ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 The proposed St. Petersburg utility rate increase has become a late campaign issue ahead of Tuesday\u2019s mayoral election, with candidates split after the City Council approved the plan on first reading Thursday.<\/p>\n
Mayor Kenneth Welch\u2019s administration says the increase is needed to ensure the reliability and resilience of the city\u2019s water resources, sanitation and stormwater utilities. The proposal would raise rates by an average of about 7%, or a little more than $10 per month for tier-one customers and nearly $14 per month for tier-four customers.<\/p>\n
Council member and mayoral candidate Brandi Gabbard voted to approve the rate increase. She said in a social media video that the proposal would not add new staff positions or expand the city\u2019s current capital improvements budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis proposal does not add any new staff positions or even expand our current capital improvements budget. It simply allows the city to keep pace with inflation and operating costs,\u201d Gabbard said.<\/p>\n
Fellow mayoral candidate Charlie Crist criticized Gabbard\u2019s post on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt does not add a single new worker or a single new project. It keeps things running. You pay more. You get the same,\u201d Crist said in the post.<\/p>\n
Candidate Kevin Batdorf also posted a social media video opposing the increase and criticizing Welch and Gabbard for supporting it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m opposed to raising taxes and fees to fund a bigger government. Water and sewer rates are already too high. Welch and Gabbard want to substantially increase them,\u201d Batdorf said.<\/p>\n
Candidate Maria Scruggs sent Spectrum News a statement saying her position is simple: \u201cFund the infrastructure we need, but protect the people who pay for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Candidate Jim Large said on social media that the city should conduct a deep budget review before raising rates.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a difference between what government needs to do and what might simply be nice to do,\u201d Large said.<\/p>\n
In her social media post, Gabbard said the city is facing the issue because of decades of deferred maintenance with no rate increases.<\/p>\n
\u201cChoosing not to raise rates may be politically easy in the short term, but ignoring complex challenges only leads to a crumbling system,\u201d Gabbard said.<\/p>\n
Spectrum News requested an interview with Mayor Ken Welch about the proposed increase but was told he is out of town at the Florida League of Cities annual conference.<\/p>\n
The ordinances must be approved on second reading before taking effect. That vote is scheduled for the St. Petersburg City Council meeting on the 27th. If approved, the rate increase would take effect on Oct. 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 The proposed St. Petersburg utility rate increase has become a late campaign issue ahead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3140,274,2200,2968,115,596,99,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,835],"class_list":["post-371755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-instagram-bn9","tag-josh-rojas","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-politics","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-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371755","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=371755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}