Posted on 07/20/2009
Councilman Nurse’s proposal to shift funds towards a significant increase in foreclosure prevention counseling has been before the Housing Services Committee of City Council. The staff will come back in early July with a plan to do this. City Council will then review it in committee and send it to the full council. Our hope is to kick off a major effort to help those homeowners, who live in their home and took a “teaser rate” mortgage, through the process of refinancing to a traditional 30-year loan that they can afford. We hope to prevent hundreds of foreclosure in St. Petersburg. This helps the homeowner and the neighborhood not have empty houses.
UPDATE - 7/12/08
I attended a foreclosure prevention event today put on by our Congressmember
Kathy Castor in Tampa where over 400 people got help from banks, and non-profit counseling agencies to refinance their homes and prevent foreclosure.
Cong. Castor has agreed to help us put on a similiar event in St. Petersburg
in the fall. Details will follow.
HELP IS ON THE WAY - We have successfully transferred $100,000 in housing funds to be used to staff foreclosure prevention counselors at non-profit
housing related agencies effective August 1st. We hope to save several hundred families from losing homes as a result of this counseling. The experts will be able to steer families through the refinancing process to
avoid foreclosure.
8/5/08 - The first agency to get funding for foreclosure prevention counseling is Tampa Bay C.D.C. Their phone number is 446-6222. Additional
agencies will be funded starting October 1st.
Foreclosure Prevention Workshop is August 16th at 9AM at the Enoch Davis Center, 1111 -18th Ave. S. Banks, counselors and speakers will all be available. Today, I was the guest on the Police and Community show on WRXB
in an effort to spread the word on the workshop.
The City and County will jointed sponsor a similiar event at the Colesium on
October 18th from 9 AM - 1PM. We will have representatives of several banks,
foreclosure prevention counselors, and other agencies available to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.
UPDATE 2/18/09 The President's proposal to help people hold on to their houses was announced today. The details will come out in two weeks. I intend to help spread the word as soon as I learn the details. We may do an
event to get all the banks and financial counselors together for the folks who
need them
UPDATE 7/20/09 I will be participating in another foreclosure prevention event at the Enoch Davis Center on August 22nd. This is being done with Florida CFO, Alex Sink. The Banks will have people there to explain the latest options to rework mortgages. The rules have been changed within the last few weeks to help in places like St. Petersburg where values have dropped.
Posted on 07/20/2009
Councilman Nurse has proposed during the capital budget workshops to speed the implementation of making our city’s buildings more efficient. It appears that about 2 Million dollars of investment will save about $500,000 annually in energy costs at today’s electricity prices. We could take funds from reserves to do this quickly and use some of the savings to repay the reserves. Another area with significant savings is the shift to more efficient vehicles. Karl is advocating the purchase of much more efficient vehicles for the non-911 (chase cars) for the police department. The city currently purchases about 2 million gallons of gas and diesel per year. The opportunities to save your tax dollars, reduce our energy use and reduce air pollution are considerable.
UPDATE - 7/12/08
Please encourage the City Council to fund these energy efficiency efforts NOW
so we can begin saving money and energy immediately.
UPDATE 8/5/08 - Police Cars currently get 10 MPG because the Ford Crown Victoria is the LEAST efficient police cruiser available. I pulled the proposal to purchase 9 more of these from the consent agenda on Thursday. The police department has agreed to form a committee with the Fleet Management
staff to review choices for chase and non-chase police vehicles. A modest change to the Chevy Impalas that the Sheriff's department uses, could save
up to $1.5 Million in gas EACH year. My goal is to be sure that each department orders the most fuel and money efficient vehicles that will work for their job.
UPDATE 9/5/08 - I have found that Jacksonville and Atlanta have converted to
more efficient police cruisers and significantly more efficient vehicles for
non-chase cars. The saving are huge.
Save 30% of home utitities - City Council voted 8-0 yesterday to support my
resolution in support of the proposal to require new homes to be built a minimum of 30% more efficient. The national building codes organization will vote later this month on this proposal. More efficient homes will cost $200
more per year while SAVING $700 in utility bills!
UPDATE - Efficient City Buildings - I reviewed the plans for the three city
buildings in the works. All will be at least 50% more efficient in electricity, water and yard maintenance than traditional construction. All will save us money - after considering the construction costs - from the first
month. The buildings are a new water adminstration building, a rehab of the
Jordon School and a replacement fire Station # 8 on MLK St. South.
UPDATE - 7/20/09 - The City Council approved the first wave of new more efficient police cruisers as a result of the work above. The 47 cars will
save about $350,000 over the first five years of use. This is good for our pocketbook and our air.
Posted on 07/20/2009
I introduced two items this week to promote landscaping with plants and ground covers that naturally grow in Florida. This grew out of the fact that we have used all the cheap water in the Tampa Bay area. All additional water is going to come from rivers which cost twice as much and ground water or the desalination plant which costs 3.5 times as much. The solution is to shift our landscaping codes to promote native and/or "Florida Friendly" plants and grounds.
Please contact your City Council members to educate them on these needed changes.
12/12/08
The City Council PS&I committee will take up this issue on as soon as the committee chair sets a date. The members are Jeff Danner, Leslie Curran, Herb Polson and Jim Kennedy. Please encourage them to support the moves toward plants and covers that use less water, fertilizer, pesticides and maintenance.
UPDATE JANUARY 24th. We did the groundbreaking on the new water department
administration building on 16th St this week. It is designed to use 50% less
water than a traditional building and will only have drought tolerant landscaping and ground covers. It will be an excellent example of how governments would landscape to reduce water use and maintanence costs.
UPDATE: 2/18/09 The front page of yesterday's paper had a banner story about us running out of water. In spite of that, I am struggling to convince
council members that we need to move toward draught tolerant landscaping. This issue will come back to the Public Services & Inferstructure Committee next month.
UPDATE 7/20/09 - City Council will take the final step on Thursday to implement a new landscape ordinance that requires much more water efficient landscapes for new construction. Although the change will have a modest near term impact, as we redevelop our community, it will result in significant water savings.
Posted on 07/20/2009
I am proud that I was the first Council member to advocate that we aggressively seek stimulus funding for the police department. Happily, we have been able to secure a grant to fund 9 non-sworn police employees. We have applied to get another 10 police officers and additional civilian positions funded. It may be September before we know if we succeed in this
effort.
