With 100 days in office under his belt, Mayor D.C. Reeves has set - and achieved - lofty goals
Sitting in his seventh-floor corner office with sweeping views of Pensacola Bay on Monday, Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves examined a board with more than 39 current projects and initiatives he's monitoring at the city — all color-coded by which of the three city administrators oversees them.
"That's the way I like to work," Reeves said.
The board is updated every week, and each project has a date to be completed or moved to the next phase. Most of the dates don't go beyond a month.
Reeves spoke to the News Journal on Monday, two days before his 100th day since becoming mayor.
"My goal has been to increase the urgency in the building and in the community, and what I'd say is our team has really responded to that," Reeves said. "I feel like as we pick a direction and choose which way we're going to go, our team has been at the ready and we've started to see some real results."
Many projects have already come and gone from the board in Reeves' office in those 100 days: hiring an economic development director, hiring a full-time grant writer, securing funding for several maintenance projects like the Roger Scott Pool bathrooms, getting a contract to conduct a salary study at the city, ensuring $2 million for the Pensacola International Airport terminal expansion, opening up Plaza Ferdinand to the Palafox Market, and seeking bids for a consultant to conduct a comprehensive review of the city's land development code.
'15-minute increments'
One hundred days in, Reeves doesn't have a set routine yet, though most of his time is spent at City Hall. Reeves said he never had a job where every day is the same, from his time as a sports journalist to becoming chief of staff to Pensacola businessman Quint Studer to starting his own business Perfect Plain that grew into four separate bar and brewery concepts before he sold it after being elected mayor.
Reeves normally begins his day by dropping his daughter Caroline at school before arriving at City Hall at 8 a.m. Reeves parks in a regular space after doing away with the reserved parking space for the mayor, making it an "employee of the month" space as a way to send a message to city employees that they were all part of the same team.
"I've been very, very encouraged by the work ethic and the drive of our people to make this a great place to live," Reeves said.
After arriving at City Hall, Reeves typically has calls or meetings booked back-to-back, living the day from one meeting to the next, regularly eating lunch at his desk or skipping it completely.
"I live my life in 15-minute increments now," Reeve said.
City Hall itself also has a fresher look as the sidewalks and façade have all been pressure washed and repainted. For Reeves, ensuring regular maintenance gets done is not only about saving money in the long term, but also a communications strategy to send the message to residents to see the value of being a part of the city.
"People in this building are probably getting tired of me saying it, but I always say, 'I want to look at what does the customer see?'" Reeves said.
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Reeves has worked to push that message across the city, from cleaning up parks such as the children's pirate ship at Bryan Park that was closed for nearly two years because of needed maintenance, to updating policies and procedures to ensure large events downtown are cleaned up quickly. The new procedures were in place after Pensacola Mardi Gras, when the trash from the parade was cleaned up within four hours of the event.
"It's those little things that add up and send the message that the city cares," Reeves said.
Reeves said one thing that's been a learning experience for him since becoming mayor is the level of complexity sometimes required in government to accomplish relatively simple things, such as a sign warning trucks about low clearance at Graffiti Bridge.
"When you're a citizen, you think we can go out there with posthole diggers and some wood and put a thing over the street," Reeves said. "It doesn't work that way."
Despite that, Reeves said he continues pushing city staff forward to do those things that may appear simple from the outside.
"I've always promised not to give up that entrepreneurial spirit, even those things might take a little longer or might be a little more complex to execute," Reeves said. "I never want to take the position that, 'Well, that's how city government works.'"
Reeves said so far, city staff has responded well to that position.
"Everyone's figuring out a way to get to yes, and I've been very encouraged by that," Reeves said.
Amtrak to kitten rescues
Each Monday, Reeves meets with his executive staff for updates from all city departments, and Reeves allowed the News Journal to sit in on the first 10 minutes of his executive staff meeting Monday.
Pensacola Fire Chief Ginny Cranor gave an update on the fire department's operations over the last week — including the rescue of a kitten from the inside of an engine block of a car parked on Palafox Street.
Pensacola's new Economic Development Director Erica Grangcagnolo gave an update on the city's effort to pursue a federal grant to study bringing Amtrak service back to northwest Florida, noting that city officials had recently driven the route between Pensacola and Crestview.
Since taking office, Reeves has jumped on the opportunity to apply for a corridor study, one of the requirements to become eligible for more than $66 billion rolling out from the federal government for passenger rail service in the U.S.
Reeves said that Amtrak may not come back but says if it is ever going to come back, this grant is the best opportunity the city's had to make it happen.
City Administrator Kerrith Fiddler told Reeves he's drafted a scope of work to develop a strategic plan for the city — another campaign object and project from Reeves' board moving forward — and asked the other department heads for feedback on the draft.
Reeves also had a discussion about City Council workshops and when he, as mayor, should attend, and when city staff should attend. Reeves said he was wary about attending a council workshop and interfering in the discussions of the council.
Fiddler said the current practice is to have city staff attend with the relevant knowledge on which ever subject the council was holding a workshop on.
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Under the City Charter, the mayor has the right to participate in discussions of the City Council though the mayor is not a council member. Striking a balance between healthy oversight and political infighting between the mayor and council has been challenging for the previous two "strong mayors" since the charter went into effect.
Reeves is working to avoid previous pitfalls between the council and the mayor's office. He meets personally with each council member every month.
Reeves also hired his campaign manager Alex Smith as a special assistant whose job description includes handling the day-to-day request of council members. Smith is a recent Florida State University graduate and managed Reeves' mayoral campaign to a 31-point victory margin that reached above the 50% mark needed to avoid a runoff — an unexpected result in a four-candidate race.
Smith is one of eight employees who work in Reeves' office on the seventh floor. Fiddler is the city administrator, with Amy Miller and David Forte as the city's two deputy city administrators. Together they oversee all of the city's 15 departments and divisions.
"Job No. 1 for the strong mayor format is to operate the city well and to assess what our needs are and our opportunities for improvement," Reeves said.
ST Engineering and Miraflores Park
Reeves hosted his weekly press conference at the ST Engineering office at the Pensacola International Airport just before the grand opening of the second hangar Monday. The new hangar is expected to bring 400 jobs on top of the more than 300 jobs already at ST Engineering.
After the hangar opening, Reeves met with ST Engineering officials to discuss moving forward on the third and fourth hangars at the airport and finding a way to fund any potential shortfall as the construction cost has increased since the $210 million project was approved.
Reeves' last official appointments of the day were back at City Hall, where he met with his financial and housing department to discuss long-term affordable housing initiatives the city is investigating.
After that meeting, Reeves attended the first Miraflores Community Advisory Group meeting. The group was appointed by Reeves after the discovery of human remains under the Boy Scout building in the park led to the discovery the property was a graveyard in an African American and Creole community in the 19th Century. The group will help the city develop plans to commemorate the history of the park.
Research into the park's history and its use as a graveyard as well as what happened to the community that surrounded it, is still continuing. The city is also working to coordinate a ground-penetrating radar survey to determine how large the graveyard is.
Members of the advisory group thanked Reeves for making researching the history and commemorating what happened at the park a priority of the city.
"It just wasn't swept under the rug," advisory group member Lonnie Wesley, pastor of the Greater Little Rock Baptist Church, said. "There was some care going into this with man hours. This is to not to be underappreciated."
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves stays busy in first 100 days in office
