INDIAN ROCKS BEACH \u2014 The City Commission recently met at City Hall for the first time in more than a year due to major renovations needed after hurricanes Helene and Milton decimated the barrier island last fall.<\/p>\n
On Oct. 14, city officials and a handful of residents entered the remodeled auditorium, greeted by new floors, stormproof doors and other improvements.<\/p>\n
Shortly after the meeting began, the city\u2019s finance director, Dan Carpenter, said what was on everyone\u2019s minds.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good to be home,\u201d Carpenter said.<\/p>\n
During the past year, the commission convened in hotel dining rooms and church meeting halls. So having the meetings again at City Hall offered some much-needed comfort and familiarity for storm-weary islanders, Mayor Denise Houseberg said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just kind of feels like a new beginning,\u201d Houseberg said after the meeting.<\/p>\n
She noted the commission recently filled the city attorney and city manager positions following the departures of Randy Mora and Gregg Mims, respectively, from those posts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hurricane cleanup is mostly behind us, we\u2019ve got the new officials in place, and it feels like we\u2019re moving in the right direction,\u201d Houseberg said.<\/p>\n
Paid parking<\/p>\n
Soon after the newness of the return to City Hall subsided, the board dove headfirst into what\u2019s long been a hot button topic on the island \u2014 paid parking.<\/p>\n
\u201cPre-storms, we had a discussion on parking,\u201d Carpenter said. \u201cThis is the next discussion, and we\u2019re looking for a few areas of consent and direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Carpenter, staff conducted extensive research on the subject since the last discussion. It revealed that Indian Rocks Beach is the only barrier island community in Pinellas County that does not charge for public parking, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only (paid parking) we have is the county-owned lot across from Guppy\u2019s, where we charge $2.50 an hour, and we maintain it and give the county 40%,\u201d Carpenter said.<\/p>\n
He then asked whether the commission wanted to charge a fee for all 376 public parking spots around the city. Commissioner Jude Bond was quick to respond.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we should do them all at $4 an hour,\u201d Bond said.<\/p>\n
His fellow local lawmakers agreed with the suggestion, leading the discussion to the question of hours of enforcement and resident parking.<\/p>\n
Based on the feedback, the board wants to explore allowing residents with parking decals to park for free all over town; charging to park in the business district only; and cutting off the fee enforcement after dusk.<\/p>\n
Public concerns included from opposition to charging to park at City Hall and Kolb Park.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s preferred parking app also drew criticism.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not a fan of ParkMobile,\u201d Kelly Cisarek said of the app, adding she would like to see \u201ca cash alternative.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the qualms, there was notable public support for implementing paid parking.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a great idea to have paid parking,\u201d resident Bob Copeland said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think anybody thinks that\u2019s a horrible idea,\u201d Houseberg said of asking visitors to pay to park.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they think that as long as we do it the right way, and charge reasonable fees, it will be okay,\u201d the mayor said. \u201cBut I\u2019m sure as we go through the process of crafting and implementing legislation over these next few months, the community will let us know their thoughts on the subject and we will be happy to listen to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other matters<\/p>\n
Commissioners unanimously approved allowing beer and wine sales by Gulf Market, located in a new Shell gas station at 500 Gulf Blvd.<\/p>\n
Commissioners said they were happy to see the long vacant spot revitalized.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking forward to it,\u201d Commissioner John Bigelow said of the planned Nov. 1 reopening.<\/p>\n
The meeting was the last one for Carpenter. The longtime finance director has been pulling double-duty as interim city manager since Mims left in July.<\/p>\n
A city employee since 2012, Carpenter recently accepted a position with the town of Belleair.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to miss it here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIAN ROCKS BEACH \u2014 The City Commission recently met at City Hall for the first time in more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[14171,14170,3125,14172,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-16759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-dan-carpenter","tag-denise-houseberg","tag-hurricane-helene","tag-irb-city-hall","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16759","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=16759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}