ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. – Mayor Adrian Petrila\u00a0says St. Pete Beach faces a $200 million infrastructure challenge. He says the city needs its funding to bring the city\u2019s stormwater, sewer and utility systems up to good condition.<\/p>\n
What they’re saying:<\/p>\n
“Big problems are going to require big ideas,” Petrila told commissioners. “Especially if we\u2019re going to find solutions that do not increase the tax burden on our residents, because it would be easy just to say, ‘Let\u2019s raise taxes. We can fix that.’ No, that\u2019s not what we want to do.”<\/p>\n
One of his biggest ideas: a $1 access toll for tourists\u00a0at all three entry points to the city.<\/p>\n
“FDOT will tell you that there are roughly 60,000 daily trips across our three access points,” Petrila said. “Now we have less than 9,000 residents. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s our residents driving back and forth seven, eight times each.”<\/p>\n
He said residents, business owners and employees would have priority access, while visitors would pay.<\/p>\n
By the numbers:<\/p>\n
Based on traffic counts, Petrila said a $1 per car fee\u00a0could bring in $11 million a year, totaling $110 million over 10 years, to fund more than half of the city\u2019s infrastructure needs.<\/p>\n
“This idea alone would fund more than half of the $200 million infrastructure needs that we have,” he said.<\/p>\n
The other side:<\/p>\n
Several commissioners raised concerns about the proposal, including whether tolling state-owned roads is legal and how it might affect tourism.<\/p>\n
MORE STORIES: St. Pete Beach \u2018private property\u2019 sign sparks debate about how much of a beach is public in Florida<\/a><\/p>\n Vice Mayor Karen Marriott said,\u00a0“We need to be careful about modeling ourselves too much after places that are largely residential islands\u2026 the devils in the details.”<\/p>\n She went on to warn that the city should avoid a situation where, “under the guise of not raising taxes on the residents, [we] completely crush our business community.”<\/p>\n What’s next:<\/p>\n Petrila said he has begun talks with FDOT\u00a0about the possibility of the city taking over Gulf Boulevard, which could allow tolling. The city attorney\u00a0will prepare a legal summary and present it to the commission in early 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I think there\u2019s a way that we can meet our $200 million challenge,” Petrila said. “We can fix the sewers, modernize the stormwater system, improve our roads\u2026 and do it without raising taxes on our residents.”<\/p>\n The Source: Information for this story comes directly from the St. Pete Beach City Commission meeting transcript from Monday, November 3, 2025, including verbatim remarks from Mayor Adrian Petrila\u00a0and Vice Mayor Karen Marrriott.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pinellas County<\/a>St. Petersburg<\/a>Tourism<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. – Mayor Adrian Petrila\u00a0says St. Pete Beach faces a $200 million infrastructure challenge. He…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[47,115,1157,202,204,203,199,201,200,1316,628],"class_list":{"0":"post-35751","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-fl","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-pinellas","11":"tag-st-pete","12":"tag-st-pete-headlines","13":"tag-st-pete-news","14":"tag-st-petersburg","15":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","16":"tag-st-petersburg-news","17":"tag-tourism","18":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35751","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=35751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}