TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Officials from the City of St. Pete Beach are considering tolling tourists to help pay for what the mayor calls necessary repairs to infrastructure across the city.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
\u00a0City of St. Pete Beach officials say they’re due for $200 million in infastructure improvements, without the budget to fix it
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\u00a0To alleviate the burden and keep taxes on residents low, the mayor is proposing tolling all visitors $1 along Gulf Boulevard\u00a0
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Mayor Adrian Petrila says he\u2019s been in contact with FDOT, which says they\u2019re willing to divest Gulf Boulevard to the city<\/p>\n
It may be a bit more expensive next time you go and enjoy St. Pete.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to say I\u2019m absolutely horrified,\u201d said Lauren Chezaud, owner of Caf\u00e9 Soleil.<\/p>\n
She says the still-recovering community is in desperate need of tourists \u2014 and their dollars.\u00a0But she doesn\u2019t think a proposal to toll visitors is the answer; she\u2019s convinced people may just avoid the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe beach should belong to people. It\u2019s already difficult for families to come spend a day on the beach. It costs them a lot for parking. But to add an extra fee for them to go enjoy the beach or go for a swim \u2014 it\u2019s just totally crazy,\u201d Chezaud said.<\/p>\n
St. Pete Beach Mayor Adrian Petrila proposed an idea Monday to start tolling visitors to help pay for what he calls \u2014 much-needed infrastructure improvements.<\/p>\n
\u201cTurns out all the things we were told were fine were not actually fine. And we\u2019re 20 years behind on maintenance and infrastructure,\u201d Petrila said in Monday\u2019s commissioners\u2019 meeting.<\/p>\n
The mayor says he\u2019s been in touch with FDOT, who he says is \u201cmore than happy\u201d to transfer ownership of Gulf Boulevard to the city.<\/p>\n
Once, and if, that happens, the city wants to start charging $1 to every visitor coming onto the island to help pay for the renovations. Residents and workers, the mayor says, would be exempt.<\/p>\n
According to the mayor, this work has to be done, and on Monday it seemed the only options were this toll or hiking taxes on residents.<\/p>\n
Petrila believes the city would be able to raise $11 million annually through tolls. That, along with increased parking enforcement, will help ease the burden.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would be funding the infrastructure and the needs that we desperately have in our community without adding a greater burden to the residents. We wouldn\u2019t be adding more cars. We wouldn\u2019t be adding more additional cost to our residents,\u201d said Petrila.<\/p>\n
But business owners aren\u2019t sold.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking at what\u2019s gone on the last couple years, and we can go further past that, but poor timing,\u201d Matthew Dahm, owner of Mastry\u2019s Brewing Company, said.<\/p>\n
Dahm also believes this would keep customers away.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He\u2019s asking the city to focus on positive ways to encourage visitors that would help the businesses that made it through last year\u2019s storms.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just don\u2019t think it floats. You see it all the time: 30% of our tax base comes from tourism. So now you\u2019re going to tell 30% of that not to come out here anymore,\u201d said Dahm.<\/p>\n
At this point, the plan is just that: a plan. It\u2019s unclear exactly where these toll booths would be placed or how soon FDOT could transfer ownership to the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Spectrum Bay News 9 reached out to FDOT to learn more about this proposal and to learn more about the discussions with the city, but they didn\u2019t respond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Officials from the City of St. Pete Beach are considering tolling tourists to help pay for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[4323,2173,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,729,835],"class_list":["post-36524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-andy-cole","tag-app-traffic-transit","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-traffic","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36524","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=36524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}