Monday’s committee meetings

Here’s a brief recap of yesterday’s Pensacola City Council committee meetings:

Absences: None.

Appointments: Council reappointed C. Ray Jones and Daniel Lindemann to the Architectural Review Board, reappointed Danny Grundhoefer and Daniel Keck to the Code Enforcement Board, and appointed Ashton Hayward as the Planning Board representative on the Architectural Review Board after Bob Moulton apparently withdrew from consideration. Council also appointed Bill McBride to the Enterprise Zone Advisory Board, and appointed Shannon Libert and reappointed Sherri Myers and James Thompson to the Human Relations Commission.

Charter ballot language: Council tweaked the ballot language, and scheduled a mail-in referendum for November 24, for which the City will not pay return postage. See “Charter ballot language changed.”

Council’s “time management” issue: Council discussed various strategies to reduce the length of its meetings, including setting goals for the length of individual committee meetings, and making an effort to stick to the rule which states Council members can speak a maximum of twice on an issue.

Downtown Christmas decorations: The Council, upset that the Downtown Improvement Board (DIB) plans to discontinue their annual installation of Chrismas decorations downtown, directed the City Manager to sit down with the DIB’s executive director to try to find a solution.

Gulf Power franchise agreement: Councilman Jerralds wants to discuss the City’s franchise agreement with Gulf Power, as he feels that Gulf Power is erecting concrete power poles “all over town” in an “indiscriminate” and “unregulated” fashion. City Manager Al Coby said that as the franchise agreement ends in December of this year, it is already set to come before the Council.

PCIP program: Council amended the Pensacola Community Initiatives Program (PCIP) guidelines to give greater value in the scoring process to projects with the most trees included in landscaping plans.

Airport landscaping contract: Horace Shropshire is having more problems fulfilling his contractual obligations to maintain the landscaping at the airport. Part of the reason for Shropshire’s low bid is that he planned to grow his own plants. Apparently, he has not done so, and now he is asking the airport to buy plants, mulching, and herbicide, and then deduct that from his contract. The Enterprise Operations Committee, on a 3-2 vote, opted not to do so. If that decision is held up at Council’s regular meeting this Thursday, it will likely result in Mr. Shropshire breaching the contract in the near future.