Florida lawmaker pushes to raise government liability limits <\/a><\/p>\n\u201cThe city needs roughly $200 million dollars to bring our infrastructure up to good functioning position,\u201d Petrila said during a city commission meeting Monday.<\/p>\n
The toll plan, part of a larger project, would ideally create revenue to fix seawalls, stormwater systems, sewer pipes, and more. Approximately 60,000 trips are taken to St. Pete Beach daily, according to the Florida Department of Transportation. The mayor estimates a $1 toll would create around $11 million in revenue for the city each year.<\/p>\n
Businessowners along the coastal portions of the beach told 8 On Your Side they are concerned over a loss of tourism-related profits, and traffic on the island.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just disheartening. It\u2019s just another tax for a mismanaged city. That\u2019s all it is. It\u2019s already a time when business is down from the hurricane, from people already struggling. It\u2019s just one more burden on the common people that just want to enjoy the beach,\u201d said Matt Vario, the owner of the Toasted Monkey Bar and Restaurant.<\/p>\n
The proposal did not include information on the price of the toll plazas, nor exactly where they would be placed.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething like this toll is really going to put a strain on these businesses. All those tourists and all the visitors that visit these restaurants and small businesses are simply going to go up the beach to Treasure Island. They\u2019re going to go down to Terra Verde, and they\u2019ll take their business elsewhere. I think this proposal is very shortsighted. It\u2019s going to hurt our\u00a0city,\u201d said Scott Tate, a challenger to Petrila in the March election.<\/p>\n
The item, presented by Mayor Petrila, was not on Monday\u2019s city commission agenda. While commissioners did express concerns, the general consensus was to explore the project with a study to determine feasibility. Mayor Petrila did not respond to questions or comment on the proposal for this story.<\/p>\n
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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. (WFLA) \u2014 The Mayor of St. Pete Beach, Adrian Petrila, has proposed tolls at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[26409,16826,1126,26408,202,2149,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-38869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-access-points","tag-adrian-petrila","tag-florida-department-of-transportation","tag-hurricanes-milton","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-beach","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\/38869","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=38869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}