes persistence, and it takes money.

Meanwhile, a group of citizens has already begun the Master Planning information gathering for a big portion of this study area.  I’ll encourage the newly formed Northwest D1 advisory committee to take this previously-compiled information into account as they move forward.  We welcome this input!

We will plan this area the right way, with citizen input, and with a professional firm, and taking all information into account before the final plan is voted upon by the full BCC.

A large part of this is that we’ll be sure to identify and account for areas of county-owned land that already have planned uses—we can’t NOT do this.  And for areas where such county-driven development will occur—we will ensure that the Master Plan meshes with whatever the various final disposition (s) of such planned land uses will be. 

Specifically—this Master Plan – as we begin it at the 50,000-foot level-- will have multiple variations that will mesh with whatever is eventually planned and constructed at OLF 8—because ultimately the BCC and nobody else will vote on the future use of this county-owned property.  And this property, OLF 8, will have an independent master plan conducted on its footprint apart from the master plan that will be developed for the entire NW District 1 area. 

  

So initially, the area-wide master plan will account for any one of the following as it pertains to the eventual development of OLF-8:  A commerce park, a mixed use residential/commercial development, residential and park, or open field.  It will be planned so as to mesh with any one of the above final uses for OLF 8. 

This is doing this plan the right way…no “planning” our way out of the ability to use a piece of property acquired by the county for a use intended by the county.  Sounds crazy—but this just happened in District 2 when leadership there lacked discipline to fully flesh this out and lost focus badly..... 

Exhibit "A"-- the current fiasco with Perdido Key:  a parcel of land was acquired for habitat conservation and public beach access, but a subsequently approved “master plan” did not take this property into account and subsequently under the “master plan” that was approved--- this public beach access at this location is now being deemed as “not optimal.”  And that taxpayer-purchased property just sits there unused by the taxpayers that bought it.  What a monumental failure of leadership that was.

Or imagine this one:  What if Escambia citizens near where the county landfill is located got together