{"id":2271,"date":"2025-10-14T12:13:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T12:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/2271\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T12:13:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T12:13:19","slug":"st-pete-leaders-to-vote-on-utility-rate-increase-to-pay-for-infrastructure-projects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/2271\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Pete leaders to vote on utility rate increase to pay for infrastructure projects"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/7D5996A56BCA78D6959756EC8442D6C0.jpg\" alt=\"Vote on St. Pete utility rate hikes\" class=\"sr-only\" data-v-7a5d4fdb=\"\"\/>  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/video\/1702223\" data-v-7a5d4fdb=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Vote on St. Pete utility rate hikes<\/a> <\/p>\n<p data-v-7a5d4fdb=\"\">The St. Petersburg City Council plans to vote Thursday on whether to raise utility rates to cover hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure projects. FOX 13\u2019s Kellie Cowan reports.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. &#8211; Leaders in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/us\/fl\/pinellas\/st-petersburg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">St. Petersburg<\/a> plan to take their final vote Thursday on whether to raise utility rates to help fund major infrastructure improvements.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTVT\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">By the numbers:<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">According to Mayor Ken Welch, the proposed rate hike would amount to an 8\u201310% overall increase in residents&#8217; utility bills.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">The city says St. Pete needs about $614 million in stormwater and wastewater improvements.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/st-pete-stormwater-improvement-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-v-0dea8073=\"\"\/>  <\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">&#8220;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,&#8221; District 4 Council Member Lisset Hanewicz said during a meeting in August.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTVT\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">Dig deeper:<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">City officials say raising utility rates would help get projects going more quickly than the previous proposal of raising property taxes, which councilmembers discussed in July.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">That&#8217;s because a property tax hike would have to be approved by voters, and that wouldn&#8217;t happen before November 2026.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">The proposal passed its first reading last month.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">PREVIOUS: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/news\/st-pete-city-council-moves-614-million-utilities-plan-forward-debate-over-higher-bills-residents\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">St. Pete city council moves $614 million utilities plan forward, debate over higher bills for residents<\/a><\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTVT\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">What&#8217;s next:<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">Thursday&#8217;s vote is set to take place following a public hearing on the proposal during the City Council meeting, which starts at 5 p.m.<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: Information in this story was gathered by FOX 13&#8217;s Kellie Cowan.<\/p>\n<p>      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/us\/fl\/pinellas\/st-petersburg\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-6fc2855c=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">St. Petersburg<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/money\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-6fc2855c=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Money<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vote on St. Pete utility rate hikes The St. Petersburg City Council plans to vote Thursday on whether&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2272,"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-2271","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\/2271","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=2271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}