DECEMBER 2020
Greetings from City Hall!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s been a month since my last e-newsletter, and not much has changed…..in society, anyway. In fact, it would appear that the pandemic is still with us, and depending on which stat you believe to be the most accurate, the numbers continue to be alarming. The way I interpret the situation is this…..more people closer to my circle of friends and acquaintances have gotten it, so it clearly isn’t going away. The best thing we can do is take it seriously, and continue to take ALL the precautions possible.
As far as your dedicated City employees go, we’ve had a busy month, led, of course, by the arrival of Tropical Storm Eta. It came to town on Veterans Day, with deteriorating conditions starting at about 3 pm, and lasted through the night, the worst of it occurring between midnight and 2 am on Thursday, roughly coinciding with high tide. There was some localized flooding, and some of our citizens incurred some flood related damage. Overall, however, it could have been much worse. The weather experts stated categorically that if this storm had been a hurricane (75 mph winds) and been here in the middle of August (when the Gulf water is much warmer), the damage would have been significantly worse.
Having said that, I’ve heard many people say that in all the years that they’ve lived here, this is the worst flooding they’ve seen. Hopefully, that reminds us of how seriously we need to take these warnings, and do whatever we can to protect our properties.
On the clean-up side of things, the City had the Street Sweeper out by Friday and substantially finished by Saturday, Republic picked up the storm related yard waste by Tuesday, and our local hero LJ Tucker came through the city and picked up the rest of what needed to be done to get us back to normal. While we did have a few complaints about Republic, I ask that you understand a couple of things……first, Pinellas County declared that there would be NO special pickup for yard waste from the storm, and that citizens were expected to put it out, consistent with their hauler’s normal schedule. We follow Pinellas County directives in Emergency situations, and Republic did exactly what they were supposed to do, which was to pick up the yard waste on their normal schedule (in my case, that was the following Tuesday). Secondly, we aren’t their only municipal responsibility, and the volume of waste to be collected after a storm related emergency is massive. They are generally overwhelmed at times like this, which is totally understandable. Overall, I think we did very well in the clean-up.
Also worthy of note is the fact that we presented our first Live Virtual Veteran’s Day Ceremony, on Wednesday morning, shortly before battening down the hatches for the storm. And, on Friday shortly following the storm, we presented our scheduled Suncoast Sounds concert in RE Olds Park, just as if nothing had ever happened. The concert was a success, and about 250 people enjoyed themselves that evening.
On behalf of your City employees, we want to wish you all a great upcoming holiday season. While this year continues to be an adventure, it has never been more important to realize how lucky we are to have the things that we do. We will continue to follow the precautionary guidelines, and be grateful for all of our blessings. We will get through this, and be stronger as a result. Don’t lose track of the need to cherish what you DO have, and don’t let the uncertainty of the pandemic make you focus on what you don’t.
Don’t forget to check out the handy reference information below.
Happy Holidays!!!!!
Al b
