{"id":12071,"date":"2025-10-20T10:41:30","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T10:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/12071\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T10:41:30","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T10:41:30","slug":"st-pete-city-council-moves-614-million-utilities-plan-forward-debate-over-higher-bills-for-residents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/12071\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Pete city council moves $614 million utilities plan forward, debate over higher bills for residents"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Discussion <\/p>\n

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Utility bills might cost residents a bit more in the future if you live in St. Petersburg, as city council members consider raising rates to pay for $614 million in infrastructure upgrades.<\/p>\n

The backstory:<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s storms exposed weaknesses around the city of St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve had a significant number of constituents reach out to me who are just scared. Honestly, myself included, I had a nightmare last night that my house flooded again,” said Richie Floyd, St. Petersburg City Council Member for District 8.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

What we know:<\/p>\n

To fix aging infrastructure, city council is debating a utility rate hike and getting feedback from residents.<\/p>\n

“\u2018If a modest increase is needed to reduce the chance of flooding due to storm, rain, hurricane situations, do it now please,\u2019” said District 2 Council Member Brandi Gabbard, as she read an email she received from a resident. “That sums up better than anything I could sit here and pontificate on about why we need to do more to increase our stormwater.”<\/p>\n

By the numbers:<\/p>\n

On Thursday St. Petersburg city council discussed the city administration\u2019s $614 million plan to upgrade public utilities. That includes raising rates for sanitation, water, wastewater and more.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s at a 17.5% increase in stormwater. That\u2019s what we\u2019re talking about, and this is based on a utility rate study that we do,” said District 4 Council Member Lisset Hanewicz.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

The mayor\u2019s office said it would cost residents 8 to 10% more overall on their utility bills.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s tough to ask for consumers to pay more when we\u2019re already burdening them. It\u2019s just a tough ask,” said District 7 Council Member Corey Givens Jr.<\/p>\n

Dig deeper:<\/p>\n

City council heard a breakdown of the plan during a committee meeting last month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Council members are grappling with what is too much for taxpayers and how to pay for immediate needs without adding even more of a burden to residents.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“My point very simply is we can\u2019t do it all,” said Mike Harting, St. Petersburg City Council Member for District 3.<\/p>\n

City council said part of the infrastructure plan includes a tax referendum to voters on whether they want to pay more for other projects.<\/p>\n

What’s next:<\/p>\n

With the first reading completed, a public hearing will be held on the utility rate increases on September 4 at St. Pete City Hall.<\/p>\n

“There\u2019s a lot of work to be done. We\u2019re doing our best to try to find federal grants to help pay for it, state grants to help pay for it,” said Claude Tankersley, the public works administrator for the city of St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n

The Source: The information for this story came from the St. Petersburg city council meeting and was gathered by FOX13\u2019s Briona Arradondo.<\/p>\n

St. Petersburg<\/a>Money<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Utility bills might cost residents a bit more in the future if you live…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[47,2159,115,1157,202,204,203,199,201,200,628],"class_list":{"0":"post-12071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-fl","9":"tag-money","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-pinellas","12":"tag-st-pete","13":"tag-st-pete-headlines","14":"tag-st-pete-news","15":"tag-st-petersburg","16":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","17":"tag-st-petersburg-news","18":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}